Minneapolis, MN – The Minnesota Anti-War Committee (AWC) and other organizations took part in an international “Purge Palantir” week of action September 26 to October 1. Led by the American Friends Service Committee, the week of action sought to pressure public institutions, universities, state pension investment entities, and hospital systems to end contracts with Palantir.

Activist groups and human rights organizations from the U.S., UK, Australia, South and Central America, and beyond organized to disrupt business as usual for Palantir Technologies.

As part of Purge Palantir actions, the AWC held a rally on September 26, “From Minnesota to Palestine: No Deadly Surveillance! Divest from Palantir!” in Martin Luther King Jr. Park during the well-attended Open Streets festival on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis.

The rally was co-hosted by Minnesota 50501 and endorsed by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), Twin Cities Coalition for Justice (TCC4J), and others.

Earlier in the week, the AWC and other community members testified at the State Board of Investment (SBI) at its quarterly meeting on September 22, demanding it divest from Palantir as part of a broader longstanding call for divestment from companies that profit from Israel’s genocide and apartheid system.

The September 26 rally hosted speakers who addressed the many ways that Palantir weaponizes AI-powered tools for large-scale data collection and mass surveillance and violates human rights globally and locally. Speakers demanded the Minnesota SBI divest from Palantir.

AWC member Carter Steinhagen told the crowd, “The Minnesota State Board of Investment currently has $57 million invested in Palantir,” adding, “SBI chair Governor Walz has stated that ‘ICE operations are a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government’ – but [the governor] refuses to divest from Palantir.”

Another speaker highlighted the connection between deadly surveillance and kill-chain targeting in Palestine and the local impact of Palantir’s surveillance of Minneapolis citizens, observers and protesters, during Operation Metro Surge, allowing ICE agents to identify people by name and follow them home.

“Palantir created the ELITE facial recognition software system that allowed ICE agents to automatically obtain personal information of anyone that they can scan in public,” said Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee member Yann Chen. “If you were out in the cold this winter and you thought agents were taking photos of your face, know that they were definitely illegally collecting information and targeting us, the regular people that stood up in the face of tyranny.”

Chen added that Palnatir’s “ImmigrationOS is what all dystopian movies originate from – one database that can obtain passport records, Social Security records, IRS data, license plate information, biometric data, and even our utility bills. This is what Minnesota leaders refuse to stand up against.”

“It is heartening to see more and more folks starting to learn and speak out against what these AI-fueled surveillance technologies are doing to our communities here in Minnesota in particular. We've seen mass demonstrations against Flock cameras here and across the U.S. We've also recently had successful campaigns against Skydio drone contracts with Minneapolis and Saint Paul police departments, and growing coalitions to oppose data center construction plans,” said Khrys Wetzel of Women Against Military Madness.

“We are deeply concerned about Palantir’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and ICE violence here at home,” said rally emcee Ulysses Dolan of the AWC. “We have massive human rights concerns about this company. These investments are not only financially volatile, but Minnesotans do not want our tax dollars funding this dystopian violence. We demand that the SBI divest now!”

For information about the AWC and its calls for divestment, visit DivestMN.com.

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St. Paul, MN – On Thursday, March 26, 20 members of the MN Anti-War Committee (AWC)turned out to a midday rally outside Minnesota’s Retirement Systems Building, where Minnesota’s State Board of Investment (SBI) was holding its quarterly meeting.

Members of the AWC gave public testimony at the meeting. AWC members demanded divestment from apartheid Israel and weapons companies, but focused particularly on Palantir, a company whose AI surveillance software has directly facilitated human rights violations in Palestine, Iran, and Minnesota itself. As of June 2025, the book value of the SBI’s investments in Palantir was $55 million.

This marked the board’s first open quarterly meeting in nearly a year, and the first attendance of the AWC since 11 of its members were arrested during a sit-in at the Retirement Systems Building last fall — a sit-in prompted by the board declining to hold in-person, public hearings over many months. Public admittance to the meeting room was limited to just eight members of the community, not including speakers.

As of the 2025 fiscal year, Minnesota SBI managed a total of $161 billion in assets. It is funded by Minnesota public employees’ salary contributions and taxpayer dollars, and serves workers in the Teachers’ Retirement Association, Minnesota State Retirement Association, and many of the union members of AFSCME, SEIU, Education Minnesota, and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE), among others.

The board emphasizes their fiduciary responsibility to pension holders and evaluates what is an “acceptable risk” investment. Governor Tim Walz serves as the board’s chair, along with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, State Auditor Julie Blaha, and the Secretary of State Steve Simon. The SBI currently invests over $586 million in weapons companies, including Elbit Systems, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

“This board has defended its continued investment in death-dealing companies like Palantir with the claim that it is a wholly apolitical body that merely does its financial duty to the state. But I have to ask, in what sense is funding the Trump administration’s agenda an apolitical act?” questioned Andrew Josefchak, union member and organizer with the Anti-War Committee. During the meeting Josefchak submitted into the record thousands of physical signatures collected from constituents who agree that Minnesota must divest from Israel and companies that facilitate war and genocide.

Public employee and MAPE member Kevin Snyder testified during the meeting and asked how the board could claim to be taking into account the interests of Minnesotans while ICE actively weaponizes Palantir tech against residents of the state.

While the AWC’s DivestMN campaign specifically demands that the SBI divest from entities and companies complicit in Israel’s crimes of genocide and apartheid in Palestine, its researchers have found that many of the same companies are complicit in ICE violence in Minnesota and across the country. Palantir is contracted by Israel’s Ministry of Defense, ICE and the U.S. military. Palantir’s products track populations on a massive scale and maintain large databases of intrusive personal information. Its software can be integrated into surveillance and weapons systems, including drones, and company executives have told concerned staff that Palantir places no restrictions on client use of its tools.

Even before October 7, the AWC’s DivestMN campaign demanded that the SBI divest from Israel (in the form of Israeli stocks and bonds) and weapons manufacturers that directly enable Israel’s destruction and genocide in Palestine. The same corporations are now profiting off of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which commenced with the bombing and murder of at least 175 school children in Minab.

AWC member Naveen Borojerdi, who testified before the SBI, is an Iranian American public employee and a member of MAPE. Borojerdi urged the board “to do better,” adding, “My people have a right to self-defense against joint American/Israeli terrorism, and I have the right to not have my own money facilitating that same terrorism against my own people.”

Jill Schurtz, the executive director of the SBI and its chief investment officer, admitted during the March 26 meeting that the “conflict in the Middle East” is “eroding gains” in their portfolio. “War destroys the working class,” Andrew Josefchak said as he took the mic outside the building and shared this information with demonstrators who had not been allowed into the meeting.

Throughout the meeting, members who were refused entry were heard and seen chanting from outside the first-floor windows. The silence and order in the room, maintained by the presence of no less than a half dozen police and state patrol officers, was broken by continuous calls directed at the SBI from outside: “Money for murder? No! Money for workers? Yes! Money for schools? Yes! Money for Palantir? No!”

The AWC will maintain their presence at SBI meetings until total divestment is reached.

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