Palantir: It's More Than "Souped-Up" Surveillance Software >

Sooner or later, thanks to two reports years apart, we now know that Peter Thiel's Palantier (from the same dude that created 'Pay Pal) helped the National Security Agency spy on the entire world, is also used Law Enforcement Agencies and The Department of Homeland Security.
No doubt about it Now
Whatever data can be collected is collected.

Public Records Request Nets User's Manual For Palantir's Souped-Up Surveillance Software

Fri, Jul 19th 2019 10:44am— Tim Cushing

Techdirt.                        |

"Palantir is the 800-pound gorilla of data analytics.

It has created a massive surveillance apparatus that pulls info from multiple sources to give law enforcement convenient places to dip into the data stream. Law enforcement databases may focus on criminals, but Palantir's efforts focus on everyone.

Whatever can be collected is collected.

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Palantir provides both the data and the front end, making it easy for government agencies to not only track criminal suspects, but everyone they've ever associated with.

Palantir is big. But being the biggest player in the market doesn't exactly encourage quality work or accountability.

Multiple problems have already been noticed by the company's numerous law enforcement customers -- including the company's apparent inability to responsibly handle data -- but complaints from agencies tied into multi-year contracts are pretty easy to ignore. Palantir says it provides "actionable data." Sounds pretty cool, but in practice this means things like cops firing guns at innocent people because the software spat out faulty suspect/vehicle descriptions.

Agencies must see the value in Palantir's products because few seem willing to ditch these data analytics packages. The company does a fairly good job dropping a usable interface on top of its data haystacks. It sells well. And it's proprietary, which means Palantir can get into the policing business without actually having to engage in the accountability and openness expected of government agencies.

Fortunately for the public, government agencies still have to respond to public records requests -- even if the documents sought detail private vendors' offerings. Vice has obtained part of a user's manual for Palantir Gotham, which is used by a number of state and federal agencies.

This software appears to be used by "fusion centers," the DHS-created abominations that do serious damage to civil liberties but produce very little usable intelligence . . .

READ MORE > https://www.techdirt.com 

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From The Intercept:

How Peter Thiel’s Palantir Helped the NSA Spy

on the Whole World

Sam Biddle February 22 2017 4:06 a.m.

"Donald Trump has inherited the most powerful machine for spying ever devised. How this petty, vengeful man might wield and expand the sprawling American spy apparatus, already vulnerable to abuse, is disturbing enough on its own. But the outlook is even worse considering Trump’s vast preference for private sector expertise and new strategic friendship with Silicon Valley billionaire investor Peter Thiel, whose controversial (and opaque) company Palantir has long sought to sell governments an unmatched power to sift and exploit information of any kind. Thiel represents a perfect nexus of government clout with the kind of corporate swagger Trump loves.

The Intercept can now reveal that Palantir has worked for years to boost the global dragnet of the NSA and its international partners, and was in fact co-created with American spies. 

Peter Thiel became one of the American political mainstream’s most notorious figures in 2016 (when it emerged he was bankrolling a lawsuit against Gawker Media, my former employer) even before he won a direct line to the White House. Now he brings to his role as presidential adviser decades of experience as kingly investor and token nonliberal on Facebook’s board of directors, a Rolodex of software luminaries, and a decidedly Trumpian devotion to controversy and contrarianism.

But perhaps the most appealing asset Thiel can offer our bewildered new president will be
Palantir Technologies,
which Thiel founded with Alex Karp and Joe Lonsdale in 2004.
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Palantir has never masked its ambitions, in particular the desire to sell its services to the U.S. government — the CIA itself was an early investor in the startup through In-Q-Tel, the agency’s venture capital branch. But Palantir refuses to discuss or even name its government clientele, despite landing “at least $1.2 billion” in federal contracts since 2009, according to an August 2016 report in Politico.

The company was last valued at $20 billion and is expected to pursue an IPO in the near future. In a 2012 interview with TechCrunch, while boasting of ties to the intelligence community, Karp said nondisclosure contracts prevent him from speaking about Palantir’s government work.

“Palantir” is generally used interchangeably to refer to both Thiel and Karp’s company and the software that company creates. Its two main products are Palantir Gotham and Palantir Metropolis, more geeky winks from a company whose Tolkien namesake is a type of magical sphere used by the evil lord Sauron to surveil, trick, and threaten his enemies across Middle Earth. While Palantir Metropolis is pegged to quantitative analysis for Wall Street banks and hedge funds, Gotham (formerly Palantir Government) is designed for the needs of intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security customers. Gotham works by importing large reams of “structured” data (like spreadsheets) and “unstructured” data (like images) into one centralized database, where all of the information can be visualized and analyzed in one workspace. For example, a 2010 demo showed how Palantir Government could be used to chart the flow of weapons throughout the Middle East by importing disparate data sources like equipment lot numbers, manufacturer data, and the locations of Hezbollah training camps. Palantir’s chief appeal is that it’s not designed to do any single thing in particular, but is flexible and powerful enough to accommodate the requirements of any organization that needs to process large amounts of both personal and abstract data. . .

READ MORE > https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/