“Hesitance is preparatory to a freedom from restriction. To be categorized—to become a data set, a line item, a variable—is to be restricted. So we hesitate so that we can think beyond that restriction, as restriction requires negation. To hesitate is to begin to resist one’s negation. So let us now take a break, fully aware of the reality that the world we now inhabit is certain and has been certain of our negation.”[1] — Joshua Meyers
Palantir & The Racialization of Surveillance
Palantir in The Lord of the Rings is a mystical, all-seeing crystal used by powerful figures to see events in faraway places. This fantasy is becoming a reality through Palantir Technologies, founded with CIA funding in 2003. [2] Palantir is a software data analytics company supporting governments in their domestic and military applications of technologizing surveillance and control. Palantir technology acts as a developing infrastructure for counterinsurgency (COIN) and strengthens efforts of racialized social control. Through the virtuous moral justification of its purpose of crime and terrorism prevention, as well as ‘survival and security’, militarized technologies of surveillance and control are rapidly expanded and co-opted into the domestic space, functioning as a form of COIN that is racially targeted, repressive of constitutional freedoms, and steadfast on domestic control. Palantir has become a recent controversial topic of discussion. Most notably because of the political and constitutional rights that it threatens. The Guardian wrote, “They appear to violate first and fourth amendment rights: first, by establishing vast and invisible surveillance networks that limit the things people feel comfortable sharing in public, including whom they meet or where they travel; and second, by enabling warrantless searchesand seizures of people’s data without their knowledge or consent. They are rapidly depriving some of the most vulnerable populations in the world – political dissidents, migrants, or residents of Gaza of their human rights.”[3]
Palantir as COIN Infrastructure
As David Kilcullen, a military strategist and COIN expert, put it, “Counterinsurgency is, simply, whatever governments do to defeat rebellions.”[4] When understanding COIN within the context of Palantir, it’s essential to acknowledge how governments surveil those who are perceived to be or become political threats. In this sense, Palantir acts as infrastructure for COIN in how it provides the necessary and sufficient technologies to employ this tactical preemption. “Since 2025, thecompany’s role in the U.S. domestic surveillance has expanded dramatically, and with it, public concern.”[5] Specifically, “Palantir’s software now underpins immigration enforcement operations, predictive policing initiatives, and inter-agency intelligence-sharing systems.”[6] One article specifically highlights political activists as being at threat of amplified surveillance, saying “Certain communities are disproportionately affected by expanded surveillance; immigrants and political activists may be flagged by data-driven systems and long-standing safeguards such as privacy rights and judicial oversight risk being diminished by rapid technological deployment.”7It is made clear that Palantir technology advances COIN in how those who are deemed political and social threats are...