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.

#MinneapolisMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #Palantir #Palestine #DivestMN #Skydio #Surveillance

St. Paul, MN – Amid a nationwide wave of outrage against Flock automatic license plate readers, community members packed city council chambers on August 26 for a public hearing on police surveillance technology and data privacy. Dozens of community members testified to their opposition to the city’s use of the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cameras made by Flock and Axon, as well as autonomous drones manufactured by Skydio.

The public hearing was initiated after the previous week’s city council meeting, when activists with the Free Palestine Coalition (FPC) interrupted the proceedings to demand transparency around the city’s contract with Skydio and a process to end it. Organizers explained that Skydio was complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, supplying cutting-edge drones that use AI to surveil urban areas and identify potential targets.

“Skydio is a U.S. company, but the reason it scaled up its sales to institutions started when it sold hundreds of drones to the Israeli military for its genocide in Gaza,” explained FPC organizer and Saint Paul resident Wyatt Miller in his comments to the council members. “If it wasn’t necessary before a genocide, it shouldn’t be necessary now.”

In June, the FPC initiated a campaign against a proposed Skydio contract with the nearby city of Minneapolis. Hundreds of community members mobilized to urge Minneapolis not to contract with a genocide-complicit company and raised concerns around the technology’s use in the hands of the city’s infamous police department. Minneapolis City Council ultimately caved to community pressure and voted to reject the proposed Skydio contract.

The coalition then teamed up with anti-surveillance group Eyes Off Saint Paul to address the issue in that city. Advocates learned that the Saint Paul Police Department (SPPD) had quietly adopted a similar Skydio drone program without a public hearing, claiming the drones constituted an expansion of an existing contract, allowing it to bypass normal public process.

“We can’t find any public record of the contract. We don’t know how much money is being spent,” Miller told the council. “The only dollar amount that’s been published publicly comes as an ‘estimate’ to the media from the police department itself.”

Many speakers expressed outrage over expenditures on new surveillance tools at a time when Mayor Kaohly Her’s budget includes significant cuts and the closure of the public library in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood.

Anna Madison is a member of Eyes Off Saint Paul as well as Families Against Military Madness. “Militarized AI-powered technology continues to advance at a pace that is increasingly difficult to keep up with,” Madison explained to the council. “The only way we can ensure that this technology is not used to harm us is to end these contracts and ban AI-powered mass surveillance immediately.”

Much of the popular outrage has focused on Flock, with high-profile instances of communities destroying the stationary AI cameras around the country. At the regular Saint Paul City Council meeting that took place just before the special hearing on surveillance, the council passed a nonbinding resolution announcing the removal of two city-operated Flock cameras. However, the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office reportedly continues to operate Flock cameras in Saint Paul.

Activists vowed to continue the fight, looking beyond just Flock to other city contracts with AI-powered surveillance companies. They said the oppressive nature of these technologies were demonstrated by their use during the federal anti-immigrant crackdown as well as by Israel in its oppression of Palestinians.

“Corporations cannot be trusted not to share data and recordings with immigration enforcement like what we saw with Operation Metro Surge,” Cedar Larson of Women Against Military Madness told the council. “We know that Axon recently acquired Israeli company Carbyne, which makes AI-powered emergency communications used by police. This props up Israel’s tech sector, which makes up 20% of the apartheid state’s GDP and about half of its annual exports.”

Sana Wazwaz is a Palestinian American and chapter lead of American Muslims for Palestine – Minnesota, part of the FPC. “Our coalition firmly believes that no fantasy of stopping crimes is worth the greater crime of being complicit in fascism and genocide,” Wazwaz told the council. “Skydio has an active contract with the very entity that terrorized our community just this last winter. In the words of Minneapolis Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, ‘To contract with Skydio in light of what happened during Metro Surge is nothing short of morally bankrupt.’ ”

Speakers also argued that crimes committed by SPPD and other police departments showed they could not be trusted with new surveillance technologies. Officers in several states have been accused of using Flock data to stalk ex-girlfriends. An officer in Texas allegedly used the system to track the movements of a woman seeking an abortion.

Wazwaz concluded, “What we have seen with the murder of Marcus Golden here in Saint Paul, with the murders of Philando Castile, George Floyd, Jamar Clark, that law enforcement without community control over police must not be given surveillance tools.”

#StPaulMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #PeoplesStruggles #Skydio #Palestine #Surveillance #Flock