Five years ago, Palantir left Silicon Valley to set up shop in Denver.
The infamous software company faced consistent protests in California, and now Colorado activists are fighting to push them out of their new home over their connections to Trump’s deportation campaign and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Mondoweiss spoke with Skylar Ramsey, a member of the Denver Democratic Socialists of America, about the campaign.
Can you talk about Palantir moving to Denver and its footprint on the community?
Ramsey: They came here after being chased out of Palo Alto. The CEO, Alex Karp, was actually really upfront about the fact that they weren’t really leaving for economic reasons but for cultural reasons. They didn’t feel welcome in California or in the Bay Area anymore because of, um frankly, the pressure that local activists put on them.
They had a few options. They were considering Texas, but they ended up choosing Colorado because it’s a place where a lot of tech workers already work. And they considered it to be more culturally amenable, I guess, to what Palantir is doing.
The Governor definitely greeted them with open arms, so that’s been the situation. I think a lot of people in Denver don’t know that Palantir is headquartered here. A big part of our work is actually just building awareness around that.
They operate out of an unassuming office building, so I think they have consciously avoided having a big footprint locally. They attend recruiting events and things like that, but for the most part, they are flying pretty low.
How did the campaign start? Who is involved and what kind of actions have you been carrying out?
There’s an organization here called Denver Anti-War Action, that has actually been on this beat for awhile. They’ve done a good job staging pickets and protests outside the office building. It’s been consistent, but hadn’t got a lot of attention. In recent months, since Trump has taken power, Palantir’s notoriety has really kicked up and it’s started to become a bigger deal here.
I’m with Denver DSA. A few months ago we passed a resolution committing our entire chapter to a Palantir campaign with the stated goal of getting Palantir out of Denver. So just as the activists in Palo Alto did, we want to make it annoying for them to be here. We would like them to pick up and leave our state.
When Denver DSA and Denver Anti-War Action started collaborating on this through the Colorado Palestine Coalition, things picked up more.
Other groups are taking notice, too. Our Revolution, which sprang out the Bernie Sanders campaign, has certainly shown interest.
As far as our tactics go, the one that we’ve been really hammering so far is is demonstrating in front of their building. We’ve tried that in a few different ways. We’ve done pickets with a few dozen people milling around outside, and giving speeches. We have a list of demands that we have delivered to the office security a few times.
We’ve also taken part in shift work, flyering people as they walk by throughout the day. We really try to hold our actions during the workday so that the people who are in the building will actually be there to hear it instead of picketing outside of an empty building.
With all this, we’ve been very conscious that our target here is actually not Palantir. We’re really targeting people who can exert pressure on Palantir for us. We are targeting the Tabor building itself, the office building in which Palantir is set up. We are pressuring the proprietors of that building not to renew Palantir’s lease.
We are getting ready to kickstart a new campaign as well, targeting UC Health, the largest hospital network in our state and also has a massive contract with Palantir. We’d like to raise awareness of that and let patients know what’s being done with their data.
What kind of response have you gotten from the community so far, and have you heard from anyone connected to the company or the building?
Up to this point, the building management has reacted with a very stiff upper lip, but I don’t think many people who work with Palantir have a principled pro-Palantir stance. To whatever degree we’re causing them a headache, it’s having an impact.
These people are not ideological Zionists. They’re not necessarily personally anti-immigrant. These are people running a building, and they would like to do that as smoothly as possible without being disturbed constantly by activists.
Our goal right now is to seek out a conversation with the building management. That has not happened yet.
As far as community support, I would say it’s been much stronger. There are certainly a handful of elected officials who are not super happy about the fact that Palantir has set up in our community, in our state, and our community, and they are willing to do what they can to push back on that in the way that they are able.
I would say the response among people who live here in Denver has been very good. We get a lot of support from people who drive by. People in a relatively progressive city like Denver understand Palantir is playing a pivotal role in these very unpopular stances that Trump has taken.
I think some of the larger progressive organizations, like Our Revolution, which I mentioned, and the ACLU, are starting to gain interest. This all shows that we have a very broad base of support; it’s not just coming from the socialist left.
Mast pulls back passport effort
Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) is backtracking on a bill that would have allowed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revoke U.S. passports.
Over the weekend, The Intercept’s Matt Sledge reported that Mast (who served in the Israeli army before running for office) was seeking to add the provision to a larger State Department reorganization. Mast claimed that it would be wielded against “terrorists and traffickers,” but civil rights groups warned that it could be used to target U.S. citizens for exercising their free speech.
Mast pulled back the effort in response to the backlash.
“It’s a really great thing that this provision got struck” ACLU attorney Kia Hamadanchy told Sledge. “It was hugely problematic, created a huge risk of abuse, of politicized enforcement.”
FMEP President Lara Friedman has a great thread breaking down the details of Mast’s push.
Sledge also recently reported on an anti-BDS amendment that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), via voice vote, tacked onto the Pentagon budget.
The bill would ban contractors from federal deals if they choose to boycott Israel.
“It’s not just applying to boycotts called for by international organizations, it’s applying to civil society boycotts,” said ACLU attorney Brian Hauss. “It is an attempt to stifle and suppress a social movement that is designed to protest the actions of the Israeli government. That is exactly what it is targeted at. It started there but it’s not going to end there — that’s exactly what makes this so dangerous.”
The budget still has to pass the Senate and the provision hasn’t been part of the text that they’re currently debating.
Further Reading
- Washington Post: Tech worker dissent over Gaza bubbles inside Amazon, Microsoft and Google
- Jerusalem Post: Paramount criticizes pledge by entertainers to boycott Israeli film institutions
- Zeteo: Mark Ruffalo Says ‘Boycott, Divest, Sanction, and Prosecute’ Israel
- Rep. Delia C. Ramirez press release: Congresswoman Ramirez, Cynthia Nixon, Morgan Spector, Mahmoud Khalil Lead Day of Action for Block the Bombs
- USA Today: Trump ordered a peace vigil tent near the White House removed: What to know
- New York Times: How the Government Is Trying to Silence Charlie Kirk’s Critics
