No, the problem with parallel construction is that it involves the introduction of tainted evidence into the law enforcement process. The fundamental protection we have against the abuse of surveillance and searches is the Exclusionary Rule, which dictates that the entire chain of evidence that begins with unconstitutional search is off-limits in prosecution. Parallel construction sidesteps that by avoiding the introduction of tainted evidence into cases at all, while still taking advantage of it during investigation.
But Palantir is a mechanism for collecting and analyzing evidence, not generating new evidence. It's database software. Policing has been predictive for decades; without Palantir, the police just use even dumber predictive methods.
Your argument assumes absolutely none of the information that Palantir uses is tainted. That's a surprisingly difficult thing to demonstrate, and based on the amount of data analyzed highly unlikely.
Thus, the impetus to use parallel construction to sidestep these issues.
We know that parallel construction has, at various times and in various places, been heavily used by some law enforcement elements. We don’t need to know anything about the software used by law enforcement to know that, and to suspect that this may be happening now. Systems such as those provided by Palantir are just a more sophisticated way that tainted evidence could be used.
It seems reasonable that, given a reasonable suspicion that such evidence is used, that we should fear and want to prevent more widespread and systematic use of that illegal evidence.
No, this is more specific than just using a DB. If they use Postgres to handle HR then it's irrelevant. This is specific to using large quantities of potentially tainted information and then not disclosing the use of that information. Which is more or less the definition of parallel construction.
Further the problem with parallel construction is not that it hides tainted evidence it's that the courts can't decide that the evidence was tainted. Even if all the information was fine the technique inherently creates problems.
But Palantir is a mechanism for collecting and analyzing evidence, not generating new evidence. It's database software. Policing has been predictive for decades; without Palantir, the police just use even dumber predictive methods.