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Majority Of Manhattan DA Candidates Pledge To Sever Ties With Palantir
By
George Joseph
Published Feb 18, 2021
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JB Nicholas / Gothamist
By
George Joseph
Published Feb 18, 2021
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A majority of the Democratic candidates running in this June’s Manhattan District Attorney primary are promising to end the agency’s use of software from a controversial tech company that has run afoul of civil liberties groups.
Palantir Technologies, the Colorado-based software firm, helps clients, including some law enforcement agencies, organize, mine, and draw connections between disparate sets of data. Across the country, immigration rights activists have criticized Palantir for working with controversial federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has deployed its software in workplace raids.
That candidates’ pledge is one of several from a survey conducted by the GANGS Coalition, a group that contends that New York City prosecutors have unfairly exploited loose gang designations to lock up large numbers of poor Black and Latino residents.
Criminal justice reform activists have criticized Palantir for helping law enforcement analyze social media posts for gang prosecutions and coordinate operations for mass takedowns.
The survey also asked Manhattan DA candidates to cut ties with any “other third party surveillance and analysis firms.”
“Companies like these offer invasive surveillance by collecting and compiling data from a multitude of sources and purporting to demonstrate patterns and relationships of communities they target,” said Nathalia Alejandra Varela, associate counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF and a coalition member. “Because we think this information is unreliable and that these surveillance tactics are rife with racial justice and privacy issues we cannot have prosecutors continue to utilize such tools.”
Of the seven candidates who responded to the questionnaire, only two, Alvin Bragg and Elizabeth Crotty, did not pledge to end the use of the software.
Crotty, a former Manhattan prosecutor, told Gothamist she would need to review the cost and constitutional ramifications of the technology before considering its use going forward. In a statement, Bragg explained that as DA, he would limit the software’s use to complex matters, such as public corruption and white collar investigations.
"I will dismantle intelligence-driven prosecution and third-party surveillance systems as they are currently used by the Manhattan DA's office to establish guilt by association and target people of color,” said Bragg, who previously worked as a federal prosecutor and for the New York Attorney General’s Office.
Tali Farhadian Weinstein was the only candidate who did not provide answers for the survey. In a statement, the former federal prosecutor said she disagreed with calls to forswear the tools like Palantir’s software altogether, but promised to use them responsibly.
“I reject this approach, which would have us abandon the duty to balance fairness and safety,” Farhadian Weinstein said. “Instead, I commit to enforcing the law fairly and transparently and in keeping with our values.”
Palantir Technologies disputed the GANGS Coalition’s framing and criticism of its work, pushing back on the label of it as a “surveillance company.”
“Palantir provides data integration and analysis software that enables our customers to make responsible use of the information sources to which they already have lawful access,” said Courtney Bowman, Director of Privacy & Civil Liberties Engineering at Palantir. “We don’t collect, surveil, share, or repurpose customers data. Rather, the software platforms we provide have been designed and are deployed to reinforce core privacy protection principles such as data minimization, proportional use limitation, accountability, and data quality.”
A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the candidates’ pledge to end use of the company’s software.
The GANGS coalition survey sought other promises from candidates on gang enforcement. Six of the candidates pledged not to use gang allegations in seeking the imposition of bail and pre-trial detention. The same six also pledged, if elected, to use their influence as District Attorney to call for the end of the NYPD’s controversial gang database.
Victor Dempsey, another activist with the coalition, said the campaign promises signal a significant shift in criminal justice reform politics in New York City. For years, he argues, local law enforcement had routinely painted neighborhood crews of young Black and Latino men as if they were sophisticated criminal enterprises.
“For the candidates to take a stance on that, it shows us that they want to hold folks accountable the right way, and not just tear up lives for an allegation,” Dempsey said.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Democratic primary is scheduled for June 22nd.
Tagged
manhattan da
technology
election 2021
George Joseph
George covers Brooklyn for THE CITY with a focus on criminal justice and housing. He previously worked for WNYC and Gothamist, and has published stories with NPR, ProPublica, Esquire, and The Intercept among other outlets.
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