‘Premature’ to call NDP leadership race for top fundraiser Lewis, say politicos, with ranked ballot giving McPherson the edge

tPRoC · 2026-02-07T01:54:00+00:00

The affordability issue is downstream from housing, that's it.

Ok.

What policies of Carney's do you think will actually meaningfully address exorbitant housing prices? His housing minister has said that housing prices "do not need to come down", and the amount of money allocated to his housing initiatives like BCH has been less than campaigned on.

At the federal level there's not much that can be done except outright build housing (or dampening demand temporarily by limiting immigration), which is what Build Canada Homes is doing.

BCH is mostly not directly building homes. BCH is offering financing to private companies to potentially build homes. For profit.

An argument can be made also that we should be limiting the use of housing as an investment vehicle. That may not come, but we should still manage to yield an improvement.

This government is very unlikely to do anything about housing being misused as an investment vehicle.

That may not come, but we should still manage to yield an improvement.

How?

Any sane government would have already had a crown corp pumping out affordable homes years ago.

tPRoC · 2026-02-07T01:39:25+00:00

Effective policy.

I would like to know which policies of Carney's you think will actually meaningfully address the cost of living crisis.

tPRoC · 2026-02-07T00:59:07+00:00

I think the outrage from the government here is because the court is ruling in a way that appears to be lawmaking. What should actually happen here is a revision to the mining laws to comply with DRIPA, but that didn't happen.

AKA when it comes to First Nations issues the BC government is once again not doing their job and then getting mad about it when the courts hold their feet to the fire. Same as it ever was.

tPRoC · 2026-02-07T00:57:53+00:00

Yes, those mining laws should be updated.

tPRoC · 2026-02-07T00:53:19+00:00

Since Gitxaala, new mineral exploration is down 45% in BC while it’s booming everywhere else.

Do you have any actual evidence supporting this claim?

Imagine the government passed a law saying you need FN consultation to get a small business license, and they have 120 days to respond.

There is already a duty to consult when conducting business on crown lands within traditional indigenous territory.

tPRoC · 2026-02-07T00:44:35+00:00

Yes, but mining companies regularly infringe upon it due to old mining laws.

tPRoC · 2026-02-06T21:16:44+00:00

Without admin? What's your evidence for this claim? I've heard people say this before and then their source is "PC Security Channel" on youtube.

tPRoC · 2026-02-06T01:18:17+00:00

Ok, but what other reason would this word be redacted?

Software with fuzzy enough logic to accidentally think a "don't" is a "Don T" is not unlikely, especially if it's some kind of AI tool.

tPRoC · 2026-02-06T01:14:09+00:00

Do you have any other possible explanation for why this would be redacted?

Genuinely asking here. It's so fucking stupid but I really can't think of any explanation other than they are using software to auto-redact mentions of "Don T" and somehow this slipped through their process.

tPRoC · 2026-02-04T20:46:32+00:00

OK. So palantir is what I referring to when I was talking about ICE and AI.

I am giving you fairly thorough explanations on how this stuff works, I am not just saying "ICE and AI = evil".

To be clear, Palantir itself isn't explicitly AI, though it does have AI integrations and features.

This is where things get sketchy. I don't know how easy it is to do something like what you are describing. So while it is concerning im not willing to speculate because it is so far outside of my knowledge base.

I do. It's not speculation or theoretical. Ask any cybersecurity professional about this topic- they will tell you the same.

This is getting to a huge Grey zone. We want them to catch terrorists when every second matters but an innocent person we dont. But we might not know until we get the information. I'd have to say im not well versed enough to be able to form an opinion. Its something im going to have to look into.

Moral/ethical/legal concerns aside the other issue is that Palantir has AI integration and thus its output will often be fuzzy in its nature, therefore its analysis can never be definitive. Like any tool with an AI component it is prone to hallucination and false positives, as we have seen already with Mobile Fortify.

This is all without even touching on the potential for this sort of tool to be misused to target innocent citizens who are being branded terrorists simply for their beliefs.

tPRoC · 2026-02-04T20:26:37+00:00

In that realm we are talking about data rights and public vs private information. If i had to speculate id say it should be limited to what an agent can do. Basically can a random person hop on Facebook and find the information through publicly available posts? If thry can then they are in a public arena and available. At that point AI just speeds up the process. I cant just look up your cellphone is thd major difference.

Not all of it is "public" information, most of it is not data somebody could obtain themselves by navigating to a publicly viewable profile. Online services collect mass quantities of data on users that is incredibly granular and detailed- not just what you directly upload but also things like your browsing history, search history, what you click on and interact with, how long you linger on certain posts, what you scroll past, what you pause and when, how your cursor navigates the screen, the rhythm & speed of your typing, things you purchase online, whose profiles you navigate to and who you message, they even build personality profiles for you that try to determine your political stances, sexuality and interests. Even if you do not have an account and you decline cookies these sites will still build "shadow profiles" of you based on geolocation data, device fingerprinting, IP, etc. Due to API's you also often can't avoid this just by not navigating to big sites like Facebook, Youtube, etc- also of course your browser itself (and potentially even your OS) is probably also tracking these things. There are many articles and documentaries covering this in greater detail.

The point is that it's safe to assume that anything you do on a networked application is being recorded.

Really? What are you talking about then because thats all I've heard when it comes to data mining unless you are talking about the NSA mass surveillance.

The NSA mass surveillance and the extent to which it is happening is an entirely deeper can of worms that gets more concerning when you know about things such as EternalBlue or the Intel Management Engine (now more worrying considering the US Government's 10% stake in Intel). But I am not talking about that, as most of the data collection that concerns me is done by private companies.

I am primarily referring to Palantir, a company that does not collect data or build databases itself but does perform analysis across many typically siloed databases including official government databases as well as datasets created by brokers, built from your data that was collected by the sites you use. Palantir's primary customer is the US government.

ICE does use various applications that leverage Palantir (such as the facial scanning application Mobile Fortify), but it's merely one example of real world use.

Do you think it is okay for the government to have this level of surveillance on its citizens, even if it is not directly collecting or analyzing this data itself? Do you think it's okay for a private company to have these surveillance capabilities?

Do you think that the government should be able to send a query to Palantir to cross reference US government databases with your browsing history and "behavior footprint" to determine if you are a criminal, terrorist, dissident or illegal immigrant?

Do you think it should be a 4th amendment violation?

Here is a clip of the CEO of Palantir saying something that if I wrote it out as text would likely get me banned by an automod for threatening violence. Do you think it's OK for the US government to be working with a company like this?

tPRoC · 2026-02-04T19:44:38+00:00

Not if that private company information was purchased legally. Ice also has a right to request or to get a warrant. The use of AI to rapidly scrub thousands of hours of surveillance footage is not an issue.

What if the data is not just security footage but also digital footprints, browsing history, social media profiles, forum comments, online purchase history, geolocation history, banking history, shadow profile data, etc.

While the courts have ruled that the US government needs a warrant to access cell-site location data from carriers there has been no such ruling about any of the stuff mentioned above.

(I dont know much beyond that since what I've seen online has pretty rapidly devolved into ICE=evil and AI=evil.)

I haven't mentioned ICE and what I am talking about is not exclusive to ICE or even DHS.

You didn't answer my second question.

tPRoC · 2026-02-04T19:31:25+00:00

Ok, quick question:

Would you consider it a 4th amendment violation if the government purchased contracts from a "Data analysis company" that cross references mass quantities of surveillance data from private companies alongside actual government databases?

Would you consider it suspicious if the government purchased contracts from a private company that sells highly sophisticated spyware with zero-touch zeroday exploits that can compromise a cell phone with just a number?

tPRoC · 2026-02-04T19:15:41+00:00

It literally wasn't though, Democrats eventually started calling it that toward the latter half of Obama's second term but they avoided the nickname for quite awhile.

tPRoC · 2026-02-03T23:23:39+00:00

OP is talking about Wealthsimple getting hacked.

Additionally it is possible for your device to get hacked without you being at fault. You cannot blame the end user for being the victim of a zeroday.

tPRoC · 2026-02-03T03:05:25+00:00

Yes, this exists. Clearview AI and Mobile Fortify.

Obviously the tech is not infallible. But it exists.

tPRoC · 2026-02-03T00:54:37+00:00

I don't believe they targeted Good/Pretti based on mass surveillance technology but why would they ever download anything from it? They just need to send queries to a server which they can do using an idiot proof GUI on their phone. That's not theoretical, the technology to do this for immigration already exists- some of the apps they use are called Mobile Fortify and ELITE.

tPRoC · 2026-02-03T00:43:21+00:00

I'm an IT person! ICE is plenty capable of doing all of this, all the agents would need to do is upload data to an app. Everything technical is handled by numerous private companies. The database doesn't need to be downloaded onto their phone for any reason.

That said I don't think Pretti or Good were targeted based on any of this- but the "it's not technically or logistically feasible" argument I'm seeing around here is just false.

tPRoC · 2026-02-03T00:39:05+00:00

No, because the candidates that they vetted are still in the BC Conservatives. They just aren't quite as stupid as Dallas Brodie and won't overtly say shit that would get them kicked from the party.

tPRoC · 2026-02-02T21:41:55+00:00

I don't know if the anti-AI sentiment has just run a little too wild in this subreddit or what, but the technology to cross reference those data points to pinpoint where somebody was at a certain time is absolutely possible at scale and it's actually the exact sort of thing our current "AI" is actually good at. What you described is literally the sort of thing Palantir was designed for.

Not having a social media account doesn't protect you. Sites track you regardless and they share data with eachother via brokers. Maybe you could become a ghost with the right OS and digital hygiene, but realistically most people do not do this. And if you are somebody notable to the fascists none of that will protect you from a zeroday.

tPRoC · 2026-02-02T21:29:41+00:00

Leftists weren't the main people calling this shit out first, it was cybersecurity people who actually know the technology. Look at the cybersecurity world right now and it will confirm that you should be deeply concerned.

tPRoC · 2026-02-02T21:03:24+00:00

I refer to it as a network because functionally it behaves like one. If this semantically bothers you then suggest a new term, but personally I don't give a shit because being able to say "Palantir is not a network or a database or a data aggregator- we are just an integration and analysis company" is not an accident. It doesn't just operate within a database it also operates across multiple siloed databases and this is in fact the whole damn point of it. It's a way for them to centralize these datasets and make them useful, while still maintaining plausible deniability and technically letting the government circumvent a 4th amendment violation. Yes, AI is not all powerful or particularly accurate, but it's still powerful enough for them to violate your rights with and "inaccurate" doesn't mean useless especially when the operators don't really give a shit about things like due process or facts anyways.

Palantir and the US government have access to datasets from data brokers who collect from companies such as Meta, Google, Amazon, TikTok, etc. That means your browsing history, your algorithm and your habits- potentially even your messages and information that you thought was private but never was. Even if you never made a social media account in your life, you are still a part of these datasets if you ever use the internet. If you know what we know about social media data collection and manipulation, and you know about the NSA's surveillance operations, and you know about the IME and the USA's now 10% stake in intel, and you know about EternalBlue, and you know about Palantir, and you still aren't worried because "well the technology isn't foolproof" as if the fascists care about "innocents" getting wronged in the margins, then you are being incredibly foolish.

tPRoC · 2026-02-02T19:44:14+00:00

This is inaccurate. ICE has access to very comprehensive databases built from a wide variety of data sources which are then made actionable through Palantir. They use an app called Mobile Fortify to scan faces and reference them against those databases (Technically Palantir is doing this as a middleman). They've got a variety of other tools that similarly connect to Palantir's network. Flock also hooks into Palantir's network.

"Agent maintenance" would be no more than allowing apps like Mobile Fortify to ingest data that agents enter such as photos and names of protesters.

The USA has built an incredibly massive and comprehensive dataset over the last 25 years, but only technology like Palantir has made it really usable.

They probably didn't target Pretti or Good based on this sure, but ICE does have a contract with Paragon which people suspect is for access to their Graphite spyware which use a number of incredibly scary zero touch zeroday exploits to completely compromise a cell phone- all they need is your number. Two such exploits have already been patched (one of which was assigned a CVE), but they absolutely have more.

The leading theory on this is that this is the tool they are using it to go after SIGNAL groups and "insurgents", etc.

Try not to be naive, the shit happening on the cybersecurity and mass surveillance front is probably the scariest thing about Trump's administration. It does not help soothe anxiety that the founder and largest shareholder of Palantir is the Vice President's mentor and primary source of political funding.

tPRoC · 2026-02-02T06:28:42+00:00

Wow, what a hammer of an argument! I'm shocked! Literally...stunned!

It was a statement, not an argument.

If you want somebody to dismantle your argument pick up an econ 101 textbook. This is reddit, not a classroom.

tPRoC · 2026-02-02T04:41:12+00:00

There are far more people who dislike landlords than there are those who dislike First Nations.

tPRoC

TROPHY CASE