This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss developers’ AI woes, how the magic happens, and the Beach Boys.
JOSEPH: Earlier in the week we published ICE Agents Have List of 20 Million People on Their iPhones Thanks to Palantir. This took a little while because I spoke to four people who attended the conference. I spoke to one, I asked if they knew anyone else there. Got another name and phone number, and so on.
I included this line in the copy: “The officials’ comments may need to be taken with a pinch of salt, but still reflect ICE’s position that Palantir is allowing the agency to identify people to arrest and locations to raid faster.”
I think that was important to include because these are comments and figures coming from senior ICE officials, and one in particular, Matthew Elliston, assistant director of Law Enforcement Systems & Analysis at ICE. As we all know, DHS lies.