palantIr bak
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">palantir819</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TWO</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">main broke? disambig</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/15/did-dallas-police-and-local-media-collude-to-cover-up-terrorist-threats-against-journalist-barrett-brown/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/15/did-dallas-police-and-local-media-collude-to-cover-up-terrorist-threats-against-journalist-barrett-brown/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/peter-thiel-advises-the-president-while-palantir-plays-shadow-cia/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://truthout.org/articles/peter-thiel-advises-the-president-while-palantir-plays-shadow-cia/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2/17</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies tried to keep a low profile, but with the Wall Street Journal hailing it in <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB125200842406984303" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a> as the “team of geeks who cracked the spy trade,” the firm drew a lot of attention. If providing the software equivalent of a crystal ball to every US spy agency caused Palantir to be regarded as an omen of dystopian portent, there is now more chatter about <b>Peter Thiel, chairman of Palantir, serving as a shadowy special adviser to Trump</b>. Palantir made data-mining sexy and saves the lives of US soldiers, but there are good reasons to ferret out the secrets of the firm and its founder. Palantir’s mission is avowedly to “reduce terrorism” while preserving privacy and civil liberties, but its products in the hands of the Trump regime are a grave threat to both.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When they first met, Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/fashion/peter-thiel-donald-trump-silicon-valley-technology-gawker.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">told</a> Thiel, “You are terrific. We’re friends for life.” Trump identified in Thiel a huge asset for his campaign strategy and for his policy agenda. Trump and Thiel think alike when it comes to the press and immigrants, yet they are both similarly hypocritical in their concern for privacy and litigiousness when they feel violated. Thiel recently bankrolled the lawsuit which bankrupted Gawker, gave a cool million to an <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/18/663129/-" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">anti-immigrant organization</a> in 2008, and gladly provided $1.25 million to Rebekah Mercer’s Trump super PAC, now <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/09/thiel-backed-pac-may-have-made-illegal-payments-bannon-company.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">accused of</a><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/09/thiel-backed-pac-may-have-made-illegal-payments-bannon-company.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;" />illegally paying Steve Bannon’s salary. Judging by his ponderous <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/312076-trump-computers-have-complicated-lives-very-greatly" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">statements</a> about computers, Trump knows nothing whatsoever about technology, so Thiel — as the only adviser other than Bannon from the tech industry — can showcase his libertarian futurist Big Brother vision in the Oval Office, generating more business for Palantir.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Move over CIA! Along with Cambridge Analytica, which <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">features</a> Bannon as a board member, and the other private intelligence company Thiel founded, Quid, Trump has access to three private intelligence companies. </b>Palantir’s exploits aren’t limited to helping US military locate improvised explosive devices. In 2011, federal contractor HBGary’s hacked emails revealed Palantir’s involvement, which Barrett Brown <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/10/16/i-am-fully-capable-of-entertaining-myself-in-prison-for-decades-if-need-be/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">went to prison</a> to expose, in retaliatory campaigns against WikiLeaks, labor unions and ThinkProgress. Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palantir-apologizes-for-wikileaks-attack-proposal-cuts-ties-with-hbgary/#47d5f1251345" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">apologized</a> “to progressive organizations in general and [Glenn Greenwald] in particular,” reaffirming the company’s commitment to building software “that protects privacy and civil liberties.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Palantir employee explained in a promotional <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLyfvbxWXF_zwXS7x1Fs9L_Fw20sDxkTBa&v=e6OebM0dQ8g" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">video</a>: “If you have multiple analysts working on the problem, you have to have collaboration, and collaboration doesn’t make sense without access control. Each person in your enterprise has a limited view because you have to respect the privacy of your users, of your customers, of citizens.” Considering that Palantir was originally <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/12/the-cia-backed-start-up-thats-taking-over-palo-alto.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">funded</a> by the CIA and has the NSA as a major client, that statement borders on absurd.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A recent <a href="https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/big-data-analytics-a-powerful-force-for-good-or-evil/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">post</a> on Harvard Business School’s tech blog noted “[Palantir’s] operating model, combined with motives for growth and profitability have recently created conflict between their business and operating model,” suggesting Palantir’s business development arm distributes its software to as many clients as possible, after which, tech support eventually leaves them to use it as they please. This poses a privacy dilemma of disgruntling proportions, manufactured by Palantir.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though his firm has various government contracts, Thiel has not signed any standard ethics form. The former ethics counsel of President George H.W. Bush, University of Minnesota Professor Richard Painter, stated in an email to Truthout that Thiel “seems to be one more behind-the-scenes guy who will not be subject to any of the ethics rules, along with [Carl] Icahn and perhaps even the Trump children.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 900; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">House Democrats’ Move to Protect Dreamers’ Privacy</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 5, 2016, 60 Democratic House Representatives delivered a <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJuanVargas/status/805887659373633541" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">letter</a> to President Obama, urging him to draft an executive order to protect the privacy rights of 740,000 Dreamers enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program from attempts by the Trump administration to use their personal biometric data, social media profiles, home addresses and criminal histories to track and deport them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Two weeks later, The Verge <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/21/14012534/palantir-peter-thiel-trump-immigrant-extreme-vetting" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> on Palantir’s role as the secret engineer of the Analytical Framework for Intelligence, a tool that can be used to limit migration by tracking people, analyzing their activities and assessing or “vetting” their risk</b>. The Dreamers’ uncertainty ended when Vox <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/25/14390106/leaked-drafts-trump-immigrants-executive-order" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">published</a> six leaked executive orders, one of which scraps the DACA program and leaves the Dreamers slated for deportation once their current visas expire. Though Trump says his plan will “have a lot of heart,” there is still great uncertainty over the DACA program. Senators Lindsey Graham and Dick Durban have reintroduced the Bar Removal of Individuals who Dream and Grow our Economy (BRIDGE) Act, which could offer Dreamers <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/24/news/economy/daca-undocumented-immigrants/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">protection</a> as long as they have lived in the country continuously and have not been convicted of any significant crimes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Paul Kan, at the US Army War College, questioned whether mass deportations will be effective, saying:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2rem 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3rem; border-left: 0.5rem solid rgb(159, 161, 164); line-height: 2; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mass deportations enabled by good tech is no slam dunk. It’s not like Trump can create a new “deportation force,” grab people and then dump them across the brand new, beautiful wall he’s going to build. They still have to appear before a judge and have a date set for their removal from the US.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kan also called attention to the resistance. “In Afghanistan, our technology has at best led us to a stalemate against an adversary with less gear,” he said. “Imagine what well-connected, networked communities and cities can do to thwart mass deportations.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 900; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dreamers Make Contingency Plans, Officials Prepare for War</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ignacia Rodriguez, a policy advocate at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), told Truthout that many wonder what will be done with Dreamers’ personal information. Rodriguez reported that Dreamers have been consulting with immigration lawyers, making contingency plans and telling their stories under the hashtag #heretostay because “their activism makes them a harder target [for the Trump administration].” For <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2017/01/23/how-dreamers-preparing-case-donald-trump-ends-obama-immigration-actions/96805964/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">those</a> in the middle of law school or buying a house, they are left hanging on the vague assurances of the Trump administration. Ms. Rodriguez lamented, “We don’t know if [Trump] will allow people to live without fear of deportation.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NILC will support Dreamers along with the ACLU, which released its <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/here-aclus-7-point-plan-action-take-trump-administration" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">battle plan</a> on January 19, declaring that its 300 attorneys would “mount rapid response to immigration reads, file systemic litigation to challenge Fourth Amendment violations [and] … develop legal theories to defend sanctuary cities against federal action.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials in sanctuary cities are gearing up for a legal war with Trump, and the State of California retained the big guns, former Attorney General Eric Holder.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professor Susan Carle, from American University Washington College of Law, told Truthout that she expects a US Supreme Court case between one or more cities against the federal government over the issue of a state’s right to protect its citizens. She recalled, “Conservatives were always protecting states’ rights. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. It’s going to be really interesting to see if the justices still see it the same way.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 900; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Plot to Expose Thiel’s Secrets and Conflicts</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The nonprofit news site <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/sep/16/apply-thiel-fellowship/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">MuckRock</a>, in collaboration with the <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">Motherboard</a> news site, has filed six (of 500) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for its Thiel Fellowship, which employs three journalists to investigate Thiel’s activities. The NYPD, the CIA and the NSA claimed that any responsive documents were exempted to protect national security. Michael Morisy, cofounder of MuckRock, acknowledged in an interview that Thiel has driven tech forward and that Palantir could help government improve cyber security, but he cautioned, “It gets worrisome when tools are created for mass surveillance with little public oversight or control.” He continued, “Increasingly, local police are acting like intelligence agencies. There’s not much scrutiny. [Palantir] has won a lot of contracts with cities, states and federal agencies, but the public doesn’t know what it’s paying for.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For Thiel, conflicts of interest are often a sign that “someone understands something way better than if there’s no conflict of interest.” In an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/fashion/peter-thiel-donald-trump-silicon-valley-technology-gawker.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">interview</a> with The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, Thiel turned every question on its head, but such sophistry may not be sufficient for Palantir’s competitors and legal ethics experts. Professor Painter warned that if Thiel is still involved with the administration post-inauguration, the US Department of Justice or an agency inspector general could start investigations of his conflicts of interest. Palantir’s competitors could also contest awards of future government contracts.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 2; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir did not respond to requests for comment and has sought to distance itself from Trump’s agenda, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2017/01/12/palantir-ceo-has-not-been-asked-to-build-a-muslim-registry-and-would-refuse-anyway/#7296d23359e1" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">denying</a> that it would build a Muslim registry. Regardless, Palantir already provided the “<a href="https://www.palantir.net/blog/palantir-philosophy-or-what-s-name-anyway" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">seeing stone</a>” that Trump’s administration needs to become the most sophisticated dictatorship in history, in which Chairman Thiel is set to play a mostly shrouded role. Morisy of MuckRock, concluded, “I hope our institutions live up to their obligations to protect the interest of taxpayers and citizens. There was already a problem of the revolving door, now everybody’s on the same side of the door, involved in the private sector and government at the same time.” As a sign of the times, Thiel is <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/peter-thiel-california-governor-bid-233632" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;">considering</a> a run for governor of California.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2018/05/09/if-you-thought-cambridge-analytica-was-scary-well-this-lots-fcking-terrifying/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2018/05/09/if-you-thought-cambridge-analytica-was-scary-well-this-lots-fcking-terrifying/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...P<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">alantir first came to public attention thanks to investigations by US journalist Barrett Brown just</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.thecanary.co/2016/11/30/companies-watching-every-move-journalist-jailed-exposing-video/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">prior to his arrest and imprisonment</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Brown discovered that Palantir, HBGary Federal (later rebranded as</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="http://www.countertack.com/" target="blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">CounterTack</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">), and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Berico" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">Berico</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">were part of a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://wikileaks.org/IMG/pdf/WikiLeaks_Response_v6.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">dirty tricks campaign [pdf, p14]</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">to discredit</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><em style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">WikiLeaks</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> founder Julian Assange and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><em style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">Intercept</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">editor Glenn Greenwald.</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir has several divisions, including Defense, Cyber and Intelligence. The latter <a href="http://www.palantir.com/solutions/intelligence/" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">offers to integrate</a>:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2rem 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3rem; border-left: none; line-height: 1.6; quotes: " font-style="font-style" italic="italic" position="position" relative="relative" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">disparate data from disconnected data silos at massive scale for low-friction interaction with intelligence officers. Search through every shred of enterprise data at high speed, pull out significant intelligence, and perform intuitive, multi-dimensional analysis to reveal unseen patterns, connections, and trends. Enterprise data sources, unstructured cable traffic, structured identity data, email, telephone records, spreadsheets, network traffic and more can all be searched and analyzed without the need for a specialized query language.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2016, Palantir was <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/12/12/transition-adviser-peter-thiel-would-directly-profit-from-mass-deportations/" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">awarded</a> a $34.6m contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/21/14012534/palantir-peter-thiel-trump-immigrant-extreme-vetting" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">helped</a> the Customs and Border Patrol Agency create the Analytical Framework for Intelligence (AFI) system to track immigrants. Palantir also <a href="https://www.axios.com/peter-thiel-palantir-software-tracks-americans-silicon-valley-2690e4c9-5169-49c5-b480-95bb8a94d1d2.html" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">works</a> with Health and Human Services, the FBI and Homeland Security to track people as part of the ‘War on Terror’.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of Palantir’s products is ‘Gotham’, a system to identify corporate or government leakers, as this leaked video shows:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[vid]</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir and CA</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Sophie Schmidt, the </span><a href="https://www.celebfamily.com/business/eric-schmidt-family.html" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" transparent="transparent" box-sizing="box-sizing" inherit="inherit" line-height="line-height" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" outline="outline" px="px">daughter</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> of Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, </span><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/emails-peter-thiel-apos-palantir-091540405.html" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" transparent="transparent" box-sizing="box-sizing" inherit="inherit" line-height="line-height" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" outline="outline" px="px">used to work</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> as an intern at SCL Group, the parent company of CA. Schmidt reportedly </span><a href="https://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Emails-link-Peter-Thiel-s-Palantir-and-Eric-12787060.php" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" transparent="transparent" box-sizing="box-sizing" inherit="inherit" line-height="line-height" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" outline="outline" px="px">advised</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> former </span><a href="https://sclgroup.cc/" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" transparent="transparent" box-sizing="box-sizing" inherit="inherit" line-height="line-height" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" outline="outline" px="px">SCL</a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> head Alexander Nix to check out the work of Palantir.</span></font></p><div class="fluid-width-video-wrapper" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 397.781px 0px 0px; width: 707.813px; position: relative;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recently, whistleblower Christopher Wylie <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/peter-thiel-palantir-cambridge-analytica-whistleblower/2018/03/27/id/851114/" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">told</a> Britain’s MPs that Palantir had several meetings with Nix and that “senior Palantir employees” subsequently worked on data harvested by CA.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Palantir spokesperson <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/peter-thiel-palantir-cambridge-analytica-whistleblower/2018/03/27/id/851114/" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">denies</a> this:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2rem 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3rem; border-left: none; line-height: 1.6; quotes: " font-style="font-style" italic="italic" position="position" relative="relative" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir has never had a relationship with Cambridge Analytica nor have we ever worked on any Cambridge Analytica data.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/us/cambridge-analytica-palantir.html?mtrref=t.co&auth=login-email" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">reported</a> that, in 2013, UK-based Palantir employee Alfredas Chmieliauskas worked with CA, with access to the now infamous <a href="http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a852735/facebook-under-fire-50-million-users-data-leaked-cambridge-analytica/" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">50 million+</a> Facebook users’ data (that figure has since risen to around <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-exposed-87-million-users-to-cambridge-analytica/" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">87 million</a>).</font></p><h4 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 1rem 0px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 1.25; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fallout</font></span></h4><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the apparent <a href="http://ca-commercial.com/news/cambridge-analytica-and-scl-elections-commence-insolvency-proceedings-and-release-results-3" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">demise</a> of CA and SCL Elections, there is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/05/cambridge-analytica-scl-group-new-companies-names" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">speculation</a> about which other SCL affilates will fall on their sword, and whether the more recently formed company <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10911848" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">Emerdata</a> will gather up the spoils:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Wendy Siegelman</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@WendySiegelman</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> · 5 May 2018</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @WendySiegelman</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">My latest article, for @guardian???? @carolecadwalla @annmarlowe @ZarinaZabrisky @profcarroll @brexit_sham @J_amesp @submergingmkt @peterjukes @leahmcelrath @dcpoll @Delavegalaw @grantstern @KevinGHall @pasternack @lrozen @NatashaBertrand @traciemac_Bmore @RVAwonk @FranklinFoer</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wendy Siegelman</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@WendySiegelman</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here's the chart I created showing Emerdata Limited?—?the new Cambridge Analytica/SCL Grouphttps://medium.com/@wsiegelman/chart-emerdata-limited-the-new-cambridge-analytica-scl-group-63283f47670d …</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://medium.com/@wsiegelman/chart-emerdata-limited-the-new-cambridge-analytica-scl-group-63283f47670d"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://medium.com/@wsiegelman/chart-emerdata-limited-the-new-cambridge-analytica-scl-group-63283f47670d</font></a></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chart: Emerdata Limited — the new Cambridge Analytica/SCL Group?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Note: chart may be updated periodically, please share page link, not a screenshot.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">medium.com</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">232</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">07:34 - 5 May 2018</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads information and privacy</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">232 people are talking about this]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, revelations continue to emerge, with SCL <a href="https://thermopylaeco.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/the-tuesday-letter-inside-scl.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">admitting [pdf, p3]</a> in a 2010 email that, not long after the company was founded, it helped to break up strikes in the UK car industry:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2rem 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3rem; border-left: none; line-height: 1.6; quotes: " font-style="font-style" italic="italic" position="position" relative="relative" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1990 the first field trials for this methodology were undertaken by Strategic Communication Laboratories Ltd., a project management and implementation company, who successfully broke up a strike at a UK car transport plant.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also, emails <a href="https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/FOI-ref-0330-18-Correspondence-1-1.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">show [pdf, p7]</a> that SCL’s managing director Mark Turnbull and data scientist David Wilkinson were <a href="https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/05/05/revealed-the-emails-between-boriss-foreign-office-and-analytica/" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">asked</a> to present at a Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) conference in February 2017. The FCO <a href="https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/FOI-ref-0330-18-Correspondence-1-1.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">told [pdf, p8]</a> SCL it wanted to explore “our early Data Strategy for Foreign Policy and seek your views in shaping this”. <em style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">The Canary</em> has previously published the conference <a href="https://t.co/FZS5P790D2" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">programme [pdf]</a> and <a href="https://t.co/Ps7MTDz1TI" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">report [pdf]</a>.</font></p><h4 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 1rem 0px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; line-height: 1.25; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir and the UK</font></span></h4><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Undoubtedly, there will be more revelations in weeks to come; and not just with CA/SCL, given that Palantir is now <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-24/peter-thiel-s-palantir-spreads-its-tentacles-throughout-europe?cmpid=google&google_editors_picks=true" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">covering [paywall]</a> Europe too.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, Palantir has already worked for UK intelligence and was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">awarded</a> contracts to handle vast data sets on UK citizens for British spy agency GCHQ. The company also helped <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/22/palantir-xkeyscore-gchq-kite-intercept/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">develop</a>an <a href="https://theintercept.com/document/2017/02/21/xkeyscore-helper-notes/%20?" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">aid</a> for the spyware <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/07/01/nsas-google-worlds-private-communications/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">XKEYSCORE</a> programme. This was on behalf of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and its ‘<a href="https://www.privacyinternational.org/node/51" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">Five Eyes</a>‘ partners (in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), and was subsequently <a href="https://edwardsnowden.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2008-xkeyscore-presentation.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">exposed [pdf]</a> by whistleblower Edward Snowden. <span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">And a 2010 presentation on the joint NSA-GCHQ ‘<a href="https://theintercept.com/document/2017/02/22/mastering-the-internet/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">Mastering the Internet</a>‘ surveillance programme <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">recommended</a>running Palantir software on Android handsets (smartphones and tablets). </span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Palantir was also <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;">used</a> as part of a GCHQ project which sought to improve the agency’s ability to collect tweets, blog posts and news articles.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.6; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It remains to be seen if Palantir lives up to its all-seeing/all-knowing name (taken from <em style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">The Lord of the Rings</em>). But its record to date most definitely suggests we need to keep our eyes wide open.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reup w/ ICE right after 700 ppl raid in So.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">819 capt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">biz insider</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-letter-protest-palantir-ice-camps-2019-7</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Monday, Amazon Web Services employees circulated an internal letter demanding that Amazon stop working with big data company Palantir and that it take a stand against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Thursday, immigration rights protesters blocked traffic and interrupted an AWS conference in New York City because ofAWS's ties with ICE.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir runs its software on Amazon's cloud, and has about $50 million in contracts with ICE.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A year ago, Amazon faced similar pressure from employees over its sales of facial recognition services to law enforcement, as well as its dealings with Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Monday, a group of Amazon employees sent out an internal email calling on Amazon to stop working with the big data company Palantir, which works with federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This email, sent to employee mailing lists within Amazon Web Services, demanded that Palantir be removed from Amazon's cloud for violating its terms of service. It also called on Amazon to take a stand against ICE by making a statement establishing its position against immigration raids, deportations, and camps for migrants at the border.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ICE is preparing to begin nationwide raids of undocumented families on Sunday, the New York Times reported. This operation had previously been postponed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The world is watching the abuses in ICE's concentration camps unfold. We know that our company should, and can, do better," the letter said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir, a prominent data analysis startup that counts several government agencies as customers, has about $50 million in contracts with ICE, which reports indicate entails providing software to gather data on undocumented immigrants' employment information, phone records, immigration history, and similar information. Its software is hosted in the AWS cloud.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letter alleges that this is a violation of the AWS terms of service, which states that "[a]ny activities that are illegal, that violate the rights of others, or that may be harmful to others, our operations or reputation" may be grounds to "suspend or terminate" use of our services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letter said that Palantir enables ICE to "violate the rights of others," and working with the company is "harmful to our reputation."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The employees say in the letter that their protest is in the spirit of similar action at companies including Wayfair, Microsoft, and Salesforce, where workers have protested their employers' ties to ICE and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Workers across industries continue to resist having their labor used to power these abuses and Amazonians are proud to stand with them. Employees at Wayfair have walked out in protest of their company's contract with ICE, while Microsoft and Salesforce employees are organizing to stop their companies' respective border contracts. The time to act is now," the letter said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When members of Congress visited a facility recently, they learned that detained women were 'told by agents to drink from the toilets' if they wanted water. This is a horrifying violation of human rights — and it's powered by AWS," the letter said, alluding to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's reports from her tour of a CBP facility in Texas.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A person familiar with the matter tells Business Insider that the letter has sparked fierce debates on the employee mailing lists.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, on Thursday, protesters blocked traffic at an AWS Summit event in New York City and interrupted Amazon CTO Werner Vogels' talk, demanding that the cloud platform cut ties with ICE, ABC7NY reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The last letter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The origins of this week's letter date back to June 2018, when a group of Amazon employees sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and AWS CEO Andy Jassy demanding that the company stop providing its Rekognition facial recognition software to police, and that it stop its dealings with Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That original letter was signed by 500 employees, according to the new letter circulated this week.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This new letter claims that Jassy responded to these concerns at an all-hands meeting, saying that Amazon had no intention of making changes to its Rekognition business. According to the letter, Jassy later said: "Just because tech could be be misused doesn't mean we should ban it and condemn it."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just May, protesters demonstrated at Amazon's shareholder meeting over the treatment of its employees and environmental issues.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read the full letter below:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In June 2018, a group of concerned Amazonians sent a letter to Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy, demanding that AWS:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. Cease sales of surveillance technology to law enforcement and government agencies</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. Stop providing infrastructure to Palantir and any other Amazon partners who enable ICE, and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3. Implement strong transparency accountability measures for the sale and user of our services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since then, the company has shied away at every opportunity from acknowledging this letter signed by more than 500 employees. When confronted on these questions at a company all hands, Andy Jassy said "we feel really great and really strongly about the value that Amazon Rekognition is providing our custom res of all sizes and types of industries in law enforcement, and out of law enforcement." More recently, he added that "just because tech could be be misused doesn't mean we should ban it and condemn it," comparing Rekognition to a knife: "you could use a knife in a surreptitious way." As Amazonians, we are told to take Ownership for our work, meaning we "never say 'that's not my job.'" Passing the buck on responsibility for the effects of our work is not Ownership.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our demands have become even more urgent given recent news. The US government has been detaining people, including young children, in concentration camps under horrific conditions. Reports have described extreme overcrowding (one facility was holding 900 people, in a space designed for only 125), freezing temperatures (facilities are regularly referred to as "hieleras" or "iceboxes"), and cruelty from guards at these detention centers. When members of Congress visited a facility recently, they learned that detained women were "told by agents to drink from the toilets" if they wanted water. This is a horrifying violation of human rights -- and it's powered by AWS.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir, which runs on AWS services, provides the technical infrastructure used by ICE to collect and process information about people targeted for deportation. A 2016 court disclosure revealed that Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), the primary deportation arm of ICE, uses Palantir's systems to gather information for its cases.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The AWS Acceptable Use Policy states that "[a]ny activities that are illegal, that violate the rights of others, or that may be harmful to others, our operations or reputation" may be grounds to "suspend or terminate" use of our services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir directly enables ICE to "violate the rights of others" by powering the deportation processes that are rounding up immigrants and putting them in concentration camps. Additionally, hosting Palantir is "harmful to our reputation" because it hurts customer trust and leads to negative publicity. By continuing to host Palantir despite clear documentation of ongoing rights abuses that result from their products, AWS is choosing not to enforce its Terms of Service.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AWS has already kicked other customers off the platform for similar violations. WikiLeaks was kicked off for potentially "putting innocent pe eople in jeopardy." If WikiLeaks crossed a line by posting leaked documents (because AWS felt they might contribute to harm), Palantir has certainly crossed that line by directly collaborating with an agency that is demonstrably putting vulnerable people in jeopardy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Workers across industries continue to resist having their labor used to power these abuses and Amazonians are proud to stand with them. Employees at Wayfair have walked out in protest of their company's contract with ICE, while Microsoft and Salesforce employees are organizing to stop their companies' respective border contracts. The time to act is now.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We demand that Palantir be removed from AWS for its violation of our terms of service. We call on Amazon to take a public stand against these human rights violations and make a statement establishing their position against the ICE camps, mass raids, and deportations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The world is watching the abuses in ICE's concentration camps unfold. We know that our company should, and can, do better.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Join us in calling for a stop to our collaboration with ICE by signing onto the We Won't Build It Letter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/amazon-role-immigration-crackdown-190716194004183.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is Amazon's role in the US immigration crackdown?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Activists blast tech giant's business offering cloud services to ICE, the US government agency conducting raids.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Ben Piven • Short Answer </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">16 Jul 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Immigration activists rallied this week in eight cities - including at the New York City residence of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, delivering 270,000 petitions to demand that the company cut ties with United States immigration authorities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Amazon began its two-day annual shopping holiday on Monday, the country was emerging from a tense night of expected raids in urban areas to round up undocumented immigrants across the nation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How does Amazon support US immigration enforcement?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Activist group Mijente - which is calling for Amazon to "stop powering ICE" - says the cloud-computing behemoth has contracts with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). US authorities manage their immigration caseload with Palantir software that facilitates tracking down would-be deportees. Amazon Web Services hosts these databases, while Palantir provides the computer programmes to organise the data. So, Amazon effectively enables Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Amazon and Palantir have secured a role as the backbone for the federal government's immigration and law enforcement dragnet, allowing them to pursue multibillion-dollar government contracts in various agencies at every single level of law enforcement," says the petition on Mijente's website.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is ICE?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ICE is a federal law enforcement agency within DHS that is responsible for managing the federal immigration system. It combats the illegal movement of people and goods and has a division focused solely on deportation: Enforcement and Removal Operations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What did Trump order ICE to do?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On July 12, US President Donald Trump said that a nationwide wave of raids would happen over the weekend. The arrests were slated to take place in 10 metropolitan areas and net 2,000 migrant parents and children. The goal was to enforce deportation orders against people ineligible to remain in the US, mainly Central Americans who - during the last year - have arrived in significant numbers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Did the raids succeed?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Publicity around the plans largely stymied ICE raids on Sunday, although Trump on Monday described them as "very successful". Lawyers and advocates assisting immigrants said scattered raids resulted in few actual arrests. However, the government's crackdown is not over. ICE said more arrests will occur later in the week. This is an apparent change of DHS tactics to carry out smaller apprehensions over several days.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Guardian first reported that Amazon is hoping to broaden its DHS partnership to host biometric data for a federal database. This collaboration was the main focus of a rally on Monday in downtown Seattle at the company headquarters, among the handful taking place nationally to coincide with Prime Day. At that gathering, Jennifer Lee of the American Civil Liberties Union said Amazon was pitching its Rekognition facial identification technology that could result in "deportations without due process" and cause immigrant communities to live in fear. But publicly available procurement data indicate that ICE does not yet have a contract in place with Amazon for facial recognition services, an ICE spokesperson told Al Jazeera.[odd wording?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is the role of AI technology?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What does the company say?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A spokesperson for Amazon Web Services told Al Jazeera: "Companies and government organizations need to use existing and new technology responsibly and lawfully. There is clearly a need for more clarity from governments on what is acceptable use of AI and ramifications for its misuse, and we've provided a proposed legislative framework for this."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We remain eager for the government to provide this additional clarity and legislation," continued the statement, "and will continue to offer our ideas and specific suggestions".</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What do activists think?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the protest outside Bezos's luxury apartment building in Manhattan on Monday, Anshu Khadka, an activist with Desis Rising Up and Moving, shouted that "there's no doorman there" when ICE comes to immigrant homes and workplaces to detain people and deport family members.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week, activists disrupted the Amazon Web Services Summit in New York, playing recordings of immigrant families being split up as Amazon Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels was giving a keynote speech. New York Communities for Change and Make the Road NY were among the groups demonstrating. Some activists are boycotting everything Amazon, which includes Prime Video, Whole Foods, Kindle, and many other popular services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Data analytics firm Palantir, based in Palo Alto, California, is best described as a mix between Google and the CIA. It receives taxpayer dollars to provide the algorithms for many government agencies, whether related to counterterrorism or immigration enforcement. But activists recently have drawn attention to how the tech firm sells "mission-critical" tools that ICE uses to populate profiles and plan raids. Palantir's ICE contract is worth over $51m, according to the federal government. Palantir did not respond to Al Jazeera's request for comment.What is Palantir's role?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How does ICE operate?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An ICE spokesperson said that the agency's "Fugitive Operations teams target and arrest criminal aliens and other individuals who are in violation of our nation's immigration laws for the safety and security of our communities". The spokesperson added that 90 percent of those arrested by ICE last year "had either a criminal conviction(s), pending criminal charge(s), were an ICE fugitive, or illegally reentered the country after previously being removed". The ICE statement also said such individuals are "subject to immigration arrest, detention and - if found removable by final order - removal from the United States".</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why are activists calling to abolish ICE?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some members of the US Congress, including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, have proposed that ICE be disbanded. They say a more humane immigration system would be better than Trump's zero-tolerance policy of criminally prosecuting people who entered the US irregularly or without documents.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The US Border Patrol, which secures American borders, is a unit of Customs and Border Protection - a separate, sister agency of ICE that operates many of the detention centres along the southern border.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-surveillance-apple-watch-security-roundup/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Secret Palantir User Manual Sheds Light on How ICE and Law Enforcement Track Families</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Few Silicon Valley companies are more secretive than surveillance software provider Palantir, cofounded by Peter Thiel. Exactly what the company does, how it makes so much much money, and what it’s working on next is often shrouded in mystery. What is known is that Palantir’s surveillance software has become a backbone of US law enforcement, particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which since 2014 has reportedly had contracts ranging from $41 million to $51 million per year with Palantir for access to the company’s tracking database and management software. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, through a Freedom of Information Act request, Vice has gotten its hands on one of Palantir’s secret user manuals for law enforcement. The manual shows that with just the name of a person, law enforcement can use Palantir’s software to map that target's family relationships, get their Social Security number, address, phone number, height, weight, and eye color. Add a license plate number, and Palantir’s system can often allow law enforcement to track where people have been during any period of time. Though much of this kind of information is available to law enforcement via separate means, Vice reports that Palantir’s system “aggregates and synthesizes” it in such a way as to give “law enforcement nearly omniscient knowledge over any suspect they decide to surveil.” As ICE prepares massive raids of immigrant families this weekend, the revealed Palantir system sheds light on how the government tracks and finds people to arrest and deport.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amazon employees urge CEO Jeff Bezos to stop working with Palantir ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://reclaimthenet.org/amazon-palantir-aws-ice-immigrants/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 days ago - Amazon, the global retail and cloud computing giant, is coming under ... Palantir's ties with ICE is what reportedly caused some 500 Amazon ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Manual Shows How Law Enforcement Tracks Families | WIRED</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-surveillance-apple-watch-security-roundup/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 days ago - According to a new report this week, a Magecart hacking group has been breaking into misconfigured Amazon Web Services buckets, ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Report: Amazon, Palantir play "key" role in immigration enforcement ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.axios.com/amazon-palantir-ice-dhs-immigration-1540252984-b1139c3d-...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oct 23, 2018 - “Recent changes in policy and contracting at ICE have heightened the importance of two key tech companies: Amazon, as the primary cloud ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigation/2018/02/27/palantir-secretly-use-new-orleans-test-predictive-policing/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In? May and June 2013, when New Orleans’ murder rate was the sixth-highest in the United States, the Orleans Parish district attorney handed down two landmark racketeering indictments against dozens of men accused of membership in two violent Central City drug trafficking gangs, 3NG and the 110ers. Members of both gangs stood accused of committing 25 murders as well as several attempted killings and armed robberies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Subsequent investigations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and local agencies produced further RICO indictments, including that of a 22-year-old man named Evans “Easy” Lewis, a member of a gang called the 39ers who was accused of participating in a drug distribution ring and several murders.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Ronal Serpas, the department’s chief at the time, one of the tools used by the New Orleans Police Department to identify members of gangs like 3NG and the 39ers came from the Silicon Valley company Palantir. The company provided software to a secretive NOPD program that traced people’s ties to other gang members, outlined criminal histories, analyzed social media, and predicted the likelihood that individuals would commit violence or become a victim. As part of the discovery process in Lewis’ trial, the government turned over more than 60,000 pages of documents detailing evidence gathered against him from confidential informants, ballistics, and other sources — but they made no mention of the NOPD’s partnership with Palantir, according to a source familiar with the 39ers trial.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">KEY FINDINGS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir's software traced people’s ties to other gang members, outlined criminal histories, analyzed social media, and predicted the likelihood that individuals would commit violence or become a victim. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“heat list” in Chicago that purports to predict which people are likely drivers or victims of violence.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The partnership has been extended three times, with the third extension scheduled to expire on February 21st, 2018. The city of New Orleans and Palantir have not responded to questions about the program’s current status.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Predictive policing technology has proven highly controversial wherever it is implemented, but in New Orleans, the program escaped public notice, partly because Palantir established it as a philanthropic relationship with the city through Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s signature NOLA For Life program. Thanks to its philanthropic status, as well as New Orleans’ “strong mayor” model of government, the agreement never passed through a public procurement process.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, key city council members and attorneys contacted by The Verge had no idea that the city had any sort of relationship with Palantir, nor were they aware that Palantir used its program in New Orleans to market its services to another law enforcement agency for a multimillion-dollar contract.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“No one in New Orleans even knows about this, to my knowledge."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">crime-forecasting systemand has sold similar software to foreign intelligence services for predicting the likelihood of individuals to commit terrorism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NEWS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two weeks after Ali Winston’s investigation, Mayor Landrieu’s press office said that his office would not renew its pro bono contract with Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A New Orleans judge granted a request to issue subpoenas to Mayor Landrieu and others for records on Palantir’s software.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even within the law enforcement community, there are concerns about the potential civil liberties implications of the sort of individualized prediction Palantir developed in New Orleans, and whether it’s appropriate for the American criminal justice system.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They’re creating a target list, but we’re not going after Al Qaeda in Syria,” said a former law enforcement official who has observed Palantir’s work first-hand as well as the company’s sales pitches for predictive policing. The former official spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss their concerns with data mining and predictive policing. “Palantir is a great example of an absolutely ridiculous amount of money spent on a tech tool that may have some application,” the former official said. “However, it’s not the right tool for local and state law enforcement.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Six years ago, one of the world’s most secretive and powerful tech firms developed a contentious intelligence product in a city that has served as a neoliberal laboratory for everything from charter schools to radical housing reform since Hurricane Katrina. Because the program was never public, important questions about its basic functioning, risk for bias, and overall propriety were never answered.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Co-founded in 2004 by Alexander Karp and Peter Thiel (the company’s single largest shareholder), Palantir Technologies’ rapid ascent to becoming one of the highest-valued private Silicon Valley companies has been driven by lucrative contracts with the Pentagon and United States intelligence services, as well as foreign security services. In recent years, Palantir has sought to expand its data fusion and analysis business to the private sector, with mixed success.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prediction is not new territory for Palantir. Since at least 2009, Palantir was used by the Pentagon to predict the location of improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan and Iraq — a wartime risk-assessment program absent the civil liberties concerns that come with individualized predictive policing. Its commercial software platform, Metropolis, also reportedly uses predictive analytics to help businesses develop consumer markets and streamline investments. But before 2012 with the New Orleans program, there is no publicly available record that Palantir had ventured into predictive policing.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Interest and investment in predictive policing technology accelerated after 2009 when the National Institute of Justice began issuing grants for pilot projects in crime forecasting. Those grants underpin some of the best-known — and most scrutinized — predictive policing efforts in Chicago and Los Angeles. Programs vary, and the algorithms are often proprietary, but they all aim to ingest vast stores of data — geography, criminal records, the weather, social media histories — and make predictions about individuals or places likely to be involved in a crime. In the following years, many startup firms have struggled to monetize the crime-fighting method — most notably PredPol, a California startup whose contract awards have foundered after an initial blitz of publicity in the early 2010s.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As more departments and companies began experimenting with predictive policing, government-funded research cast doubts on its efficacy, and independent academics found it can have a disparate impact on poor communities of color. A 2016 study reverse-engineered PredPol’s algorithm and found that it replicated “systemic bias” against over-policed communities of color and that historical crime data did not accurately predict future criminal activity. One of the researchers, a Michigan State PhD candidate named William Isaac, had not previously heard of New Orleans’ partnership with Palantir, but he recognized the data-mapping model at the heart of the program. “I think the data they’re using, there are serious questions about its predictive power. We’ve seen very little about its ability to forecast violent crime,” Isaac said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to interviews and documents obtained by The Verge, Palantir first approached New Orleans in 2012 through a well-known intermediary: James Carville, the Democratic Party power broker and architect of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign. Carville is a paid adviser of Palantir whose involvement with the data-mining company dates back at least to 2011.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview, Carville told The Verge that he was the impetus for the collaboration between Palantir and New Orleans. “I am the sole driver of that project. It was entirely my idea,” said Carville, adding that he and Palantir CEO Alex Karp flew down to New Orleans to meet with Mayor Landrieu. “To me, it was a case of morality. Young people were shooting each other, and the public wasn’t as involved as they should have been.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documents outlining Palantir’s relationship with New Orleans describe the company’s role as “pro bono” and philanthropic. In 2015, Palantir mentioned its work in New Orleans in its annual philanthropic report, characterizing the effort as collaborative “network analysis” for law enforcement and other city stakeholders.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Carville’s remarks on a Bay Area public radio station four years ago elucidate how Palantir’s relationship with the city came about. In a January 2014 appearance on KQED’s Forum talk show, Carville and his wife Mary Matalin touted Palantir’s work in New Orleans as a major driver in the city’s two-year decline in the murder rate.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The CEO of a company called Palantir – the CEO, a guy named Alex Karp — said that they wanted to do some charitable work, and what’d I think? I said, we have a really horrific crime rate in New Orleans,” Carville told KQED Forum’s host Michael Krasny, without mentioning his professional relationship to Palantir. “And so he came down and met with our mayor… they both had the same reaction as to the utter immorality of young people killing other young people and society not doing anything about it. And we were able to, at no cost to the city, start integrating data and predict and intervene as to where these conflicts were going to be arising. We’ve seen probably a third of a reduction in our murder rate since this project started.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Unless you’re the cousin of some drug dealer that went bad, you’re going to be okay.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">agreementgranting New Orleans free access to the firm’s public sector data integration platform. Licenses and tech support for Palantir’s law enforcement platform can run to millions of dollars annually, according to an audit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January 2013, New Orleans would also allow Palantir to use its law enforcement account for LexisNexis’ Accurint product, which is comprised of millions of searchable public records, court filings, licenses, addresses, phone numbers, and social media data. The firm also got free access to city criminal and non-criminal data in order to train its software for crime forecasting. Neither the residents of New Orleans nor key city council members whose job it is to oversee the use of municipal data were aware of Palantir’s access to reams of their data.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir has a history of secrecy, and New Orleans is not the only instance of the company conducting business with government agencies through associated nonprofits, avoiding the public procurement process.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir provides data analysis and integration for the Los Angeles Police Department, but the arrangement was made through the LA Police Foundation rather than the LAPD itself. In New York, the firm’s contract was not disclosed by the city comptroller for security reasons (NYPD does this with surveillance equipment contracts), and it was never brought to the city council for approval. Palantir’s work with NYPD only became public when documents about its tumultuous relationship with the country’s largest police force were leaked to BuzzFeed reporter William Alden.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In New Orleans, according to extensive reporting by The Verge, Mayor Landrieu’s office, the city attorney, and the NOPD appear to be the only entities aware of the firm’s work in the city. Key members of the city council were not aware of Palantir’s work in New Orleans until approached by The Verge.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Palantir partnership would have likely received more scrutiny from the city council had it been itemized in a budget, but the council’s approval isn’t required for such a program. The structure of city government in New Orleans is predicated on a “strong mayor” model where the council does not have approval authority over contracts or policies for the city police department.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cities around the country have recently begun to grapple with the question of if and how municipalities should regulate data sharing and privacy. Some cities like Seattle and Oakland have passed legislation establishing committees to craft guidelines and conduct oversight, while others like New York are discussing what role city councils should play regarding privacy in the digital age.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several civil and criminal attorneys who are heavily involved with the New Orleans’ criminal justice system were also unaware of any predictive policing efforts by the NOPD. Multiple criminal attorneys had never seen Palantir analytic products as part of any discovery materials turned over to them in the course of trial cases, although such analysis would typically be required to be given to defense counsel if it had been used as part of an NOPD investigation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jason Williams, the president of the New Orleans city council and a former defense attorney, reviewed documentation of Palantir’s collaboration with NOPD at the request of The Verge. Williams said he had never heard of the company’s involvement with NOPD.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I don’t think there’s anyone in the council that would say they were aware that this had even occurred because this was not part and parcel to any of our budget allocations or our oversight,” Williams said in an interview during a council meeting.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Williams, who also served as a criminal court judge before his election to the city council in 2014, said that he wasn’t necessarily opposed to using data-driven methods to help at-risk New Orleanians.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“My primary concern would be how this was used in my city. If it was used to identify marginalized people that are at risk of being harmed, to stop them from being harmed, I’m going to have a whole different appreciation of that than I’m gonna have if this system was used nefariously.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Councilwoman Susan Guidry, who chairs the council’s criminal justice committee and has been in office since 2010, was also unaware of New Orleans’ partnership with Palantir and NOPD’s crime-forecasting work. When shown NOPD documentation of the program, Guidry told The Verge she had never encountered it before.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s especially disturbing that this level of intrusive research into the lives of ordinary residents is kept virtually a secret.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">represented its work in New Orleans as “developing a better understanding of violent crime propensity and designing targeted interventions to protect the city’s most vulnerable populations.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a public speaking appearance where he touted the efficacy of their work in New Orleans, Courtney Bowman, a Palantir civil liberties engineer heavily involved with the company’s work with NOPD, acknowledged that excessive secrecy could deepen the rift between law enforcement and over-policed communities. During a May 6th, 2016 presentation at the UC Berkeley School of Information’s DataEdge conference, Bowman said, “These sorts of programs only work if the community is comfortable with the degree to which this type of information is being applied and if they’re aware of how the information is being used.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The city of New Orleans and Palantir both declined requests for comment about how their partnership was formed, and what sort of input other elected officials and the public had into the data-mining firm’s predictive policing efforts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ronal Serpas, who ran NOPD when the partnership with Palantir began, said that he believed the city council and public at large should have been informed about the police department’s decision to engage in predictive policing with Palantir. The role of local legislatures and governing bodies in overseeing the sharing of government data is far from settled, but Serpas believes that agreements with firms like Palantir warrant greater scrutiny.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It is, to me, something that certainly requires a view, requires a look,” Serpas said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GARRET BEARD AND ALEX CASTRO/THE VERGE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though neither Palantir staff nor current New Orleans officials would talk about the day-to-day functioning of the crime-forecasting initiative, documents obtained by The Verge, external studies, and the recollections of former Chief Serpas offer a portrait of how the predictive policing beta test has functioned over the past six years.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s prediction model in New Orleans used an intelligence technique called social network analysis (or SNA) to draw connections between people, places, cars, weapons, addresses, social media posts, and other indicia in previously siloed databases. Think of the analysis as a practical version of a Mark Lombardi painting that highlights connections between people, places, and events. After entering a query term — like a partial license plate, nickname, address, phone number, or social media handle or post — NOPD’s analyst would review the information scraped by Palantir’s software and determine which individuals are at the greatest risk of either committing violence or becoming a victim, based on their connection to known victims or assailants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The data on individuals came from information scraped from social media as well as NOPD criminal databases for ballistics, gangs, probation and parole information, jailhouse phone calls, calls for service, the central case management system (i.e., every case NOPD had on record), and the department’s repository of field interview cards. The latter database represents every documented encounter NOPD has with citizens, even those that don’t result in arrests. In 2010, The Times-Picayune revealed that Chief Serpas had mandatedthat the collection of field interview cards be used as a measure of officer and district performance, resulting in over 70,000 field interview cards filled out in 2011 and 2012. The practice resembled NYPD’s “stop and frisk” program and was instituted with the express purpose of gathering as much intelligence on New Orleanians as possible, regardless of whether or not they committed a crime.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOPD then used the list of potential victims and perpetrators of violence generated by Palantir to target individuals for the city’s CeaseFire program. CeaseFire is a form of the decades-old carrot-and-stick strategy developed by David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College in New York. In the program, law enforcement informs potential offenders with criminal records that they know of their past actions and will prosecute them to the fullest extent if they re-offend. If the subjects choose to cooperate, they are “called in” to a required meeting as part of their conditions of probation and parole and are offered job training, education, potential job placement, and health services. In New Orleans, the CeaseFire program is run under the broader umbrella of NOLA For Life, which is Mayor Landrieu’s pet project that he has funded through millions of dollars from private donors.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Serpas, the person who initially ran New Orleans’ social network analysis from 2013 through 2015 was Jeff Asher, a former intelligence agent who joined NOPD from the CIA. If someone had been shot, Serpas explained, Asher would use Palantir’s software to find people associated with them through field interviews or social media data. “This data analysis brings up names and connections between people on FIs [field interview cards], on traffic stops, on victims of reports, reporting victims of crimes together, whatever the case may be. That kind of information is valuable for anybody who’s doing an investigation,” Serpas said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Palantir’s own documentation, Asher and his colleagues ran social network analyses of every victim of a fatal or non-fatal shooting in New Orleans from 2011 through 2013. Through this technique, which Asher dubbed “The NOLA Model,” the city devised a list of roughly 3,900 people who were at the highest risk of being involved in gun violence because of their connection to a previous shooter or victim. “We can identify 30-40% of shooting victims,” Asher claimed at Palantir’s 2014 internal conference. Asher declined repeated requests for an interview.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Theoretically, Asher’s approach is substantially influenced by the research of Andrew Papachristos, a Yale professor who tracked violence as if it were a communicable disease spreading through networks of association. However, since his work was cited as the academic underpinning for crime-forecasting models employed by PredPol and the Chicago Police Department, Papachristos has sought to distance his research from those methods.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Once NOPD generated its list of likely shooters and victims, the police department and social service providers — for the “carrot” side of NOLA For Life — would select people who were either incarcerated or on court supervision for a “call-in meeting.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mayor Landrieu’s office touted the program frequently, referring to it as an essential part of New Orleans’ criminal justice policy. Palantir also claimed credit: “we’re helping to break the cycle of violence” in New Orleans, read a passage in the company’s 2015 Philanthropy Engineering report. But its actual impact is unclear.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of the 308 people who participated in call-ins from October 2012 through March 2017, seven completed vocational training, nine completed “paid work experience,” none finished a high school diploma or GED course, and 32 were employed at one time or another through referrals. Fifty participants were detained following their call-in, and two have since died.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By contrast, law enforcement vigorously pursued its end of the program. From November 2012, when the new Multi-Agency Gang Unit was founded, through March 2014, racketeering indictments escalated: 83 alleged gang members in eight gangs were indicted in the 16-month period, according to an internal Palantir presentation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As long as they’re not putting resources into the hoods, nothing will change. You’re just putting on Band-Aids.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">short-lived. Even former NOPD Chief Serpas believes that the preventative effect of calling in dozens of at-risk individuals — and indicting dozens of them — began to diminish.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When we ended up with nearly nine or 10 indictments with close to 100 defendants for federal or state RICO violations of killing people in the community, I think we got a lot of people’s attention in that criminal environment,” Serpas said, referring to the racketeering indictments. “But over time, it must’ve wore off because before I left in August of ‘14, we could see that things were starting to slide”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nick Corsaro, the University of Cincinnati professor who helped build NOPD’s gang database, also worked on an evaluation of New Orleans’ CeaseFire strategy. He found that New Orleans’ overall decline in homicides coincided with the city’s implementation of CeaseFire program, but the Central City neighborhoods targeted by the program “did not have statistically significant declines that corresponded with November 2012 onset date.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Put plainly, the study did not confirm claims by Palantir and city officials that data-driven interventions were behind the temporary drop-off in violent crime.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though the call-ins dropped off, emails obtained by The Vergeindicate that the NOPD continued to use Palantir for law enforcement. Palantir declined repeated requests for comment, but the emails also show that the company was aware of the potential risks posed by predictive policing algorithms, and the negative publicity that comes with them. On May 23rd, 2016, Palantir civil liberties engineer Courtney Bowman responded to a request by NOPD crime analyst Zach Donnini about whether Palantir could help generate numerical rankings for individuals’ risk for committing or becoming the victim of a shooting.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I have some serious concerns about instituting a ranking or numeric scoring approach,” Bowman wrote. “It’s exactly this facet of Chicago’s “heat” list model that has exposed CPD to a great deal of public scrutiny,” the email reads, linking to two articles critiquing Chicago’s predictive policing approach.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The looming concern is that an opaque scoring algorithm substitutes the veneer of quantitative certainty for more holistic, qualitative judgement and human culpability,” Bowman wrote. “One of the lasting virtues of the SNA work we’ve done to date is that we’ve kept human analysts in the loop to ensure that networks are being explored and analyzed in a way that passes the straight-face test.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GARRET BEARD AND ALEX CASTRO/THE VERGE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Regardless of the sustainability of New Orleans’ murder reduction, Palantir used its work with the NOPD to solicit large contracts with other American cities. Later, the company won lucrative contracts for predictive programs with foreign governments.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to emails obtained by The Verge, Palantir marketing staff first contacted the Chicago Police Department in late 2013 about the possibility of selling a predictive policing package based on the firm’s New Orleans work, eventually settling on a $3 million price tag. Through a series of federal grants awarded to CPD beginning in 2009, Chicago Police and academics at the Illinois Institute of Technology had already created their own crime-forecasting program that assigned a risk score to individuals based on criminal data and social media histories.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On August 19th, 2014, Katie Laidlaw, a marketing executive at Palantir, emailed Chicago Police commander Jonathan Lewin. “I would like to follow-up on connecting with Superintendent McCarthy, specifically to frame potential Palantir engagement around our proven outcomes in supporting homicide reduction in New Orleans,” Laidlaw wrote.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The emails also show that Chicago Police hoped to receive grant money from the Department of Homeland Security to fund the Palantir software acquisition. However, the Chicago Police Department never piloted or purchased Palantir’s software.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Commander Lewin, who is in charge of Chicago’s “heat list” model of predictive policing and who was on the receiving end of Katie Laidlaw’s sales pitch for Palantir, said in an interview that he was aware of Palantir’s work with other law enforcement agencies but never approved either a test run or purchase of Palantir software.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though Palantir did not succeed in selling its New Orleans-tested tools to Chicago Police, the data-mining company has successfully sold forecasting products to foreign security services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2016, the Danish national police and intelligence services signed an 84-month contract with Palantir — reported in the Danish press to have been worth between $14.8 and $41.4 million — for a predictive technology package meant to identify potential terrorists. According to procurement documents, the program uses law enforcement data like license plate reader records, CCTV video, and police reports to make predictions about individuals’ likelihood to commit terrorism. Denmark’s national legislature had to pass an exemption to the European Union’s data protection regulations in order to purchase Palantir’s software.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m not surprised to find out that people are being detained abroad using that information.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reported that Israel’s security services used analytics systems that scraped social media and other data to predict potential “lone-wolf” attackers from Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and that Palantir was one of only two technology companies to provide predictive intelligence systems to Israeli security organizations. The New Orleans project is the first reported instance of Palantir using social media data as a part of the company’s social network analysis.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m not surprised to find out that people are being detained abroad using that information,” said New Orleans council president Jason Williams, pointing out the differences between the legal systems of Israel and the United States. “My concern is, the use of technology to get around the Constitution — that is not something that I would want to see in the United States.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Around the country, cities like New York are weighing legislation about how to oversee the algorithms government agencies use to make decisions. These debates have yet to begin in New Orleans, where the city’s intractable crime rate takes up much of the oxygen in public discourse. However, the secrecy of Palantir’s relationship with NOPD raises red flags to outside observers and prompts questions about how the company’s algorithms are being used.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">William Isaac, the Michigan State researcher who has analyzed predictive policing systems for bias, said he has long had suspicions that Palantir engaged in some sort of individual forecasting program. “They had only publicly acknowledged the extent to which their technology is data deconfliction and visualization,” Isaac said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After being walked through the documentation of Palantir’s New Orleans project, Isaac said the program was remarkably similar to Chicago’s individual “heat list” model, which a RAND Corporation study found had no impact on violent crime and was overwhelmingly composed of young African-American and Latino men with extensive law enforcement contact.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If you’re trying to predict anything, you need to have some representation across the universe that you’re trying to predict. If you’re trying to predict crime, you need to have positive and negative examples for every possible offense,” Isaac said. Police departments tend to have good data about communities where they are present but little data about communities where they do not patrol as vigorously — which tend to be affluent and white.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The same flaws that were in the Chicago predictive program are going to be amplified in New Orleans’ data set,” Isaac said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The secrecy surrounding the NOPD program also raises questions about whether defendants have been given evidence they have a right to view. Sarah St. Vincent, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, recently published an 18-month investigation into parallel construction, or the practice of law enforcement concealing evidence gathered from surveillance activity. In an interview, St. Vincent said that law enforcement withholding intelligence gathering or analysis like New Orleans’ predictive policing work effectively kneecaps the checks and balances of the criminal justice system. At the Cato Institute’s 2017 Surveillance Conference in December, St. Vincent raised concerns about why information garnered from predictive policing systems was not appearing in criminal indictments or complaints.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s the role of the judge to evaluate whether what the government did in this case was legal,” St. Vincent said of the New Orleans program. “I do think defense attorneys would be right to be concerned about the use of programs that might be inaccurate, discriminatory, or drawing from unconstitutional data.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Palantir’s partnership with New Orleans had been public, the issues of legality, transparency, and propriety could have been hashed out in a public forum during an informed discussion with legislators, law enforcement, the company, and the public. For six years, that never happened.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Correction: The article previously stated incorrectly that Palantir was the world’s fifth most valuable company. It is among the highest-valued private companies in Silicon Valley.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was reported in partnership with The Verge. Click hereto read more on technology and science on their website.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ABOUT THE REPORTER</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALI WINSTON</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MAIN</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see 2 for newer</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">activ suppr</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir, in 2011, was involved in a plan to spy on labor unions and activists.” DN (occupy?)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigation/2018/02/27/palantir-secretly-use-new-orleans-test-predictive-policing/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">capt 817</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tag?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/HBGary</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Justin Mikolay, hired at the Department of Defense, was previously a registered lobbyist for Palantir. His title at the tech firm was “evangelist.” Mikolay lobbied for the “procurement/deployment of the Palantir Government software platform” throughout intelligence and defense agencies, according to disclosure records.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mikolay was a speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta between 2011 and 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile. Mikolay also previously served as a speechwriter for current Secretary of Defense James Mattis. He declined to comment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-march-15-2018/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Secret Military History of the Internet</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mitch Jeserich talks to Yasha Levine about the secret origins of the internet, tracing it back to a Pentagon counterinsurgency surveillance project. Yasha Levine is an investigative journalist for Pando Daily, a San Francisco-based news magazine focused on covering the politics and power of big tech. He is the author of the book Surveillance Valley: The Secret … </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OMFG</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bruce Lund, a senior member of In-Q-Tel’s technical staff, noted in a 2012 paper that “monitoring social media” is increasingly essential for government agencies seeking to keep track of “erupting political movements, crises, epidemics, and disasters, not to mention general global trends.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The recent wave of investments in social media-related companies suggests the CIA has accelerated the drive to make collection of user-generated online data a priority. Alongside its investments in start-ups, In-Q-Tel has also developed a special technology laboratory in Silicon Valley, called Lab41, to provide tools for the intelligence community to connect the dots in large sets of data.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February, Lab41 published an article exploring the ways in which a Twitter user’s location could be predicted with a degree of certainty through the location of the user’s friends. On Github, an open source website for developers, Lab41 currently has a project to ascertain the “feasibility of using architectures such as Convolutional and Recurrent Neural Networks to classify the positive, negative, or neutral sentiment of Twitter messages towards a specific topic.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Collecting intelligence on foreign adversaries has potential benefits for counterterrorism, but such CIA-supported surveillance technology is also used for domestic law enforcement and by the private sector to spy on activist groups.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir, one of In-Q-Tel’s earliest investments in the social media analytics realm, was exposed in 2011 by the hacker group LulzSec to be in negotiationfor a proposal to track labor union activists and other critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobbying group in Washington. The company, now celebrated as a “tech unicorn” — a term for start-ups that reach over $1 billion in valuation — distanced itself from the plan after it was exposed in a cache of leaked emails from the now-defunct firm HBGary Federal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lee Guthman, an executive at Geofeedia, told reporter John Knefel that his company could predict the potential for violence at Black Lives Matter protests just by using the location and sentiment of tweets. Guthman said the technology could gauge sentiment by attaching “positive and negative points” to certain phrases, while measuring “proximity of words to certain words.”Yet other In-Q-Tel-backed companies are now openly embracing the practice. Geofeedia, for instance, promotes its research into Greenpeace activists, student demonstrations, minimum wage advocates, and other political movements. Police departments in Oakland, Chicago, Detroit, and other major municipalities have contracted with Geofeedia, as well as private firms such as the Mall of America and McDonald’s.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Privacy advocates, however, have expressed concern about these sorts of automated judgments.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When you have private companies deciding which algorithms get you a so-called threat score, or make you a person of interest, there’s obviously room for targeting people based on viewpoints or even unlawfully targeting people based on race or religion,” said Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She added that there is a dangerous trend toward government relying on tech companies to “build massive dossiers on people” using “nothing but constitutionally protected speech.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CIA’s Venture Capital Arm Is Funding Skin Care Products That Collect DNA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HOW PETER THIEL’S PALANTIR HELPED THE NSA SPY ON THE WHOLE WORLD</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sam Biddle</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">February 22 2017, 3:06 a.m.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alexander "Alex" Karp, co-founder and chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks during the WSJDLive Global Technology Conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016. The conference brings together an unmatched group of top CEOs, founders, pioneers, investors and luminaries to explore tech opportunities emerging around the world. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite all the grandstanding about lucrative, shadowy government contracts, co-founder Karp does not shy away from taking a stand in the debate over government surveillance. In a Forbes profile in 2013, he played privacy lamb, saying, “I didn’t sign up for the government to know when I smoke a joint or have an affair. … We have to find places that we protect away from government so that we can all be the unique and interesting and, in my case, somewhat deviant people we’d like to be.” In that same article, Thiel lays out Palantir’s mission with privacy in mind: to “reduce terrorism while preserving civil liberties.” After the first wave of revelations spurred by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, Palantir was quick to deny that it had any connection to the NSA spy program known as PRISM, which shared an unfortunate code name with one of its own software products. The current iteration of Palantir’s website includes an entire section dedicated to “Privacy & Civil Liberties,” proclaiming the company’s support of both:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies is a mission-driven company, and a core component of that mission is protecting our fundamental rights to privacy and civil liberties. …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some argue that society must “balance” freedom and safety, and that in order to better protect ourselves from those who would do us harm, we have to give up some of our liberties. We believe that this is a false choice in many areas. Particularly in the world of data analysis, liberty does not have to be sacrificed to enhance security. Palantir is constantly looking for ways to protect privacy and individual liberty through its technology while enabling the powerful analysis necessary to generate the actionable intelligence that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies need to fulfill their missions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s hard to square this purported commitment to privacy with proof, garnered from documents provided by Edward Snowden, that Palantir has helped expand and accelerate the NSA’s global spy network, which is jointly administered with allied foreign agencies around the world. Notably, the partnership has included building software specifically to facilitate, augment, and accelerate the use of XKEYSCORE, one of the most expansive and potentially intrusive tools in the NSA’s arsenal. According to Snowden documents published by The Guardian in 2013, XKEYSCORE is by the NSA’s own admission its “widest reaching” program, capturing “nearly everything a typical user does on the internet.” A subsequent report by The Intercept showed that XKEYSCORE’s “collected communications not only include emails, chats, and web-browsing traffic, but also pictures, documents, voice calls, webcam photos, web searches, advertising analytics traffic, social media traffic, botnet traffic, logged keystrokes, computer network exploitation targeting, intercepted username and password pairs, file uploads to online services, Skype sessions, and more.” For the NSA and its global partners, XKEYSCORE makes all of this as searchable as a hotel reservation site.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But how do you make so much data comprehensible for human spies? As the additional documents published with this article demonstrate, Palantir sold its services to make one of the most powerful surveillance systems ever devised even more powerful, bringing clarity and slick visuals to an ocean of surveillance data.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PALANTIR’S RELATIONSHIP WITH government spy agencies appears to date back to at least 2008, when representatives from the U.K.’s signals intelligence agency, Government Communications Headquarters, joined their American peers at VisWeek, an annual data visualization and computing conference organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Attendees from throughout government and academia gather to network with members of the private sector at the event, where they compete in teams to solve hypothetical data-based puzzles as part of the Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST) Challenge. As described in a document saved by GCHQ, Palantir fielded a team in 2008 and tackled one such scenario using its own software. It was a powerful marketing opportunity at a conference filled with potential buyers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the demo, Palantir engineers showed how their software could be used to identify Wikipedia users who belonged to a fictional radical religious sect and graph their social relationships. In Palantir’s pitch, its approach to the VAST Challenge involved using software to enable “many analysts working together [to] truly leverage their collective mind.” The fake scenario’s target, a cartoonishly sinister religious sect called “the Paraiso Movement,” was suspected of a terrorist bombing, but the unmentioned and obvious subtext of the experiment was the fact that such techniques could be applied to de-anonymize and track members of any political or ideological group. Among a litany of other conclusions, Palantir determined the group was prone to violence because its “Manifesto’s intellectual influences include ‘Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, [and] Cuban revolutionary Jose Martí,’ a list of military commanders and revolutionaries with a history of violent actions.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-protesters-gathered-outside-peter-thiels-mansion-this-weekend</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://theintercept.com/2017/03/02/palantir-provides-the-engine-for-donald-trumps-deportation-machine/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/22/peter-thiels-startup-helps-authorities-track-illegal-immigrant/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Data-mining and analytics firm Palantir, co-founded by Gawker-bankrupting tech billionaire Peter Thiel, remains a secretive purveyor of intelligence-gathering tools. While a May report revealed the company's struggles retaining blue chip commercial clients, it still retains contracts with some government agencies. Recently-released documents uncoverthat the company has quietly provided assistance to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) by contributing to an info analysis system that draws information from multiple law enforcement databases. This existing relationship could assist Trump in his stated plans to ramp up the US' immigration vetting process.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Training documents suggest that Palantir has lent its tech to the CBP's program, called the Analytical Framework for Intelligence (AFI), which draws and analyzes information from an array of federal, state and local law enforcement databases. That info can be quite personal, from names and addresses to known associations, travel itineraries, immigration records, and even physical traits like fingerprints or tattoos. Just how central AFI is to CBP's intelligence is unknown. But the government body lends the program out to other law enforcement agencies, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report released last September. Those include: The Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Office of Intelligence & Analysis and the US Coast Guard's Office of Intelligence.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All this information comes from heavily redacted AFI documents the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained through a lawsuit. While the program was known and avowed -- it has a brief listing on the DHS's website -- the documents reveal Palantir's relationship and suggest how the company contributed to its development. While AFI was initially created to help CBP "identify, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who pose a potential law enforcement or security risk, and to improve border security," according to a 2012 report, it has grown from a search-and-analysis tool to become its own database of material to increase efficiency.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ultimately, the program uses algorithms to create risk profiles of individuals. These mathematical formulas were what EPIC sued CBP last year to obtain. In the process, the agency released the documents, though they are so redacted that Palantir's specific role and contributions aren't clear. But there's enough to say that Palantir is involved with AFI, EPIC attorney John Tran said, and the company played "an active role in management and upkeep of the system."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"AFI generates risk assessments for travellers," Tran told The Verge. "But we don't know how the scores are being generated and what the factors are. What if there's an error? Users should have an opportunity to correct the error, users should have an opportunity understand what goes into generating the score."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These concerns are amplified by reports shortly after the presidential election that Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel had joined Trump's transition team. Even more alarming was Thiel's refusal to confirm that he'd signed an ethics agreement acknowledging that he wouldn't financially benefit from transition activities, The Verge pointed out.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the databases that AFI draws from is the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), a Bush-era index of information on foreign nationals from mostly Muslim countries who registered with the US government. This is the "Muslim registry" that Trump either wants to reinstate or replicate, despite members of the tech industry outright refusing to help build such a database. Whether one is built with help from Palantir is uncertain, but the tools it already provided could help Trump track individuals his administration deems immigration risks anyway.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source: The Verge</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this article: AFI, AnalyticalFrameworkForIntelligence, cbp, culture,CustomsAndBorderProtection, dhs, immigration, palantir, PeterThiel, security</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">--</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Thiel's startup helps authorities track illegal immigrants - Engadget</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.engadget.com/.../peter-thiels-startup-helps-authorities-track-illegal-immig...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12 hours ago - Peter Thiel's startup helps authorities track illegal immigrants ... chip commercial clients, it still retains contracts with some government agencies. ... on the DHS's website -- the documents reveal Palantir's relationship and suggest ... This is the "Muslim registry" that Trump either wants to reinstate or replicate, ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Documents suggest Palantir could help power Trump's 'extreme ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.theverge.com/2016/12/.../palantir-peter-thiel-trump-immigrant-extreme-vetting</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1 day ago - In a 2012 report, DHS highlights AFI's ability allow agents to search ... Thiel's company hascontracts with the Department of Justice, the Defense ... Muslim ones with the exception of North Korea — to register with the federal ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How Silicon Valley's Palantir wired Washington - POLITICO</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.politico.com/story/2016/08/palantir-defense-contracts-lobbyists-226969</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Aug 14, 2016 - Palantir founder Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, got the CIA to ... When a little-known Silicon Valley software startup began vying for national security contracts, ... to speak publicly, got an inside track soon after its inception in 2004. ... Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security and the ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tech investor Thiel explains decision to speak at RNC | TheHill</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thehill.com/policy/.../287804-tech-investor-thiel-explains-decision-to-speak-at-rnc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jul 14, 2016 - "Peter Thiel is attending and speaking at the RNC in his personal .... Nearly half of Trump backers say he'll make a database to track Muslims.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DHS ordered me to scrub records of Muslims with terror ties | TheHill</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thehill.com/blogs/.../268282-dhs-ordered-me-to-scrub-records-of-muslims-with-terror</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Feb 5, 2016 - DHS ordered me to scrub records of Muslims with terror ties. Amid the chaos of the 2009 holiday travel season, jihadists planned to slaughter ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Missing: thiel ?track ?contract</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ACT - DHS Eagle II Contract Holder</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.actnow.com/contracts/dhs-eagle-ii</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ACT is an Eagle II contract holder on the Other Small Business Track of Functional Category 1. Our base period of performance is from 9-9-13 to 9-8-18.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Missing: thiel ?muslim</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former DHS employee ADMITS Obama forced them to SCRUB ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">therightscoop.com/former-dhs-employee-admits-obama-forced-them-to-scrub-record...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jun 16, 2016 - Phillip Haney, a former DHS employee and whistleblower, wrote ... Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that. .... DHS IS CONTRACTS NOT UNDER OUR LAWS AND RULES AS ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How Palantir Is Taking Over New York City - Gizmodo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gizmodo.com/how-palantir-is-taking-over-new-york-city-1786738085</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sep 22, 2016 - Co-founded in 2004 by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, Palantir's inner workings remain ... using the technology to track illegal cigarette importation rings and ... of Muslim communities without warrants or specific threats—also uses Palantir. ... A records request from Gizmodo for the department'scontract with the ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Killer App | Washingtonian</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.washingtonian.com/2012/01/31/killer-app/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jan 31, 2012 - After 9/11, Karp had reconnected with Thiel, who had the idea that Silicon Valley .... center, the hub of its global campaign to track down terrorists. ... still hadn't won a government contractor earned a dollar of revenue. ..... Protesters Ask Obama to End Program They Fear Could Lead toMuslim Registry.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How The CIA Made Google - MintPress News</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.mintpressnews.com/cia-made-google/201521/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jan 26, 2015 - ... global 'war on terror' consisting of prolonged military invasions in the Muslim world ...... In 2010, Google signed a multi-billion dollar no-bid contract with the NSA's .... electronic surveillance, to keep “track of individuals” and understand “how .... Thiel had also met with Gilman Louie of In-Q-Tel, securing the ..</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.exposedbycmd.org/research-cited/thiel-gain-trump-transition/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unlocking Secrets, if Not Its Own Value. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Karp, chief of Palantir Technologies, has resisted calls for it go public. Despite a growing number of private clients, he says an I.P.O.’s emphasis on stock price would be “corrosive to our culture.” Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies will not help you share, message, pin, post or chat. It does not exist to make you more social or connected, or even to help advertisers get to you. Its technology is deeply geeky, its work secretive. Nonetheless, it’s one of the most valuable private tech companies in Silicon Valley.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Founded in 2004, in part with $2 million from the Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital arm, Palantir makes software that has illuminated terror networks and figured out safe driving routes through a war-torn Baghdad. It has also tracked car thieves, helped in disaster recovery and traced salmonella outbreaks. United States attorneys deployed its technology against the hedge fund SAC Capital, which was also an early investor in the company. (SAC, which changed its name to Point72 Asset Management after it pleaded guilty to insider trading charges, declined to comment on its investment.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s software has been used at JPMorgan Chase to spot cyberfraud and to sell foreclosed homes; at Bridgewater Associates to help figure out investments for its $157 billion under management, and at Hershey to increase chocolate profits. The technology is complex, but the premise is simple: The software consumes huge amounts of data — from local rainfall totals to bank transactions — mashes it together and makes conclusions based on those unlikely combinations. Where is a terrorist attack likely to occur? What is a bad financial bet?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This year, Palantir, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., is expected to bring in about $1 billion in revenue, mostly from private companies interested in adaptations of its intelligence software. Though it is not yet profitable, investors have given Palantir almost $900 million in total. The most recent round, last December, sold shares in the company to investors at an implied valuation for the company of $9 billion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All of this has its investors, including some of the world’s most successful hedge funds, salivating for a big payday from an initial public offering. “The company has been incredibly successful, and every investor likes when companies go public,” Justin Fishner-Wolfson, a managing partner at 137 Ventures, which is one of those investors, said in an email.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You would think this would be exciting for Alex Karp, 46, Palantir’s co-founder and chief executive. But Mr. Karp, who has a doctorate in philosophy and an idealistic vision for the company, says he is resisting the big wealth and publicity of an I.P.O. He fears that the money — and the emphasis on stock price — will destroy Palantir’s mission: to use its software to improve the world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies, which has 1,500 employees, has government and private clients worldwide. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An I.P.O. “is corrosive to our culture, corrosive to our outcomes,” he said. A lean man with distinctive sprouts of graying hair, Mr. Karp holds about 10 percent of Palantir. That makes him nearly a billionaire on paper, but he rents a townhouse, his only permanent residence, near the company’s headquarters. He doesn’t know how to drive, either. His backers and Palantir’s clients, he added, “do not see us as supernormal.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When you are saving the world, fighting fraud and slave labor, you can do great things,” Mr. Karp said. Palantir does not charge for most humanitarian work, which is a source of internal pride. “What concerns me,” he said, “is working with commercial entities, and non-U.S. governments.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is the rub. Mr. Karp is eloquent on the subject of Palantir saving lives, but it is in business to make money — as are its eager investors. It actively seeks corporate contracts worth tens of millions, and is getting bigger by the day. People familiar with the company say it has big deals with insurers, health care companies and media corporations, among others. Its advisers include James Carville, the Democratic strategist; Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state; George J. Tenet, the former C.I.A. director; and Michael Ovitz, the former head of Disney Studios and Hollywood superagent.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir is growing by selling software to private companies. Whether those companies will properly use its privacy safeguards, which were designed for the government, is entirely up to those customers. Palantir has worked to recover from its own ethical lapses, but Mr. Karp acknowledges that it cannot control the ethics of its customers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, Palantir stands out in the tech industry. Near Mr. Karp’s office are books that employees are encouraged to read on subjects like database structures, critical histories of the C.I.A. and improvisational theater. The company caps salaries at $137,000 a year and bonuses at $15,000; it allows internal stock sales, but only up $300,000 a year. Given the current Valley gold rush, where mundane work can make people millionaires before 30, a place where engineers settle for a “mere” total of $450,000 seems extraordinary.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead of selling stock to the public, Mr. Karp and other executives are toying with the idea of creating new kinds of financial instruments, like a bond that pays off on future earnings, to unlock a bit of Palantir’s value.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You may not get rich” working at Palantir, Mr. Karp said, but “you live like the prince of a small municipality.” That means not just the usual free food, drinks and foosball that are expected in Palo Alto companies, but also “interesting work that matters.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Its software consumes vast amounts of data for projects as diverse as detecting cyberfraud, tracing salmonella outbreaks and aiding in disaster relief. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ideals vs. Commerce</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir is not the first company dealing with big data that has been conflicted between ideals and commerce. As graduate students at Stanford, Sergey Brin and Larry Page wrote that “advertising-funded search engines will be inherently biased toward the advertisers.” Then they started Google, which makes money from advertising. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook used to talk about a society of complete openness, while mining people’s lives to sell ads.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The issues at Palantir go beyond advertising. Critics are skeptical of the company’s self-aggrandizing promises of privacy protection. But executives worry more about what compromise might do to the company — and to society.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Courtney Bowman, a former Google employee, works at a Palantir as a “civil liberties engineer,” examining Palantir’s obligations and making recommendations about how lawmakers should think about the power of modern technology. Palantir also sponsors conferences on privacy in the age of big data.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I was a quantitative analyst at Google, doing ad auction design and targeting,” he says. “I had access to ways of deriving personal identity information without breaking any laws. It was a constant anxiety to me.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A feature of Palantir software is a series of safeguards limiting who can see particular data, along with “audit trails” that enable investigators to check that the rules were followed. While audit-trail technology is built inside private-sector versions of Palantir, its use is not mandated.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What keeps me up at night is that we have to keep thinking about this as we grow into new markets and new regions,” Mr. Bowman continued. “As you move into higher levels of computing complexity, you can’t retreat into the argument that this,” the technology of finding hidden things, “is neutral.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To Palantir’s critics, such introspection is a collective delusion at best. “They are a key force in the surveillance-industrial complex, but they are in denial about it,” said Christopher Soghoian, a technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Their product is used by state and local law enforcement. It’s problematic for them to spread money to their critics at conferences.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s offices in Palo Alto, Calif., house computer monitors galore, not to mention more unusual desk décor, a cot and games. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2011, the world got a taste of what could go wrong with Palantir’s confluence of commerce and surveillance. Along with two Beltway intelligence firms, a Palantir employee had pitched a Washington law firm on ways that it could expose the workings of WikiLeaks, the group that publishes secret government and private-sector information. The pitch included the idea of using disinformation and cyberattacks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The idea fizzled, but Anonymous, the loosely associated network of cyberactivists, posted both the pitch and emails indicating that Palantir also proposed creating misinformation about journalists, including Glenn Greenwald, who wrote in support of WikiLeaks and who recently shared a Pulitzer Prize for his articles on Edward J. Snowden’s leaking of National Security Agency spying documents.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Karp publicly apologized to Mr. Greenwald. On the recommendation of an outside law firm, the employee was suspended for a while, but still works at Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inside Palantir, people were equally troubled by published emails in which the employee compared the law-firm work to “money falling from the sky for those of us used to working for the government sector.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Palantir had carried out the proposed action on WikiLeaks, “we would have collapsed,” said Ari Gesher, who serves as a recruiter and public face of Palantir. “We really learned that we do work in areas where we come into contact with bad actors. We have to be vigilant.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Back then, Palantir had a few hundred employees, and a culture of internal discussion on any number of issues. There are still such talks, but the company is now much larger — making a consensus harder to establish. Should Palantir keep working with the British government, despite its harsh press laws? The contracts continue. Some employees do not want Palantir aiding Israel, because they disagree with its policies toward Palestinians. There are still contracts with the Israeli government. Palantir has decided not to work with China. After an internal debate, the company decided not to do business with tobacco companies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s products do help the United States military kill people, Mr. Karp agrees, but only those with whom the nation is at war. Palantir is “building something for the betterment of the world,” he says, “but not in absence of realities about the world.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Palantir engineer surrounded by multiple monitors and interesting desk décor. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Palantir expands into offering services to the private sector — now perhaps 70 percent of its business — Mr. Karp’s worry is losing control of what happens with its software. The privacy controls are, after all, optional. And, ultimately, it can’t control who gets the software. If, for example, a tobacco company wanted Palantir technology, it could acquire an existing Palantir client.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The thing Alex worries about the most is they have a culture that’s hard to sustain as it grows,” said Mr. Carville, the Democratic consultant. “I take walks around Stanford with him, and he talks about it: ‘If we become something besides Palantir, what are we?’ ”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir began in the mind of Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor and PayPal founder. He began thinking about it in 2003, a year after he sold PayPal to eBay. It was two years after the terrorist attacks on the United States, and Mr. Thiel, a fierce libertarian, wondered if the world could be made safer without losing freedoms.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I felt we were drifting to a place in the U.S. we’d have a lot fewer civil liberties and no real effective protection,” Mr. Thiel said. He enlisted Mr. Karp, a college friend, as well as veterans of PayPal and his investment fund.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, he named Palantir after a set of magic stones in “The Lord of the Rings” that grant powerful people the ability to see the truth from afar. The company headquarters are called the Shire, after the home of the Hobbits.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s founders started with an idea from PayPal. At one point, PayPal was losing the equivalent of 150 percent of its revenue to stolen credit card numbers. It figured out how computers could spot activity — like a flurry of payments to a brand new account — at a global scale. The flagged actions would then be put before a PayPal employee to investigate.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s founders thought the same approach would work for national security. Almost no one in the venture capital world agreed except In-Q-Tel, the C.I.A.’s venture fund, which gave Palantir $2 million; Mr. Thiel eventually put in about $30 million of his own money. In-Q-Tel gave the founders introductions to the C.I.A. and other spy outfits.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ari Gesher, who serves as a recruiter and public face of the company</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s first full-fledged C.I.A. job was in 2008. Mr. Karp got more work from word of mouth, and donated Palantir’s technology to cyberactivists, who mapped Russian hackers attacking the nation of Georgia in 2008. (The spyware was rumored to have found Osama bin Laden, but Palantir would not confirm or deny such jobs.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To drum up private-sector business, Mr. Thiel called on Mr. Ovitz, whom he knew through Marc Andreessen, the former Netscape whiz kid turned venture capitalist. At first, Mr. Ovitz thought Palantir could be used in selling online ads, but the housing crisis changed his thinking. Banks had thousands of homes in foreclosure across the country, and no idea how to efficiently clear the backlog in a collapsing market.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The idea was to pick one bank, and the rest would follow,” Mr. Ovitz said. JPMorgan was the first. Much as Palantir figured out navigating Baghdad by analyzing recent roadside attacks, satellite images and moon phases, it derived home-sale prices by looking at school enrollments, employment trends and retail sales. Data that JPMorgan thought would take two years to integrate was put into action in eight days.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JPMorgan still uses Palantir for cybersecurity, fraud detection and other work, loading half a terabyte of data onto a Palantir system each day, according to a Palantir video. A spokesman for JPMorgan said the bank uses Palantir, but would not comment on specific projects.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Morgan Stanley is another customer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“No human can look at all the data sources at one time,” said Jim Rosenthal, Morgan Stanley’s chief operating officer. The company uses Palantir to spot money laundering and employee theft, as well as for cybersecurity.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Government clients also struggle with a data explosion. “Everything becomes more difficult, the more crime becomes global, the more state actors are involved, the more trades there are around the globe,” said Preet Bharara, United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. “It’s malpractice to have records and not search them.” He has used Palantir for several cases, including the SAC investigation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Investors are growing restless. Mr. Karp says he hears from them nearly every day. Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder who left to form his own investment firm, still has shares in the company and has stated in online forums that Palantir will go public. But while an I.P.O. may be hard to resist forever, Mr. Thiel said in an email that Palantir “has no plans to I.P.O. in the next few years.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir is now Palo Alto’s biggest tenant after Stanford, occupying about 250,000 square feet in downtown buildings, which hold many of Palantir’s 1,500 employees. Contracts around the world have surged as everyone’s data increases in size and diversity. Mr. Karp thinks the firm can grow to 5,000 employees for its maximum effectiveness, without, he says, the possibly corrupting influence of going public.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Tolkien’s tale, the world was saved from darkness. The Shire, though, became an industrial wasteland. Mr. Karp hopes that Palantir can save itself, along with the world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A version of this article appears in print on June 1, 2014, on page BU1 of the New York edition with the headline: Unlocking Secrets, if Not Its Own Value. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though Palantir's name is clearly visible through the windows of the company's Palo Alto cafeteria, most of the company's office buildings are unmarked, and a guard outside the cafeteria tries to discourage the taking of photographs.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Walk around downtown Palo Alto these days and you’ll spot a number of prime office buildings with frosted or shaded windows and no signs on their doors. Stealth startups? Hardly. Odds are you’re looking at real estate leased by data analysis pioneer Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s Palo Alto employees stream into the company’s cafeteria building for lunch.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir was founded in 2004 by a team that includes PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel with a plan to “reduce terrorism while preserving civil liberties” using technology similar to that developed at PayPal for antifraud efforts. The CIA was both an early investor and an early customer, and Thiel himself over the years invested some $30 million in the venture. Palantir continues to feed services and technology to U.S. national security agencies, but now also does work for state and local governments and corporations. It’s big and getting bigger, with a reported 1200 employees in 2013 at some nine locations around the world, including McLean, Va. (of course), Abu Dhabi, Tel Aviv, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. And it’s still hiring. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir is worth a lot: it was officially valued at $9 billion in 2013, and a recent funding round reportedly bumped that up to over $11 billion; but there are questions whether such a company could survive going public and the disclosures and pressures that would involve.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Palantir employee strolls through downtown Palo Alto.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s software acts as a natural language interface to sets of data and allows users to connect different types of data sets to better understand relationships. Palantir’s web site advertises that it can help people in healthcare, finance, disaster preparedness, cybersecurity, and other areas. It gives a few examples of what people have done with its tools—like uncover the GhostNet network of infected computers and spot shipments of elephant ivory. And last year the New York Times reported on a few more projects—like helping Hershey increase chocolate profits and JPMorgan Chase to sell foreclosed homes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But generally, Palantir doesn’t talk much (the software was rumored to have pinpointed Osama bin Laden’s location, but that report has never been confirmed). That’s why the news site TechCrunch got a lot of attention this week when it reported that it had gotten its hands on an investment prospectus that featured success stories of organizations using Palantir’s tools, even though the revelations were less than earthshattering. Palantir’s software, as reported by TechCrunch, has been used by:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Securities Investment Protection Corporation to nail Bernie Madoff by sorting through 40 years of records</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Los Angeles Police Department to support “cops on the street and the officers doing the investigations”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Centers for Medicate and Medicare services to identify potentially fraudulent medical providers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Pentagon to track roadside bomb deployment—and to discover that garage-door openers were being used as detonators</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the CIA and FBI to connect their databases</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to look into trafficking of human tissue</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of Palantir’s buildings are unmarked, the sign on this one is subtle, to say the least.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some say this recent leak was a blatant publicity attempt by Palantir as it seeks additional investors. If so, it worked; if not, it’s no disaster for the organization, and none of the information released compromises current efforts. It did turn attention to a company that has, for the most part, has been avoiding the spotlight, except when it does good for the community, like its recent effort to teach low-income high school students how to code or when employees complain about the lack of housing near their downtown Palo Alto offices.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We probably should be paying more attention to Palantir. The Internet of Things is quickly increasing the amount of data about our lives that is available, and it would nice to know what might be done with it—and who might be doing it—before the cloud knows about every breath we take. The interest in this “leak” demonstrates that it’s time for Palantir to get out from behind that frosted glass. Or at least put signs on its doors, because it would be nice to know if downtown Palo Alto really has become a Palantir campus.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Update 22 January: Another application of Palantir’s technology emerges—ferreting out illegal Airbnb rentals. This ironically pits one of Thiel’s investments against another.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are the best money can buy! Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.”- Matthew Steckman of the Palantir Private Intel Corp.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thom interviewed Lee Fang on his program today.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This story is about how private intelligence companies have already attempted to spy on American citizens. Lee Fang tells in the link below how three security contractors, Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies, and HBGray Federal were in contract talks with the US Chamber of Commerce to spy on and sabotage Center of American Progress, SEIU, Wikileaks, Glenn Greenwald (for Bank of America), ThinkProgress, ChangeToWin, and StoptheChamber.com. Unfortunately, for the US Chamber of Commerce, Anonymous hacked into executive Aaron Barr’s email and published 40,000 HBGaryFederal emails documenting the spying project. At one point Barr met with Booz Allen Hamilton senior vice president Bill Wansley , the same company that whistleblower Snowden worked for until this week, on how to attack activists. Here are the key persons:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-US Chamber of Commerce hires Hunton And Williams lobbying firm attorney Richard Wyatt.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-John Woods and Bob Quackenboss are Wyatt’s assistants on the spying project.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-The private security firms are Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies, and HBGray Federal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">- Matthew Steckman official of Palantir Technologies, author of the gangsta quote.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-Team Themis planned campaign to create false documents to discredit those that publish them, create fake personas to get communications from targets. The project included spying on family member, installing malicious malware, and even creating a “fusion cell” like that used by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How Spy Agency Contractors Have Already Abused Their Power by Lee Fang</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations. The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cybertools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The episode also shows that Greenwald, who helped Snowden expose massive spying efforts in the United States, had been targetted by spy agency contractors in the past for supporting whistleblowers and WikiLeaks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Firms like Palantir—a Palo Alto–based business that helps intelligence agencies analyze large sets of data—exist because of the government’s post-9/11 rush to develop a “terror-detection leviathan” of high-tech companies. Named after a stone in the Lord of the Rings that helps both villains and do-gooders see over great distances, the company is well-known within Silicon Valley for attracting support from a venture capital group led by libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel and Facebook’s Sean Parker. But Palantir’s rise to prominence, now reportedly valued at $8 billion, came from initial investment from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, and close consultation with officials from the intelligence-gathering community, including disgraced retired admiral John Poindexter and Bryan Cunningham, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Palantir boasts that its government-backed technology is geared towards helping the military track terrorists, stolen e-mails from HBGary Federal show the firm and its senior executives were eager to use its platform on behalf of the Chamber, one of the largest corporate lobbying associations. In the fall of 2010, the Chamber had received unflattering attention, first from a New York Times piece about allegedly laundered money from AIG, and then from my reporting at the Center for American Progress’ ThinkProgress blog about foreign funds flowing to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) entity used to run campaign advertisements. The Chamber’s attorneys at the firm Hunton & Williams, at the time already busy prosecuting a group of activists for impersonating the Chamber, sought out the help of Palantir to develop a team to go after the Chamber’s critics. As I reported later for TheNation.com, Palantir eventually connected with Berico and HBGary Federal, and along with the Chamber’s attorneys, the group began plotting a campaign of snooping on activists’ families and even using sophisticated hacking tools to break into computers:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The presentations, which were also leaked by Anonymous, contained ethically questionable tactics, like creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information,” to give to a progressive group opposing the Chamber, and then subsequently exposing the document as a fake to undermine the credibility of the Chamber’s opponents. In addition, the group proposed creating a “fake insider persona” to “generate communications” with Change to Win, a federation of labor unions that sponsored the watchdog site, US Chamber Watch.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even more troubling, however, were plans by the three contractors to use malware and other forms of malicious software to hack into computers owned by the Chamber’s opponents and their families. Boasting that they could develop a “fusion cell” of the kind “developed and utilized by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC),” the contractors discussed how they could use “custom malware development” and “zero day” exploits to gain control of a target’s computer network. These types of hacks can allow an attacker not only to snoop but to delete files, monitor keystrokes and manipulate websites, e-mail archives and any database connected to the target computer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January of 2011, Hunton and Williams, which had met with the Chamber to discuss the proposals, sent by courier a CD with target data to the contractors. The targets discussed in e-mails included labor unions SEIU, IBT, UFW, UFCW, AFL-CIO, Change to Win, as well as progressive organizations like the Center for American Progress, MoveOn.org, Courage Campaign, the Ruckus Society, Agit-Pop, Brave New Films and others. […]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The tactics described in the proposals are illegal. However, there were no discussions in the leaked e-mails about the legality of using such tactics. Rather, the Chamber’s attorneys and the three contractors quibbled for weeks about how much to charge the Chamber for these hacking services. At one point, they demanded $2 million a month.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">- See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2013/06/%E2%80%9Cwe-are-best-money-can-buy-damn-it-feels-good-be-gangsta%E2%80%9D-matthew-steckman-palantir-pr#sthash.cZEbgqFo.dpuf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://gawker.com/5753570/anonymous-hackers-pay-back-fbi-snitch-with-50000-leaked-emails</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right now you can download a 4.7 gigabyte file full of about 50,000 emails stolen from a computer security expert named Aaron Barr. That's what happens when you cross the hacking collective Anonymous.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hackers from Anonymous, best-known for attacks on Scientology and Wikileaks detractors, trashed Barr's online life Sunday evening after learning he planned to meet with the FBI tomorrow and hand over information he'd gathered about them. They defaced the </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">website of HBGary Federal, the D.C.-based computer security firm Barr works for. Then they took over Barr's Twitter account, tweeting his social security number and a file containing 50,000 HBGary company emails. They even claim to have wiped his iPad.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barr became a target of Anonymous after he appeared in a Financial Times article this weekend claiming he'd "penetrated" the group, identifying members by watching their chats and analyzing social networking profiles. He described a hierarchy of 30 core Anonymous members along with 10 who "are the most senior and co-ordinate and manage most of the decisions." Barr said the information could help authorities make arrests in their ongoing investigation into Anonymous' "Operation Payback" attacks against Mastercard and Visa in December; he cast Anonymous as an organized crime syndicate about to be blown open.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This pissed off Anonymous. They see themselves as an utterly democratic mass of untraceable Internet users who come and go as they please. It didn't help that members' confidence in their anonymity had already been rattled by a series of high-profile FBI raids.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FBI Raids Dozens In Pro-Wikileaks Hacktivist Investigation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The FBI executed more than 40 search warrants today in connection with its investigation into…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The article is complete crap. He's one of the millions of security tools who think they know what they're talking about," an Anonymous associate told us. "There's really no hierarchy.... no one can tell anyone else what to do." And from what we and others have seen, he's right.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So Anonymous hackers went to work. Their rage was further stoked when they discovered in Barr's email account a document containing the real names and personal information of suspected Anonymous members, along with indications he was going to sell it to the FBI. According to our source, the hackers decided to confront Barr directly. They identified the handle he'd been using to spy on their group for months: "CogAnon". Then they lured CogAnon into a chat room and revealed that he'd been compromised.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"All your emails were dropped. Meaning we know you were trying to sell your fucking research to the FBI. And the sad thing is the names and info in that document//research is all fucking fake… you could have gotten a lot of random innocent people arrested," wrote one Anonymous member.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"That's an old version of my research…. not trying to sell it... much has changed," Barr wrote.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I saw your latest data and it's all the same shit," snapped back another Anonymous member.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though they claim it was riddled with inaccuracies, the hackers promptly posted the document, as if to prove how little they cared about the information.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is a typical mode of attack for Anonymous when they're up against an individual or lightly-defended target: Dig up confidential information through hacking or social engineering, then dump it on the Internet as a "fuck you." They did it to a bullying copyright lawyer in England,leaking a database of 5,000 porn pirates he intended to sue. And, yes, they did it to Gawker. No wonder they like Wikileaks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this case, Anonymous' attack will probably just bring heavier scrutiny. HBGary founder Greg Hoglund told Brian Krebs. "They didn't just pick on any company, but we try to protect the US government from hackers. They couldn't have chosen a worse company to pick on."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.salon.com/2011/02/11/campaigns_4/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FrIDAY, FEB 11, 2011 02:12 AM PST</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A proposal to help Bank of America destroy the group and its advocates reveal a deeply lawless mindset</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GLENN GREENWALD</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s a very strange episode being widely discussed the past couple of days involving numerous parties, including me, that I now want to comment on. The story, first reported by The Tech Herald, has been written about in numerous places (see Marcy Wheeler, Forbes, The Huffington Post, BoingBoing, Matt Yglesias, Reason,Tech Dirt, and others), so I’ll provide just the summary. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week, Aaron Barr, a top executive at computer security firm HB Gary Federal,boasted to the Financial Times that his firm had infiltrated and begun to expose Anonymous, the group of pro-WikiLeaks hackers that had launched cyber attacks on companies terminating services to the whistleblowing site (such as Paypal, MasterCard, Visa, Amazon and others). In retaliation, Anonymous hacked into the email accounts of HB Gary, published 50,000 of their emails online, and also hacked Barr’s Twitter and other online accounts. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the emails that were published was a report prepared by HB Gary — in conjunction with several other top online security firms, including Palantir Technologies — on how to destroy WikiLeaks. The emails indicated the report was part of a proposal to be submitted to Bank of America through its outside law firm,Hunton & Williams. News reports have indicated that WikiLeaks is planning to publish highly incriminating documents showing possible corruption and fraud at that bank, and The New York Times detailed last month how seriously top bank officials are taking that threat. The NYT article described that the bank’s ”counterespionage work” against WikiLeaks entailed constant briefings for top executives on the whistleblowing site, along with the hiring of “several top law firms” and Booz Allen (the long-time firm of former Bush DNI Adm. Michael McConnell and numerous other top intelligence and defense officials). The report prepared by these firms was designed to be part of the Bank of America’s highly funded anti-WikiLeaks campaign.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The leaked report suggested numerous ways to destroy WikiLeaks, some of them likely illegal — including planting fake documents with the group and then attacking them when published; “creat[ing] concern over the security” of the site; “cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters”; and a “media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities.” Many of those proposals were also featured prongs of a secret 2008 Pentagon plan to destroy WikiLeaks. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One section of the leaked report focused on attacking WikiLeaks’ supporters and it featured a discussion of me. A graph purporting to be an “organizational chart” identified several other targets, including former New York Times reporter Jennifer 8 Lee, Guardian reporter James Ball, and Manning supporter David House. The report claimed I was ”critical” to WikiLeaks’ public support after its website was removed by Amazon and that “it is this level of support that needs to be disrupted”; absurdly speculated that “without the support of people like Glenn, WikiLeaks would fold”; and darkly suggested that “these are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause.” As The Tech Herald noted, “earlier drafts of the proposal and an email from Aaron Barr used the word ‘attacked’ over ‘disrupted’ when discussing the level of support.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the wake of the ensuing controversy caused by publication of these documents, the co-founder and CEO of Palantir Tech, Alex Karp, has now issued a statement stating that he ”directed the company to sever any and all contacts with HB Gary.” The full statement — which can be read here — also includes this sentence: ”personally and on behalf of the entire company, I want to publicly apologize to progressive organizations in general, and Mr. Greenwald in particular, for any involvement that we may have had in these matters.” Palantir has also contacted me by email to arrange for Dr. Karp to call me to personally convey the apology. My primary interest is in knowing whether Bank of America retained these firms to execute this proposal and if any steps were taken to do so; if Karp’s apology is genuine, that information ought to be forthcoming (as I was finishing writing this, Karp called me, seemed sincere enough in his apology, vowed that any Palantir employees involved in this would be dealt with the way they dealt with HB Gary, and commendably committed to telling me by the end of the week whether Bank of America or Hunton & Williams actually retained these firms to carry out this proposal).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* * * * </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">My initial reaction to all of this was to scoff at its absurdity. Not being familiar with the private-sector world of internet security, I hadn’t heard of these firms before and, based on the quality of the proposal, assumed they were just some self-promoting, fly-by-night entities of little significance. Moreover, for the reasons I detailed in my interview with The Tech Herald — and for reasons Digby elaborated on here — the very notion that I could be forced to choose “professional preservation over cause” is ludicrous on multiple levels. Obviously, I wouldn’t have spent the last year vehemently supporting WikiLeaks — to say nothing of aggressively criticizing virtually every large media outlet and many of their leading stars, as well as the most beloved political leaders of both parties — if I were willing to choose ”career preservation over cause.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But after learning a lot more over the last couple of days, I now take this more seriously — not in terms of my involvement but the broader implications this story highlights. For one thing, it turns out that the firms involved here are large, legitimate and serious, and do substantial amounts of work for both the U.S. Government and the nation’s largest private corporations (as but one example, see this email from a Stanford computer science student about Palantir). Moreover, these kinds of smear campaigns are far from unusual; in other leaked HB Gary emails, ThinkProgress discovered that similar proposals were prepared for the Chamber of Commerce to attack progressive groups and other activists (including ThinkProgress). And perhaps most disturbing of all, Hunton & Williams was recommended to Bank of America’s General Counsel by the Justice Department — meaning the U.S. Government is aiding Bank of America in its defense against/attacks on WikiLeaks. [ note no cite]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s why this should be taken seriously, despite how ignorant, trite and laughably shallow is the specific leaked anti-WikiLeaks proposal. As creepy and odious as this is, there’s nothing unusual about these kinds of smear campaigns. The only unusual aspect here is that we happened to learn about it this time because of Anonymous’ hacking. That a similar scheme was quickly discovered by ThinkProgress demonstrates how common this behavior is. The very idea of trying to threaten the careers of journalists and activists to punish and deter their advocacy is self-evidently pernicious; that it’s being so freely and casually proposed to groups as powerful as the Bank of America, the Chamber of Commerce, and the DOJ-recommended Hunton & Williams demonstrates how common this is. These highly experienced firms included such proposals because they assumed those deep-pocket organizations would approve and it would make their hiring more likely.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the real issue highlighted by this episode is just how lawless and unrestrained is the unified axis of government and corporate power. I’ve written many times about this issue — the full-scale merger between public and private spheres – because it’s easily one of the most critical yet under-discussed political topics. Especially (though by no means only) in the worlds of the Surveillance and National Security State, the powers of the state have become largely privatized. There is very little separation between government power and corporate power. Those who wield the latter intrinsically wield the former. The revolving door between the highest levels of government and corporate offices rotates so fast and continuously that it has basically flown off its track and no longer provides even the minimal barrier it once did. It’s not merely that corporate power is unrestrained; it’s worse than that: corporations actively exploit the power of the state to further entrench and enhance their power. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">note no links below:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s what this anti-WikiLeaks campaign is generally: it’s a concerted, unified effort between government and the most powerful entities in the private sector (Bank of America is the largest bank in the nation). The firms the Bank has hired (such as Booz Allen) are suffused with the highest level former defense and intelligence officials, while these other outside firms (including Hunton & Williams and Palantir) are extremely well-connected to the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government’s obsession with destroying WikiLeaks has been well-documented. And because the U.S. Government is free to break the law without any constraints, oversight or accountability, so, too, are its “private partners” able to act lawlessly. That was the lesson of the Congressional vesting of full retroactive immunity in lawbreaking telecoms, of the refusal to prosecute any of the important Wall Street criminals who caused the 2008 financial crisis, and of the instinctive efforts of the political class to protect defrauding mortgage banks. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The exemption from the rule of law has been fully transferred from the highest level political elites to their counterparts in the private sector. “Law” is something used to restrain ordinary Americans and especially those who oppose this consortium of government and corporate power, but it manifestly does not apply to restrain these elites. Just consider one amazing example illustrating how this works. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Anonymous imposed some very minimal cyber disruptions on Paypal, Master Card and Amazon, the DOJ flamboyantly vowed to arrest the culprits, and several individuals were just arrested as part of those attacks. But weeks earlier, a far more damaging and serious cyber-attack was launched at WikiLeaks, knocking them offline. Those attacks were sophisticated and dangerous. Whoever did that was quite likely part of either a government agency or a large private entity acting at its behest. Yet the DOJ has never announced any investigation into those attacks or vowed to apprehend the culprits, and it’s impossible to imagine that ever happening.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why? Because crimes carried out that serve the Government’s agenda and target its opponents are permitted and even encouraged; cyber-attacks are “crimes” only when undertaken by those whom the Government dislikes, but are perfectly permissible when the Government itself or those with a sympathetic agenda unleash them. Whoever launched those cyber attacks at WikiLeaks (whether government or private actors) had no more legal right to do so than Anonymous, but only the latter will be prosecuted. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s the same dynamic that causes the Obama administration to be obsessed with prosecuting WikiLeaks but not The New York Times or Bob Woodward, even though the latter have published far more sensitive government secrets; WikiLeaks is adverse to the government while the NYT and Woodward aren’t, and thus “law” applies to punish only the former. The same mindset drives the Government to shield high-level political officials who commit the most serious crimes, while relentlessly pursuing whistle-blowers who expose their wrongdoing. Those with proximity to government power and who serve and/or control it are free from the constraints of law; those who threaten or subvert it have the full weight of law come crashing down upon them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> * * * </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is set forth in these proposals for Bank of America quite possibly constitutes serious crimes. Manufacturing and submitting fake documents with the intent they be published likely constitutes forgery and fraud. Threatening the careers of journalists and activists in order to force them to be silent is possibly extortion and, depending on the specific means to be used, constitutes other crimes as well. Attacking WikiLeaks’ computer infrastructure in an attempt to compromise their sources undoubtedly violates numerous cyber laws. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet these firms had no compunction about proposing such measures to Bank of America and Hunton & Williams, and even writing them down. What accounts for that brazen disregard of risk? In this world, law does not exist as a constraint. It’s impossible to imagine the DOJ ever, ever prosecuting a huge entity like Bank of America for doing something like waging war against WikiLeaks and its supporters. These massive corporations and the firms that serve them have no fear of law or government because they control each. That’s why they so freely plot to target those who oppose them in any way. They not only have massive resources to devote to such attacks, but the ability to act without limits. John Cole put it this way:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One thing that even the dim bulbs in the media should understand by now is that there is in fact a class war going on, and it is the rich and powerful who are waging it. Anyone who does anything that empowers the little people or that threatens the wealth and power of the plutocracy must be destroyed. There is a reason for these clowns going after Think Progress and unions, just like there is a reason they are targeting Wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald, Planned Parenthood, and Acorn. . . .</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You have to understand the mindset- they are playing for keeps. The vast majority of the wealth isn’t enough. They want it all. Anything that gets in their way must be destroyed. . . . And they are well financed, have a strong infrastructure, a sympathetic media, and entire organizations dedicated to running cover for them . . . .</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I don’t even know why we bother to hold elections any more, to be honest, the game is so rigged. We’re a banana republic, and it is just a matter of time before we descend into necklacing and other tribal bullshit. end cole]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are supposed to be institutions which limit what can be done in pursuit of those private-sector goals. They’re called ”government” and “law.” But those institutions are so annexed by the most powerful private-sector elites, and so corrupted by the public officials who run them, that nobody — least of all those elites — has any expectation that they will limit anything. To the contrary, the full force of government and law will be unleashed against anyone who undermines Bank of America and Wall Street executives and telecoms and government and the like (such as WikiLeaks and supporters), and will be further exploited to advance the interests of those entities, but will never be used to constrain what they do. These firms vying for Bank of America’s anti-WikiLeaks business know all of this full well, which is why they concluded that proposing such pernicious and possibly illegal attacks would be deemed not just acceptable but commendable.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UPDATE: Several new items to note: (1) Salon‘s Editor-in-Chief, Kerry Lauerman, has an excellent response to all of this on behalf of Salon; (2) The CEO and COO of Berico — the third company whose name appears on the report (along with Palantir and HB Gary) — has now issued a statement [link fixed] condemning the proposal as “reprehensible” and also severed all ties with HB Gary; and (3) Bank of America has issued a carefully worded statement to USA Today, denying that they ever saw or have any interest in the proposal and claiming they never hired HB Gary to do this work (though they don’t say whether they hired Berico or Palantir, the firms that were coordinating the proposal, to do similar work, nor whether Hunton & Williams did); I’ll look forward to hearing from Palantir’s CEO, as promised, on those questions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UPDATE II: The New York Times this morning has a fairly thorough account of this matter that is worth reading. While Bank of America continues to deny involvement in these proposals, its law firm, Hunton & Williams — one of the most well-connected law firms in Washington — refuses to comment, and that firm appears to be a key link in all of these efforts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/politics/12hackers.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/politics/12hackers.html?_r=2&hp 2/5</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hackers Reveal Offers to Spy on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporate Rivals</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By ERIC LIPTON and CHARLIE SAVAGE FEB. 11, 2011</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Correction Appended</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON — A fight between a group of proWikiLeaks hackers and a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Californiabased Internet security business has opened a window onto the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">secretive world of private companies that offer to help corporations investigate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and discredit their critics.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This week, hackers said they had penetrated the computers of HBGary</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federal, a security company that sells investigative services to corporations,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and posted tens of thousands of what appear to be its internal company emails</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on the Internet.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documents appear to include pitches for unseemly ways to undermine</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">adversaries of Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, like doing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">background research on their critics and then distributing fake documents to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">embarrass them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bank and the chamber do not appear to have directly solicited the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">spylike services of HBGary Federal. Rather, HBGary Federal offered to do the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">work for Hunton & Williams, a corporate law firm that has represented them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Hunton & Williams spokesman did not comment. But spokesmen for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bank of America and the chamber said Friday that they had not known about</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the presentations and that HBGary Federal was never hired on their behalf. A</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">chamber spokesman characterized the proposal as “abhorrent.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since the hacked emails appeared on a filesharing network several days</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ago, a broad range of bloggers and journalists have been scouring them and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">discussing highlights on the Internet. The New York Times also obtained a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">copy of the archive.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One document that has received particular attention is a PowerPoint</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">presentation that said a trio of datarelated companies — HBGary Federal,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies — could help attack WikiLeaks,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">which is rumored to be preparing to release internal emails from Bank of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">America.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One idea was to submit fake documents covertly to WikiLeaks, and then</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">expose them as forgeries to discredit the group. It also suggested pressuring</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WikiLeaks’ supporters — notably Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com — by</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">threatening their careers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Without the support of people like Glenn, WikiLeaks would fold,” the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">presentation said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another set of documents proposed similar ways to embarrass adversaries</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of the Chamber of Commerce for an initial fee of $200,000 and $2 million</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">later.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The emails include what appears to be an exchange on Nov. 9, 2010,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">between Aaron Barr, HBGary Federal’s chief executive, and John W. Woods, a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hunton & Williams partner who focuses on corporate investigations. Mr. Barr</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">recounted biographical tidbits about the family of a onetime employee of a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">unionbacked group that had challenged the chamber’s opposition to Obama</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">administration initiatives like health care legislation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They go to a Jewish church in DC,” Mr. Barr apparently wrote. “They</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">have 2 kids, son and daughter.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A week later, Mr. Barr submitted a detailed plan to Hunton & Williams for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an extensive investigation into U.S. Chamber Watch and other critics of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">chamber, including the possible creation of “indepth target dossiers” and the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">identification of vulnerabilities in their computer networks that might be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">exploited.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another PowerPoint presentation prepared for Hunton & Williams said</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the research that HBGary Federal and its partners could do for the law firm on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">behalf of the Chamber of Commerce would “mitigate effect of adversarial</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">groups” like U.S. Chamber Watch. The presentation discussed the alleged</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">criminal record of one leader of an antichamber group, and said the goal of its</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">research would be to “discredit, confuse, shame, combat, infiltrate, fracture”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the antichamber organizations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary acknowledged Tuesday in a statement that it had been the victim</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of a “criminal cyberattack,” but suggested that documents placed in the public</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">domain might be “falsified.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The other two businesses referred to in the apparent proposals as planned</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">partners in the corporate investigations put out statements that distanced</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">themselves from HBGary Federal but did not say the documents were fake.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The cofounders of Berico, Guy Filippelli and Nick Hallam, confirmed that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berico had been “asked to develop a proposal to support a law firm” that was</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">helping companies “analyze internal information security and public relations</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">challenges,” but said their proposal had been limited to “analyzing publicly</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">available information.” They called efforts to target people “reprehensible” and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">said they were breaking all ties to HBGary Federal, a move that Palantir</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">executives also said they were making.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The episode traces back to a dispute in December, when corporations</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">including MasterCard, Visa and PayPal severed ties to WikiLeaks, temporarily</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cutting off its ability to accept donations. WikiLeaks had just begun releasing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">leaked State Department cables in conjunction with a consortium of news</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">organizations, including The New York Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Calling the companies’ severing of such ties an affront to Internet</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">freedom, a looseknit group of computer users named Anonymous</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">coordinated attacks on the Web sites of such companies. Mr. Barr apparently</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">began trying to uncover the identities of those involved with Anonymous. But</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">after he boasted of his efforts in a newspaper article, hackers attacked his</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">company’s Web site and made public the emails.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jonathan E. Turner, who runs a Tennessee-based business that gathers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">intelligence for corporate clients, said that companies nationwide relied on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">investigators to gather potentially damaging information on possible business</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">partners or rivals. “Information is power,” said Mr. Turner, former chairman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He estimated that the “competitive intelligence” industry had 9,700</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">companies offering these services, with an annual market of more than $2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">billion, but said there were limits to what tactics should be used.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce distanced themselves on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Friday from any effort to embarrass or collect disparaging information about</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">their critics. “We have not engaged in, nor do we have any plans to engage in,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the practices discussed in this alleged presentation by HBGary,” said Lawrence</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DiRita, a Bank of America spokesman.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tom Collamore, a chamber spokesman, said, “The leaked emails appear</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to show that HBGary Federal was willing to propose questionable actions in an</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">attempt to drum up business, but the chamber was not aware of these</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">proposals until HBGary’s emails leaked.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Correction: February 12, 2011</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HB Gary Federal and HB Gary are two related companies that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">share some of the same owners and have shared the same offices as</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">their California headquarters. But they are distinct entities. An</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">earlier version of the story was not clear on this distinction</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">links http://www.thenation.com/blog/174741/how-spy-agency-contractors-have-already-abused-their-power#</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the president if I had a personal email.” —Edward Snowden, Booz Allen Hamilton whistleblower, during his interview with The Guardian.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Could the sprawling surveillance state enable government or its legion of private contractors to abuse their technology and spy upon domestic political targets or judges?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is not a far off possibility. Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations. The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cybertools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The episode also shows that Greenwald, who helped Snowden expose massive spying efforts in the United States, had been targetted by spy agency contractors in the past for supporting whistleblowers and WikiLeaks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Firms like Palantir—a Palo Alto–based business that helps intelligence agencies analyze large sets of data—exist because of the government’s post-9/11 rush to develop a “terror-detection leviathan” of high-tech companies. Named after a stone in the Lord of the Rings that helps both villains and do-gooders see over great distances, the company is well-known within Silicon Valley for attracting support from a venture capital group led by libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel and Facebook’s Sean Parker. But Palantir’s rise to prominence, now reportedly valued at $8 billion, came from initial investment from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, and close consultation with officials from the intelligence-gathering community, including disgraced retired admiral John Poindexter and Bryan Cunningham, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Palantir boasts that its government-backed technology is geared towards helping the military track terrorists, stolen e-mails from HBGary Federal show the firm and its senior executives were eager to use its platform on behalf of the Chamber, one of the largest corporate lobbying associations. In the fall of 2010, the Chamber had received unflattering attention, first from a New York Times piece about allegedly laundered money from AIG, and then from my reporting at the Center for American Progress’ ThinkProgress blog about foreign funds flowing to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) entity used to run campaign advertisements. The Chamber’s attorneys at the firm Hunton & Williams, at the time already busy prosecuting a group of activists for impersonating the Chamber, sought out the help of Palantir to develop a team to go after the Chamber’s critics. As I reported later for TheNation.com, Palantir eventually connected with Berico and HBGary Federal, and along with the Chamber’s attorneys, the group began plotting a campaign of snooping on activists’ families and even using sophisticated hacking tools to break into computers:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The presentations, which were also leaked by Anonymous, contained ethically questionable tactics, like creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information,” to give to a progressive group opposing the Chamber, and then subsequently exposing the document as a fake to undermine the credibility of the Chamber’s opponents. In addition, the group proposed creating a “fake insider persona” to “generate communications” with Change to Win, a federation of labor unions that sponsored the watchdog site, US Chamber Watch.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even more troubling, however, were plans by the three contractors to use malware and other forms of malicious software to hack into computers owned by the Chamber’s opponents and their families. Boasting that they could develop a “fusion cell” of the kind “developed and utilized by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC),” the contractors discussed how they could use “custom malware development” and “zero day” exploits to gain control of a target’s computer network. These types of hacks can allow an attacker not only to snoop but to delete files, monitor keystrokes and manipulate websites, e-mail archives and any database connected to the target computer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January of 2011, Hunton and Williams, which had met with the Chamber to discuss the proposals, sent by courier a CD with target data to the contractors. The targets discussed in e-mails included labor unions SEIU, IBT, UFW, UFCW, AFL-CIO, Change to Win, as well as progressive organizations like the Center for American Progress, MoveOn.org, Courage Campaign, the Ruckus Society, Agit-Pop, Brave New Films and others. […]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The tactics described in the proposals are illegal. However, there were no discussions in the leaked e-mails about the legality of using such tactics. Rather, the Chamber’s attorneys and the three contractors quibbled for weeks about how much to charge the Chamber for these hacking services. At one point, they demanded $2 million a month.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By December in 2010, the attorneys from Hunton & Williams approached the three contractors about developing a similar plan to go after WikiLeaks on behalf of Bank of America, which was concerned that many of their private documents were about to be published by the whistleblower website. HBGary Federal’s Aaron Barr discussed his reasoning on why it was especially critical to take down Glenn Greenwald, noting in one e-mail: “I think we need to highlight people like Glenn Greenwald. Glenn was critical in the Amazon to OVH [data center] transition and helped WikiLeaks provide access to information during the transition. It is this level of support we need to attack. These are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals. Without the support of people like Glenn WikiLeaks would fold.” The team of contractors created a similar proposal for Hunton & Williams, again suggesting the idea of planting a false document and launching cyber attacks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The contractors looked forward to the private sector money. One Palantir official wrote: “We are the best money can buy! Dam it feels good to be a gangsta.” However, they never had a chance to launch either attack plan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The proposal fell apart when HBGary Federal’s Barr attracted the attention of LulzSec, a splinter group of Anonymous hactivists. LulzSec hacked into HBGary’s e-mail system and dumped thousands of private messages online, including the e-mails detailing the plan to go after both the Chamber’s perceived opponents and supporters of WikiLeaks. (A timeline of the scandal can be found here.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twenty House Democrats called for an investigation into the scandal, but the Republican-held chamber did little to look into the story. However, Congressman Hank Johnson did manage to briefly question NSA officials about the three defense contractors.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the wake of the scandal, HBGary Federal shut down, but its sister firm, HBGary, was later sold to another military contractor, ManTech International for $23.8 million. Berico retained an influential DC lobbyist; Palantir increased their spending on lobbyists. Both companies managed to escape much scrutiny.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although some media outlets have reacted to the Snowden story with apprehension that such a young employee of a government contractor would have such wide-ranging spy capabilities, the disclosure presents other questions. Journalist Tim Shorrock, who also blogged recently about the rise of Palantir, reported that some 70 percent of the nation’s intelligence gathering budget is spent on private contractors. Could any of these firms, which number in the hundreds, use their terrorist-seeking espionage weapons against their fellow Americans? If what Snowden claimed is true, he could have spied upon judges and journalists and sold that information to powerful domestic or foreign interests. At one point during the discussions about how to use their technologies to attack activists, Barr had met with Booz Allen Hamilton senior vice president Bill Wansley. The disclosure of the Palantir-Berico-HBGary proposals suggest other abuses could be lurking out there, from a rogue employee to a carefully planned effort to spy on activists</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.mausstrategicconsulting.com/topical-analysis-blog/a-pretty-complete-history-of-palantir</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A (Pretty) Complete History of Palantir</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4/27/2014 </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies is the darling of the U.S. intelligence community, the terror of many privacy advocates, and most recently the fascination of many high-end investors.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite being in the spotlight among such groups, much of the information on it is fragmentary or highly speculative. This history unites those fragments into a coherent whole, probably the most complete publicly available history of Palantir ever assembled.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Palantir spokeswoman Lisa Gordon was reached for official comment on the history below, she examined it and replied (with characteristic Palantir casualness) "I don't really have anything to add. Looks pretty complete."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Picture</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fairly eccentric near-billionaire Palantir CEO Alex Karp</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though widely listed as having been founded in 2004, SEC filings set Palantir’s official incorporation on May 2003 (1) by Peter Thiel (cofounder of PayPal and investor in numerous Silicon Valley firms), who said that he intended the Palo Alto, California-based startup as a “mission oriented company” intending to apply software like PayPal’s fraud recognition systems “to reduce terrorism while preserving civil liberties” (2).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2004, Thiel bankrolled the creation of a prototype by PayPal engineer Nathan Gettings and Stanford grad students Joe Lonsdale and Stephen Cohen. That same year, Thiel hired temporary (and later permanent) CEO Alex Karp, a former colleague from Stanford Law School. Karp had been putting his philosophy PhD to unorthodox use as a money manager through a London-based investment firm he had founded called the Caedmon Group,[1] (2) (3) and had been helping to raise funds for Thiel’s investment management firm Clarium Capital (3).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir had difficulties raising capital in the U.S., as suggested by both SEC filings (4) and anecdotes from Karp, (2) (3) but the intelligence community (and Karp’s European investor connections) provided a new channel for funding.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the Washingtonian, they consulted many experts to open doors for them in DC, including former White House National Security Council staffer Alex Poindexter, who in 2004 introduced them to Richard Perle, ex-chair of the Defense Policy board. (5)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even with these experts helping them navigate the halls of power in DC, there seem to have been a number of instances of mutual culture shock. Karp says that in his first meeting with an intelligence agency in 2005 that he was "freaked out" by security guarding the building with firearms, and he mistakenly asked one of the officials their name, not knowing that this was against protocol (6). </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some government officials also expressed surprise at the casual attire of Palantir staff during meetings, such as former head of the National Counterterrorism Center Michael E Leiter who had said to himself “There’s Karp with his hair and his outfit—he doesn’t look like me or the other people that work for me,” before becoming a supporter and then consultant for Palantir (7). Indeed, Karp says that “the first hundred meetings or so were fraught with misunderstandings” (8).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite these misunderstandings, the CIA became a Palantir customer in 2005 for their intelligence analytics services, (2) and their venture capital arm In-Q-Tel was publicly listed as having an equity stake in the company by mid-2006. (9) </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Further integrating themselves into Washington, the company opened an office in 2007 (nicknamed “Rivendell”) in the D.C. suburb McLean with their first intelligence alumnus employee David Worn, (6) a former DoD intelligence officer and engineer for MITRE. (10) It has also sponsored events such as the monthly Palantir Night Live in DC to bring together many speakers and DC socialites together. (11) It has also been active in formal political lobbying, recruiting former senators John Braux and Trent Lott, (5) with its lobbying expenditures increasing steadily from 2010 to 2013 when its total annual investment exceeded $1.1 million[2] (12).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s government contract roster steadily grew, Karp says largely via word of mouth (5) (8), asserting that the company “saw massive adoption without a sales force” (8). Though most well-known for its intelligence and defense clients such as the CIA (2) (6) (13), Department of Defense (6) (14), NSA (2), and FBI (2) (3) (6) (13), Palantir has also served other types of government agencies, such as the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (15), CDC (16) (17), FDA (17) and, more recently, the SEC (18).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[1] A 2009 Wall Street Journal article places Karp’s involvement in the company as early as 2003. The same article also implies that Karp had returned to the U.S. from Europe in 2000. (6)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[2] To put this number into perspective, in 2013 IBM spent $6 million in lobbying (57) Raytheon spent over $7.5 million, (58) Lockheed Martin spent nearly $14.5 million, (60) and Boeing spent just over $15million. (59)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Picture</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2009 Tim Drake, general manager for the 20-year old software defense contractor I2 Inc.[1] derided his new competitor Palantir as “the new sexy thing,” saying that Palantir won't be able to make lasting inroads in a government market that prizes the stability of established companies.” (6) This prediction would seem to be inaccurate in hindsight, considering that an August 2013 Forbes article cited interviews with Condoleezza Rice, David Petraeus and George Tenet to characterize them as a “National Security Darling”, (19) and their advocates in congress such as California Representative Duncan Hunter (20)....</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2/16/11</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://thinkprogress.org/chamberleaks-timeline/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Original reporting by ThinkProgress revealed that Hunton & Williams, a corporate law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, conspired with set of private security companies and lobbying firms to undermine the political opponents of the Chamber with a surreptitious sabotage campaign.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Their plot was revealed when emails from one of the companies involved, HBGary Federal, were leaked by hackers who were angered by boasts by HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr that he could use social media sites such as Facebook and false identities to uncover their identities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Below is a detailed timeline of the conspiracy to launch a dirty-tricks campaign against labor unions, progressive organizations, and journalists who have challenged the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s right-wing agenda.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dramatis Personae</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hunton and Williams: Partners John Woods, Bob Quackenboss, David Lashway, and Litigation Group head Richard Wyatt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies: Matthew Steckman, Eli Bingham, Ryan Castle, Sean Stenstrom, Shyam Sankar; General Counsel Matt Long, CEO Alex Karp</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berico Technologies: Patrick Ryan, Sam Kremin, Amanda McDonald, Danielle Berti, Jeremy Glesner, Katie Crotty, Bill Lantzy, CEO Nicholas Hallam, COO Guy Filippelli</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary Federal: CEO Aaron Barr, Mark Trynor, COO Ted Vera, HBGary President Penny Leavy-Hoglund</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Booz Allen: Senior Vice President Bill Wansley, Renee Way, Lloyd Howell, Chris O’Ferrell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Signed contracts included in leaked e-mail record but were not involved in sending or receiving the e-mails.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mentioned by name in leaked emails but were not involved in sending or receiving them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SEPTEMBER</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On September 10, [2010] U.S. Chamber Watch files charges with the IRS that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “violated tax codes by laundering millions of dollars meant for charitable work from a group with ties to the insurance giant AIG.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OCTOBER</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On October 5, ThinkProgress exposes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for directing foreign funds into the general account it uses for political expenditures to defeat progressive candidates.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On October 7, MoveOn, Public Citizen, and other progressive organizations protest the Chamber’s plan to spend $75 million against progressive candidates, and their lack of transparency over foreign money, in front of Chamber headquarters in Washington D.C.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On October 19, Matthew Steckman (Palantir) emails Aaron Barr (HBGary) and Patrick Ryan (Berico) about “about offering a complete intelligence solution to a law firm that approached us” using “social media exploitation.” “Looking forward to discussing this opportunity,” Barr replies. Ryan says it “sounds like a great opportunity.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On October 25, Steckman introduces John Woods to Patrick Ryan and Aaron Barr. They plan to meet on Nov 4 (gets moved to Nov 3) because Woods says “I have to make our formal pitch to the client early the following week.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On October 28, Ryan outlines H&W’s problem: “A client of theirs is targeted by another entity, specifically a labor union, that is trying to extract some kind of concession or favorable outcome.” They have not yet learned the name of the client.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On October 30, Barr emails the group with a document for the proposal that is a triumph of biztalk verbiage.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOVEMBER</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 1, Barr emails the group with the info he’d collected on H&W, including John Woods’ family, by scraping LinkedIn and Facebook. He “grabbed all the partners friends lists that have facebook accounts,” 21 in all. “One of the steps we will do once we start on contract is do [sic] automate some of the scraping an artifact collection into single files and then develop a helper app that can parse all this information into the right fields. Should be easy.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 2, U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue praises the Republican gains in Congress, governorships, and state legislatures: “Today Americans sent a powerful message to Washington: Focus on job creation and economic growth. Voters have resoundingly rejected more government spending, higher taxes, and more burdensome regulations that have caused crippling uncertainty for businesses.” Meanwhile, the group of private security contractors comes up with the name “Team Themis.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 3, John Woods meets with Patrick Ryan, Aaron Barr, etc. to discuss the project. In their “Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell” slide show: “Purpose: Develop a corporate information reconnaissance service to aid legal investigations through the open source collection of information on target groups and individuals that appear organized to extort specific concessions through online slander campaigns.” It appears that at the meeting it was revealed that the client is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 4, Themis has a conference call to discuss their pricing proposal. Steckman notes “Their client is loaded!” Ryan forwards the group a Chamber of Commerce booklet on corporate campaigns that Sam Kremin had found.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 5, Ryan asks Woods what data H&W has, wondering if it includes “Financial Records, Union Rosters, IP addresses” and “access to the union in question’s membership lists”. Ryan attaches a $200,000 cost proposal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 7, Woods tells Ryan he will be meeting on November 9 “with the team at HW who has gathered the underlying data” and asks about how pricing will work.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 8 Woods and Ryan talk on the phone.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 9, Woods asks Barr to “impress” Richard Wyatt by investigating Stop The Chamber. Woods says Wyatt “might freak out” if he saw all the personal info Barr had collected by scraping social media sites. Barr is already collecting data on a number of anti-Chamber sites, including ThinkProgress. He tells Woods about what he found about Michael Gehrke. Aaron Barr also tells John Woods and Patrick Ryan the info he had found about VelvetRevolution.us, Brad Friedman, Emily Levy, ThinkProgress, and Debbie Fine. He also emails John Woods to tell him “Lets say we can publicly tie Joe Trippi (http://www.facebook.com/trippi) and his company to the development of videos for organization X. We can take videos released by organization Y and analyze the internals to see if there are forensic markers that are a match.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 10, Woods talked with Ryan and “set up a meeting” for November 12 at the Palantir offices intended to get Richard Wyatt “to sign off on the project.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 11, Barr sends Berico’s Kremin and Ryan a document with his research of “Chamber Opposition,” downloads of the Facebook supporters of Change To Win, Code Pink, Stop The Chamber, US Chamber Watch, Velvet Revolution, and a list of the Facebook friends of the Velvet Revolution’s Brett Kimberlin.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 12, representatives from Palantir, Berico, and HBGary meet with John Woods and Richard Wyatt. The expectation is set for a presentation to the Chamber of Commerce on November 23.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 15, Steckman says that the contractors have agreed on a plan for a $200,000 initial month of work, which would then become $2 million monthly for six months, split 50% Palantir, 25% each for Berico and HBGary. Ryan expresses some concerns that $2 million a month “sounds high.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 16, Berico formally sub-contracts HBGary Federal “to submit a proposal to Hunton & Williams (herein referred to as ‘Customer’) in response to their request for assistance within the realm of legal discovery to provide certain software platforms and maintenance, and systems integrators and analysts in order to better conduct cyber investigations and Corporate Campaign Analysis (herein referred to as the ‘Program.’)” The contract is signed by Nicholas Hallam, Berico COO and Aaron Barr, HBGary CEO. In a separate email, Barr expresses amazement that Palantir wants $1 million a month for six months.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 17, Eli Bingham sets up the Themis instance on the Palantir system. He shares a “printable version of the current ontology,” which includes labor organizations, strikes, and demonstrations. The ontology is also designed to hold the social media profiles of people.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 18, Ryan Castle (Palantir) tells the team that the “facebook information that you sent to me has been imported” and “mugshots are included.” Barr raises issues about the pricing for this six-month project, pointing out that HBGary and Berico will be doing all the work, and asks for a 40/30/30 split. Ryan agrees on behalf of Berico. Steckman says “we got approval from Dr. Karp and the Board to go ahead with the modified 40/30/30 breakdown proposed” for pricing the project. He notes “it will seem like money falling from the sky for those of us used to working in the govt sector.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 19, Sean Stenstrom (Palantir) sends a license agreement to Berico for the use of Palantir’s services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 22, Palantir general counsel Matt Long signs a “teaming agreement” contract between Palantir and Berico, signed by Hallam the next day.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 23, Kremin emails Woods with the contracts between Palantir & Berico and Berico & HBGary. He also attaches a costing proposal, for $200,000 for 11/23 – 12/23, then $2 million total for 12/24 to 6/24/11. The proposal includes creating “in-depth target dossiers for key entities and groups; will include key biographic data, relationships, intentions, etc.” Woods and Kremin discuss setting up a conference call with Bob Quackenboss, “our key client contact operationally.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 24, H&W and Themis have a conference call. After the call, Steckman says: “We need to blow these guys away with descriptions of our capabilities, IP, and talent. Make them think that we are Bond, Q, and money penny all packaged up with a bow.” As they discuss how to bill the client, Steckman reiterates that H&W and the Chamber need to know why they should spend so much: “Most of all that we are the best money can buy! Dam it feels good to be a gangsta.” By the end of the day Katie Crotty had sent a more detailed breakdown of the abilities of the team’s staff to H&W in a “labor category spreadsheet.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 29, Berico completes sample “reports” for H&W and collects resumes of the team members, per H&W’s request. H&W tells Berico the NDA language “needs to be reworked.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 30, Steckman meets with John Woods and briefly meets Bob Quackenboss. Although the $2 million price tag was high, Woods says that Richard Wyatt is “looking to push that number to the Chamber.” Woods tells Steckman the Themis group “has potential for huge gains in this market especially since ‘the results of the election made some people angry.'”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DECEMBER</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 1, John Woods and Bob Quackenboss receive sample “reports” from Themis that involve scraping Facebook to create dossiers of the Chamber’s political opponents (including people at MoveOn).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 2, Woods asks Themis for “five to six slides on Wikileaks” for “a large US Bank.” The group eagerly begins work on the presentation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 3, Barr tells the Themis group “I think we need to highlight people like Glenn Greenwald” for the WikiLeaks presentation. By 11:18 am, they have sent a Powerpoint presentation to John Woods.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 10, Sam Kremin complains to Aaron Barr that H&W wasn’t responding to them. He also explains to Barr how to upload personal information “scraped” from Facebook onto Palantir’s systems.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 13, Berico & HBGary emails John Woods to basically ask what was going on.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 21, Guy Filippelli, Berico CEO, meets with Bob Quackenboss who complained about the price.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 23, Palantir has a meeting with John Woods and “we are all in for this first opp (obviously lot’s of understood caveats/implications/long term thoughts/etc here).”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 28 they email Quackenboss again, who replied that he would try to get back to them the next day. He doesn’t.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On December 30-31 Aaron Barr and Mark Trynor discuss the Facebook scraper app that Trynor developed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JANUARY 2011?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 13, H&W gives Themis a “very basic” document “that shows the connections between groups and people involved.” That document is not forwarded over email but sent on CD by courier. The Themis team assumes this act represents official initiation of the $200,000 Phase 1. Aaron Barr and Ted Vera at HBGary talk about finally landing $50K.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, Barr spends two hours giving a presentation on social media exploitation at the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command in Springfield, VA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 14, Ted Vera tells HBGary president Penny Leavy-Hoglund that HBGary will get the contract. Kremkin tells the team that “phase 1 has started” and believes that Bob Quackenboss “will hopefully be able to meet with us to give us his vision and guidance for the project.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 18, Barr goes to the Berico offices to discuss the project.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 19, Amanda McDonald (Palantir) creates the Berico Themis instance. Barr tells Leavy-Hoglund: “The law firm deal has been agreed upon but the lawfirm has still not written us a contract. Berico says they have verbally areed [sic] to the pricing and want us to get started but we don’t have the contract yet.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 20, in a conversation with Mark Trynor about Wikileaks, Barr says, “I really dislike corporations. They suck the lifeblood out of humanity,” although: “Governments and corporations should have a right to protect secrets, sensitive information that could be damage to their operations.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 25, Barr asks Ryan for news. “Still waiting for Bob [Quackenboss] to return my calls,” Ryan replies, “also had our lawyer/contracts person reach out to their contracts person to push from that direction. Im pretty much calling bob daily at this point.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On January 26, Barr tells Woods about the research he’s been doing on Anonymous. Woods puts him in contact with Bill Wansley at Booz Allen. Wansley and Barr set up a meeting for the 28th.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FEBRUARY</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On February 3, Berico’s Pat Ryan discusses a “long-overdue” meeting he had with Bob Quackenboss, who told him that “H&W is unable/unwilling to pay any fees/costs to us for the “Phase I” demo build-out” and “they won’t commit any funds to this project until we’ve helped them earn buy-in from their Client (the Chamber).” Quackenboss “apologized for the confusion/misunderstanding and said he thinks there is a high likelihood of selling the Chamber on this, but asked that we be willing to share the risk with H&W up-front.” Berico is willing to work on a demo to present to the Chamber on February 14.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On February 4, the Financial Times publishes the story about Aaron Barr and Anonymous, and Anonymous soon goes after HBGary. Email record ends February 6.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://news.yahoo.com/cia-funded-startup-palantir-denies-nsa-both-prism-181900244.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies has denied its Prism software is related to the NSA's controversial and massive PRISM web surveillance system.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Big Data startup, backed in its early stages by the the CIA's In-Q-Tel venture capital arm, has insisted that its data-mining Prism software in question is for banks, not governments. Palantir’s legal counsel, Matt Long, supplied Forbes with a more detailed denial along the same lines.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, PRISM is America's computer system for snooping on foreigners' online activities by tapping internet giants for their records, as revealed last week.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Palantir’s Prism platform is completely unrelated to any US government program of the same name. Prism is Palantir’s name for a data integration technology used in the Palantir Metropolis platform (formerly branded as Palantir Finance). This software has been licensed to banks and hedge funds for quantitative analysis and research," Long said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An overview of Plantir's Prism software by the company itself provides graphs and examples illustrating its financial analysis applications without, perhaps, excluding other potential applications of the tool.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Y Combinator partner Garry Tan backed up Palantir’s denial of spooky iterations of Prism in a Twitter update:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir's data analysis platform technology grew from software originally developed at PayPal in order to detect fraudulent activity. The security upstart is nonetheless known for its governmental and national security work. This, and the naming coincidence, inevitably led to early speculation by Business Insider and others, since denied.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NSA's PRISM system allows the Feds to tap "directly into the central servers" of the nine largest internet companies to extract audio, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs to allow intelligence analysts to track foreign targets, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Blighty's GCHQ may also have had access to this system, The Guardian added on Friday.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">US director of national intelligence James R. Clapper has confirmed the existence of PRISM, while decrying unspecified inaccuracies in media reports.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The tech firms whose data is harvested by PRISM - Google (Gmail, YouTube, etc), Facebook, Microsoft (Hotmail, Skype, etc.), Apple, Yahoo, PalTalk and AOL - have denied providing government with direct access to their servers or a backdoor.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It may be that the original direct access claims, which came from a leaked PowerPoint deck, are technically inaccurate and PRISM actually involves direct access to a Dropbox-like system (potentially hosted by Amazon) which fulfils wiretapping requests made by spooks under the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We don't know how much data is sucked into these systems, how long it is retained, or how many people are affected but earlier revelations about a secret court order to harvest call data (but not content) of all Verizon customers suggest a possible obtain everything, analyse later approach. On the other hand a leaked budget of $20 million a year points to a much more modest system, or an incredible elegant and efficient Panopticon.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All this leaves how PRISM works and its architecture as open questions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Stamos, CTO of Artemis Internet, has put together a taxonomy of PRISM possibilities here. Meanwhile, Robert Graham of Errata Security has put together more ideas on what PRISM might mean, based in part on his own experience with the old Carnivore email surveillance system, on the Errata Security blog.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Footnote</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir and HBGary Federal worked together to develop a strategy for Bank of America to deal with the threatened exposure of secret documents from the bank. HBGary Federal proposed a smear campaign against journalist Glenn Greenwald as part of these proposals, a move Palantir repudiated and said was solely HBGary's idea. They severed their links with HBGary Federal in February 2011, soon after the infamous LulzSec pwnage of HBGary Federal and its chief exec, Aaron Barr.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two years later Greenwald worked together with a source, revealed over the weekend as NSA contractor Edward Snowden, to expose secret information about PRISM and secret a court order requiring Verizon to supply call log data on all of its customers on a daily basis.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a 13 December 2011 email to Stratfor’s VP for counter-terrorism Fred Burton, which Burton shared with Stratfor’s briefers, Smith claimed that “[he] and Walid Phares were getting air cover from Congresswoman [Sue] Myrick to engage Syrian opposition in Turkey (non-MB and non-Qatari) on a fact finding mission for Congress.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Walid Phares, named by the source as part of the “fact finding team,” is a Lebanese-American citizen and currently co-chairs Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Middle East advisory group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a profile of Walid Phares published in Salon, As’ad AbuKhalil details Phares’ history with right-wing militias during the Lebanese civil war.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sue Myrick, who allegedly was providing “air cover” for the “fact finding team”, is a Republican Congresswoman from North Carolina who has a track record of extremist pro-zionist and anti-Islamic views.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These include leading the charge against Dubai Ports World’s attempt to buy major American ports in 2006 – labeling the Islamic Society of North America as a group of “radical jihadists” – and demanding that former President Jimmy Carter’s citizenship be revoked for daring to meet with Hamas leaders in 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Currently, Myrick is a member of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, a congressional committee charged with overseeing the American intelligence community, and is also involved with the Department of Defense and the US military.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his email, the “true mission” for the “fact finding” team, Smith told Burton, was how “they can help in regime change."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">forbes:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For a FORBES magazine story I recently wrote on cyber-security software-maker Palantir Technologies, I spoke with billionaire Facebook investor Peter Thiel, who said that Palantir is “tracking like the really great tech companies, like Facebook or Google.” Thiel thinks the company is the “most undervalued company in Silicon Valley” and will be worth around tens of billions of dollars in a few years’ time. Of course, Thiel is Palantir’s largest stakeholder, and his venture capital firm The Founders Fundhas bankrolled much of the startup’s initial costs. But beyond the hype is a company that has accidentally stepped into the middle of controversy, is attracting some of the brightest engineers from top schools, and is making more money than anyone suspects.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Let’s start with the controversy. Up until a few weeks ago, only “Lord of the Rings” nerds knew what a “palantir” was (a seeing stone the company is named after). But recently, Palantir has found itself in headlines for putting together a proposal, along with HBGary and Berico Technologies, to launch cyber-attacks and other “dirty tricks” against Wikileaks and its supporters, on behalf of Bank of America, and against website ThinkProgress on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Pro-Wikileaks hacker collective Anonymous found the proposal and emails by hacking into the account of HBGary’s chief executive.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir responded by issuing an apology and severing ties with HBGary. It has also put the 27-year-old engineer Matthew Steckman — who may have been responsible for putting the offensive tactics on the proposal (according to the emails) — on leave and launched an internal investigation. Some have implied that Palantir’s senior staff must have known about the proposal, given the importance of the clients. But Palantir chief Alex Karp says that’s not how the company works: “The idea that a 27-year-old wouldn’t have the ability to make a decision about our proposal is very foreign to how we work. It would go further up the chain if it was a proposal, but it wasn’t.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, the 330-person company is largely comprised of 27-year-old “forward deployed engineers” who are given a lot of free rein to make decisions. But in an industry like cyber-security, young engineers may not have the experience to make the best judgment calls. Even Karp concedes, “There was an oversight breakdown on the proposal phase of our work and we regret that.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir will need to do some PR clean-up, especially among its applicant pool. The company competes with the Googles and the Facebooks for top talent. Palantir’s Co-director of Engineering Bob McGrew, a third-year Stanford Ph.D. candidate in computational game theory, turned down a job at YouTube offered by co-founder Jawed Karim to go to Palantir. McGrew says the company’s save-the-world “mission” sets it apart. Stanford computer science student Jake Becker says Palantir’s exclusivity in hiring the best of the best makes the company an attractive employer. But Becker also says that the Wikileaks flap “is seriously damaging their reputation on campus.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, competitors sniff and say that Palantir isn’t doing anything particularly new in the industry. “They are taking a different approach which is trying to bring the Silicon Valley-esque to the beltway,” says i2 CEO Bob Griffin. A primary competitor to Palantir, i2 is a 20-year-old company whose cyber-intelligence software is known as the Microsoft Word of the industry. “The reality is at the end of the day there is no different approach. It’s all the same: it is what is the tool that allows customers to do what they do best.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recently, i2 and Palantir settled a lawsuit, in which i2 accused its competitor of corporate espionage. Griffin says only that he was “very satisfied” with the settlement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But these controversies will likely wash over in time. Some investors have been betting big on Palantir. The company’s last round of funding of $90 million last June, led by an unnamed private equity firm, valued the six-year-old company at a whopping $735 million. Dave Kellogg, former CEO of business intelligence software maker MarkLogic, speculates in a blog post that “dumb money” might be involved here. “I think it means that… The company is trying to build and/or sustain a hype bubble and wants to be seen as hot. Most VC-backed companies do not disclose valuations,” he wrote. Kellogg also thinks Palantir is executing a “go big or go home” type strategy like PayPal did in its early days (Palantir was founded and backed by PayPal Mafia members), but he says he doesn’t see the same “landgrab market opportunity” here.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other analysts and companies in the space agree, saying that Palantir’s revenues were probably around $25 million to $50 million last year. Gartner analyst John Pescatore says the market for “situational awareness tools” like Palantir’s is in the tens of millions of dollars, a fraction of the overall security intelligence services’ budgets, which are dominated by the likes of Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Karp says that he sees a “clear path” to $1 billion in revenue within the next five years. How close is he to that? Palantir’s 2010 revenue was “significantly north of $80 million”, said a highly reputable source familiar with the company who did not wish to be named. Karp says that Palantir’s revenues have been tripling every year since 2008 and that it became cash-flow positive in 2010.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still $80 million or so is a long way from $1 billion. A lot will depend on how Palantir expands beyond its cyber-security niche. The signs could point either way here. It would not be a surprise if Bank of America did not end up using Palantir’s services anytime soon, given recent happenings. On the other hand, Palantir has already been able to line up a number of other top banks and hedge funds. One of these is JPMorgan Chase. Palantir signed a multi-year contract with the bank in December 2009 in the $5 million to $20 million range, and JPMorgan Chase Chief Information Officer Guy Chiarello gushes about the company, calling Palantir “the best bet I’ve made in quite a while.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s no doubt that Palantir has a lot of bright young engineers working for them, but to really kick it up to the level of a Facebook or a Google, the company may need to start growing up.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/07/1214494/-Palantir-s-PRISM-Software-casts-a-very-wide-Net</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FRI JUN 07, 2013 AT 12:38 PM PDT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir's PRISM Software casts a very wide Net</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">byjamessFollow</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the guise of National Security, the Tech wizards at Palantir appear to be raking-in Billions -- turning your online life into easy to consume McNews Nuggents.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How much are you willing to bet they are getting it right? (Have you read your own comments page lately? No worries the CIA will do it you, free of charge.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PRISM Is Also The Name Of A Product From Palantir, A $5 Billion Tech Startup Funded By The CIA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Nicholas Carlson, businessinsider.com -- Jun. 7, 2013,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to documents obtained by the Post, PRISM allows the NSA to tap directly into the central servers of 9 big Internet companies: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A source told the Post that with PRISM, the NSA can "quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One company that would be able to provide such tools is Silicon Valley tech firm called Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not a lot is known about Palantir, a private company that does not say much about who it works with.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[U-h .. o-h. W-a-i-t .. W-h-a-t !?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[larger image -- Team Themis-Palantir Proposal for the Chamber of Commerce.]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s Software is so Good its First Client Was the CIA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Sam Volkering, Technology Analyst, Money Morning -- May 26, 2013</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir sprung from an idea by Dr. Alex Karp, a Stanford graduate with a PHD in Social Philosophy. His idea, to create software that can ‘make sense of massive amounts of disparate data.‘</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Teaming up with his friend (and PayPal founder) Peter Theil, they started Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s first client was the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They now provide their software to a range of industries. Financial, Medical, Government and Not-For-Profit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> ‘Palantir software represents the intersection of data, technology and human expertise. Our data fusion platforms sit above traditional data systems and enable people to ask the questions they need answered in a language they understand.‘ – Palantir</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Well are least with our personal Credit Ratings assigned to us by faceless remote monoliths, at least with them we can demand copies, we can try to correct the record -- when they get it wrong.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How about with our personal PRISM security ratings assigned to us by super-secret data-sniffing monoliths, where does one go to correct the record THEN? -- just in case they happen to get it wrong miss your ironic wit or sardonic satire?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Does PRISM Software have a built-in, automatic Snark-detector too? Twittering minds should really want to know.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oh yes, now I remember, there was a strange espionage episode a few years ago, involving the Chamber of Commerce and likely the Koch Brothers too, where the Palantir super-snooping claims were front and center:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary, Themis, bloggers, and traditional media: What a tangled Web</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Joan McCarter for Daily Kos -- Feb 15, 2011</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...] it's a fascinating story, and not just a little disquieting. The Chamber of Commerce, of course, denies any involvement in the scheme, claiming "that HBGary's proposal 'was never discussed with anyone at the Chamber' and that 'the Chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary's e-mails leaked.'"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Themis leaked emails ... documenting their COC project proposal ...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And this is just from a small portion of the e-mails that have been read so far. The possibility of the damaging revelations to still come as the e-mails are sifted through seem limitless. But one important revelation to come out so far isn't necessarily that damaging to either the Chamber or BOA or Hunton Williams as much as it is to traditional media. This is revealed in the PowerPoint one of Team Themis -- Palantir -- created referencing Glenn Greenwald [...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Are YOU remotely linked somehow within that Glenn Greenwald blurry web of influence? (How would you know? and/or Why should you care?)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here's another PowerPoint explaining "the technology capabilities" that Team Themis was promising to deliver, not so many years ago:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[ Slide Presentation ]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(pdf)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Team Themis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Purpose:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Develop a corporate information reconnaissance service to aid legal investigations through the open source collection of information on target groups and individuals that appear organized to extort specific concessions through online slander campaigns.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Solution:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Develop collection solutions for information on individuals and groups of interest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> -- Standardize and store information in common DB for structured analysis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> -- Analyze digital artifacts and social links within common visual framework</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> -- Report correlated information in individual and organizational profiles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[larger image -- Themis-Palantir system Intelligence Architecture.]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here's the Sales Pitch that 'Team Themis' gave to its Corporate clients, before landing that killer gig with the CIA. It's the same "Information Reconnaissance" Plan, which as the leaked emails confirm, the Chamber of Commerce was in the midst of implementing, when the "ChamberLeaks Scandal" broke -- forcing the Chamber's many adamant denials. In which they insisted for weeks that: "We know NOTHING! Come on, Just trust us."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SOOO, "Pay no attention, to those Social Media 'infiltrators' behind those Internet Application windows, people ..." Afterall our data is just free for the taking. (Except for the astronomic Contractor Collection Fees of course.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell (pdf)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 3, 2010</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berico Technologies, LLC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary Federal, LLC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Submitted to:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hunton and Williams, LLP </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berico Technologies -- Be Smarter. Be Faster.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hunton & Williams, LLP</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Pg 2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Background</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Internet based communications, most predominately the growing spectrum of social media platforms, allow people to coordinate and communicate in a highly efficient and collaborative manner, even when vastly geographically distributed. These same services and technologies can also make it difficult to attribute information to specific entities. Anonymizing and misattribution technologies used to mask location and identity have become commonplace. In many cases, people and/or organizations use the inherent insecurity in Internet communications to conduct criminal or unethical activities. This represents a paradigm shift in the capability of individuals and small groups to conduct effective planning and execution of asymmetric operations and campaigns that can have major impacts on large organizations or corporations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Pg 5]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Data Collection</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Team Themis consistently uses a combination of open source tools and data subscriptions combined with custom data collectors and pre-processors. Our unique methodology for collection is tailored for the social media environment; an iterative process of traditional data collection and social media link and artifact collection and analysis that allows us to link information correlations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Primary information resources:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. Background Checks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. LexisNexis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3. LinkedIn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4. Facebook</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5. Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7. Other social media and location services</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6. Subject specific sites, blogs, and forums</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7. Well crafted search queries to search for digital artifacts</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8. Other digital information discovered or given access to during the investigation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Social media encompasses vast amounts of information, much of it potentially ambiguous, so comparative analysis between information sources is key to derive accurate intelligence. The key to successful open source Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) is to iterate that would not otherwise be apparent. through the lifecycle quickly and accurately for as much complete data collection as possible. We have significant experience in this type of analysis and our methodology has proven out in real operations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If/when Hunston & Williams LLP needs or desires web-content production, Team Themis will create realistic, useable web content to engage specific audiences for the purpose of gathering relevant, in-depth information. Direct target engagement can provide valuable information that cannot be acquired through other means: the detailed, focused task encompasses persona creation, [...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Pg 6]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Data Integration</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Team Themis developers and engineers will leverage their extensive knowledge of Palantir's development and data integration environments to integrate all relevant data in one single, robust analytics layer. All of the data collected will be integrated seamlessly into the Palantir analysis framework to enhance link and artifact analysis. The platform's powerful approach to data integration will enable enterprises to unify data schemas, thus allowing analysts to depict and query otherwise disparate pieces of information in a secure and collaborative environment. Thanks to Palantir's sophisticated data integration capabilities, analysts within the CIRC will also be able to ingest both structured and unstructured data and perform real-time entity resolution against user-defined criteria on the fly, culminating with the fusion of multiple data sources and enrichment of single-source data feeds.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir's open and dynamic ontology capability will provide Hunton & Williams LLP theflexibility to store and contextualize all types of data for analysis. Team Themis will work closely with the customer to conceptualize and implement a tailored ontology thatconsiders the specific problem set and maps data into human-oriented models – this approach will drive effective decisionmaking grounded in deep understanding.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By providing high-value context and data enrichment, analysts will be empowered to develop robust link analysis between people, organizations, and/or other digital artifacts that will begin to form trends and allow statistical analysis. Team Themis will also develop specific helpers to further automate some data ingestion from commercial data sources as well as social media services and Google queries. [...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Pg 7]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leverage the leading analytical platform. Team Themis will utilize the powerful Palantir platform as the centerpiece of the CIRC – empowering our collector/analysts with a cutting-edge analytical capability that enables rapid search and discovery, effective collaboration, and intuitive knowledge management.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir is recognized as the market-leading analytical platform for counter-intelligence(CI), counter-terrorism (CT), counter-narcotics (CN), and counter-proliferation (CP), currently deployed across elements of the intelligence, defense, and law enforcement communities that include SOCOM, DIA, CIA, and JIEDDO. The platform's proven record of success is grounded in the Palantir philosophy of augmenting and empowering analysts with a flexible, intuitive set of tools and capabilities that allow for analysis of data across relational, temporal, and geospatial domains.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It's a Brave New World out there people ... well on second-thought really NOT so "Brave."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Palantir-Themis way is really kind of despicable when to stop to think about it. It's like the grand implementation of so many Big Brother decider-type dreams. On auto-pilot.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is Big-Data simply the trap-door to Big-Brother? And who's really bothering to watch the watchers?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And where do these Personal-Profile fishing expeditions ever end? Whenever; If ever. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Where is the Palantir opt-out button? ... or the Palantir Complaint Window?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unfortunately, Nowhere to be seen. Not in our brave new Themis-Palantir behind-the-scenes world ... SO for now, I'll just wish us all .. G-o-o-d .. L-u-c-k !</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> AOL</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AppleBig Brotherbig dataChamber of CommerceChamberleaksCIACredit Scoresfacebookfree marketGlenn GreenwaldgoogleinternetMicrosoftNational InsecurityNo ComplaintsNSAPalantirPaltalkPersonal EffectsPersonal ProfilesPRISMskypesocial mediaSuper SnoopersTeam ThemisVirtual FootprintsYahooYouTube</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUN JUN 23, 2013 AT 11:19 AM PDT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary, Palantir, Prism, Facebook & The Industrial Surveillance Complex</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">byLieparDestinFollow</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Part 1 of several to come:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lets begin a couple years back with the release of the hacked e-mails of defense contractor HBGary by Anonymous. Many readers will be familiar with these events as it was covered extensively on this site as well as many others. The Nation offers a refresher:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations. The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cyber-tools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think we need to highlight people like Glenn Greenwald. Glenn was critical in the Amazon to OVH [data center] transition and helped WikiLeaks provide access to information during the transition. It is this level of support we need to attack. These are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals. Without the support of people like Glenn WikiLeaks would fold.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary was to be tasked with creating an army of sock-puppets to spread propaganda or infiltrate groups:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary was part of a consortia that submitted a proposal to develop a “persona management” system for the United States Air Force, that would allow one user to control multiple online identities for commenting in social media spaces, thus giving the appearance of grassroots support or opposition to certain policies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the HBGary fiasco, the sock-puppet contracts where awarded to a firm called Ntrepid</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ntrepid Corporation, registered out of Los Angeles, bills itself as a privacy and identity protection firm in some job postings, and a national security contractor in others, but its official website was amazingly just one page deep and free of even a single word of description.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In spite of their thin online presence, Speaks said the firm was awarded $2,760,000 to carry out the “persona management” contract</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ntrepid also owns a product called Tartan. Those familiar with the Occupy crackdown may have heard of it:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In another document on Ntrepid letterhead, titled “Tartan Influence Model: Anarchist Groups,” Tartan is positioned as a software tool that can help combat domestic protestors who operate in “an amorphous network of anarchist and protest groups” and suggests that these groups are prone to violence. They name Occupy Wall Street and Occupy D.C. as part of the problem, and have “built Occupy networks through online communication with anarchists.” By identifying the threat of anarchistic, supposedly violent protestors, Tartan sells its services by saying their software “identifies the hidden relationships among organizers of seemingly unrelated movements… To mitigate the ability of anarchists to incite violence… Law enforcement must identify the complex network of relationships among anarchist leaders</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary later went on to be sold to ManTech International (itself a corruption hotbed with the Rick Renzi scandal in arizona). ManTech also owns MSM Security Services who do the background checks, etc for security clearances allowing people like Snowden to gain access to classified information. ManTech employees are now facing charges :</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A federal contractor pleaded guilty to lying about conducting background checks on government employees - a crime that prosecutors say is becoming increasingly common.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> The U.S. government had indicted Ramon Davila in 2011 for 24 separate offenses related to his work at ManTech MSM Security Services; Systems Application & Technologies; and USIS, which was formerly known as U.S. Investigations Services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This means that a contractor like ManTech was able to issue its own security clearances to itself.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We will get back to more of this later but lets talk about Palantir Technologies for a moment. Palantir is another silicon valley defense contractor that started literally across the street from Facebook. Funny enough two key players in Facebook are now heavily involved with Palantir. Billionaire investor Peter Thiel and Sean Parker.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir says it sells "software that allows organizations to make sense of massive amounts of disparate data," for purposes including "combating terrorism," and offers to bring "Silicon Valley to your doorstep." It's enjoyed early investments from the CIA, which might have something to do with its current napkin-valuation of around $5 billion, and now employs former top spooks like Michael Leiter. Palantir also happens to sell software called "Prism," which shares its namesake with an NSA spy program that also aims to bring Silicon Valley to snoop doorsteps around the Beltway. Palantir's Prism, according to a handy user manual published on TPM, "is a software component that lets you quickly integrate external databases"—exactly the kind of action that the NSA allegedly makes use of to suck up your Facebook browsing, Gmail inbox, and Google searches in realtime.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s rise to prominence, now reportedly valued at $8 billion, came from initial investment from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, and close consultation with officials from the intelligence-gathering community, including disgraced retired admiral John Poindexter and Bryan Cunningham, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the HBGary events Palantir issued an 'apology':</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir CEO Karp ended all ties to HBGary and issued a statement apologizing to “progressive organizations… and Greenwald … for any involvement that we may have had in these matters." Palantir placed an employee on leave pending a review by a third-party law firm. The employee was later reinstated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Laying the blame on a 27 year old engineer:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The idea that a 27-year-old wouldn’t have the ability to make a decision about our proposal is very foreign to how we work. It would go further up the chain if it was a proposal, but it wasn’t.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, the 330-person company is largely comprised of 27-year-old “forward deployed engineers” who are given a lot of free rein to make decisions. But in an industry like cyber-security, young engineers may not have the experience to make the best judgment calls. Even Karp concedes, “There was an oversight breakdown on the proposal phase of our work and we regret that.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Makes you wonder what other oversight breakdowns have taken place. Regardless, Palantir escaped scrutiny and continues to be praised by those in charge:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vice President Joe Biden and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag held a press conference at the White House announcing the success of fighting fraud in the stimulus by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB). Biden credited the success to the software,Palantir, being deployed by the federal government.[13] He announced that the capability will be deployed at other government agencies, starting with Medicare and Medicaid</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the HBGary hack journalist and satirist Barrett Brown began going through the document dump and writing about all that he found. Not much further down the road Anonymous spinoff AntiSec hacked security firm Strafor Global Intelligence and Barrett Brown immediately jumped on the story combing through the documents:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s obvious by looking at the most recent posts on Barrett Brown’s blog that while he is highly interested in Stratfor, it wasn’t the credit card information that motivated him. When those five million emails leaked, a product called TrapWire, which was created by a company called Abraxas, was revealed to the public at large. And it caused a media shitstorm. In 2005, the founder of Abraxas and former head of the CIA’s European division, Richard Helms, described TrapWire as software that is installed inside of surveillance camera systems that is, “more accurate than facial recognition” with the ability to “draw patterns, and do threat assessments of areas that may be under observation from terrorists.” As Russia Today reported, one of the leaked emails, allegedly written by Stratfor’s VP of Intelligence, Fred Burton, stated that TrapWire was at “high-value targets” in “the UK, Canada, Vegas, Los Angeles, NYC.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barrett Brown was doing some very serious investigating into a company called Cubic from San Diego, that was alleged to own TrapWire as a subsidiary of their firm. This is an allegation that they officially denied. However, these tax filings from 2010 that Barrett uncovered clearly state that Cubic had in fact merged with Abraxas Corporation. If you click through and take a look, you can see that Richard Helms’s name is right there on the top of the first page.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On those same tax-returns... a company called Ntrepid.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brown also became especially interested in the firm Endgame Systems who was not happy about the HBGary leak:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Please let HBGary know we don’t ever want to see our name in a press release"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of its products, available for a $2.5 million annual subscription, gave customers access to “zero-day exploits”—security vulnerabilities unknown to software companies—for computer systems all over the world. Business Week published a story on Endgame in 2011, reporting that “Endgame executives will bring up maps of airports, parliament buildings, and corporate offices. The executives then create a list of the computers running inside the facilities, including what software the computers run, and a menu of attacks that could work against those particular systems.” For Brown, this raised the question of whether Endgame was selling these exploits to foreign actors and whether they would be used against computer systems in the United States.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These zero-day exploits where the exact thing planned to be used against Unions, Glenn Greenwald and whomever else may have sparked their ire. This also of course ties in directly with what Snowden was saying about hack attacks on universities and other civilian targets.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Defense News has more on Endgame and their program 'Bonesaw':</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Endgame’s Bonesaw is marketed to U.S. intelligence agencies and large companies. It doesn’t hide its offensive capabilities as a tool for launching cyber weapons.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Marketing documents say “the Bonesaw platform provides a complete environment for intelligence analysts and mission planners to take a holistic approach to target discovery, reducing the time to create actionable intelligence and operational plans from days to minutes.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Bonesaw is the ability to map, basically every device connected to the Internet and what hardware and software it is,” says a company official who requested anonymity.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It of course does not end with Bonesaw:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Endgame’s next product is more advanced than Bonesaw. The application, called Velocity, is to provide access to this mapped-out Internet in real time as hardware is added and deleted, making cyber targeting more immediate, and increasingly laying bare the Internet.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Browns journalism and activism brough the ire of the federal government, and they came down hard. Extremely hard. Brown is facing:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">facing up to 100 years in jail for three separate indictments. Two of the indictments—the threatening of an FBI officer in a YouTube video and the concealing of evidence—do not seem worthy of such a harsh sentence, considering a man in Houston recieved only 42 months for threatening to blow up an FBI building, and a former dentist got 18 months for threatening to kill an FBI agent. The third, however, pertains to Barrett Brown's pasting of a link in an Anonymous IRC chat room to a document full of credit card numbers and their authentication codes that was stolen from the security company Stratfor, in the midst of a hack that released over five million internal emails. Those emails were published to Wikileaks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This came through a convoluted series of events and intense pressure:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The FBI acquired a warrant for Brown’s laptop, gaining the authority to seize any information related to HBGary, Endgame Systems, Anonymous and, most ominously, “email, email contacts, ‘chat’, instant messaging logs, photographs, and correspondence.” In other words, the FBI wanted his sources.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the FBI went to serve Brown, he was at his mother’s house. Agents returned with a warrant to search his mother’s house, retrieving his laptop. To turn up the heat on Brown, the FBI initiated charges against his mother for obstruction of justice for concealing his laptop computer in her house.(Facing criminal charges, on March 22, 2013, his mother, Karen McCutchin, pled guilty to one count of obstructing the execution of a search warrant. She faces up to twelve months in jail. Brown maintains that she did not know the laptop was in her home.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By his own admission, the FBI’s targeting of his mother made Brown snap. In September 2012, he uploaded an incoherent YouTube video, in which he explained that he had been in treatment for an addiction to heroin, taking the medication Suboxone, but had gone off his meds and now was in withdrawal. He threatened the FBI agent that was harassing his mother, by name, warning:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I know what’s legal, I know what’s been done to me.… And if it’s legal when it’s done to me, it’s going to be legal when it’s done to FBI Agent Robert Smith—who is a criminal.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“That’s why [FBI special agent] Robert Smith’s life is over. And when I say his life is over, I’m not saying I’m going to kill him, but I am going to ruin his life and look into his fucking kids…. How do you like them apples?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We have seen this kind of intense pressure on Aaron Swartz, 'the anthrax killer' (yeah right), and so many other government 'enemies'. The 'threat' clearly was not smart, but also clearly said it was not a death threat. However immediately the story was no longer about government surveillance and potential crimes but about 'crazy ol' Brown'.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All told, Brown is looking at century of jail time: 105 years in federal prison if served sequentially. He has been denied bail.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brown has been sitting in jail ever since and the story was dropped until Snowden came along. And Michael Hastings.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About 15 hours before dying in a fiery car crash at about 4:30 a.m. in L.A. on June 17, journalist Michael Hastings sent an email to several colleagues that said the FBI was investigating him and he was "onto a big story."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hey [words blurred out] — the Feds are interviewing my "close friends and associates." Perhaps if the authorities arrive "BuzzFeed GQ", er HQ, may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also: I'm onto a big story, and need to go off the [radar] for a bit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All the best, and hope to see you all soon.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith has said that Hastings was working on a story on Barrett Brown. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This of course opens up all kinds of CT that I won't get into but at the same time wouldnt blame anyone else for diving right in.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So what does it all mean? Peter Ludlow at The Nation has some thoughts:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the media and much of the world have been understandably outraged by the revelation of the NSA’s spying programs, Barrett Brown’s work was pointing to a much deeper problem. It isn’t the sort of problem that can be fixed by trying to tweak a few laws or by removing a few prosecutors. The problem is not with bad laws or bad prosecutors. What the case of Barrett Brown has exposed is that we confronting a different problem altogether. It is a systemic problem. It is the failure of the rule of law.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12:05 PM PT: Thanks to Lisa Lockwood for the link to Browns Project PM which details these firms/projects much more extensively.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also this detail from the HBGary Hack is also relevant to Snowden:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At one point during the discussions about how to use their technologies to attack activists, Barr had met with Booz Allen Hamilton senior vice president Bill Wansley</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ORIGINALLY POSTED TO LIEPARDESTIN ON SUN JUN 23, 2013 AT 11:19 AM PDT.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALSO REPUBLISHED BY ANONYMOUS DKOS AND THE REBEL ALLIANCE.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UNLOCKING SECRETS, IF NOT ITS OWN VALUE. VVVSOME OF THE DOCUMENTS TAKEN BY ANONYMOUS SHOW HBGARY FEDERAL WAS WORKING ON BEHALF OF BANK OF AMERICA TO RESPOND TO WIKILEAKS' PLANNED RELEASE OF THE BANK'S INTERNAL DOCUMENTS.[2] THE PLAN INCLUDED "DISRUPTING" REPORTER GLENN GREENWALD IN HIS SUPPORT OF WIKILEAKS. EMAILS DETAIL A SUPPOSED BUSINESS PROPOSAL BY HBGARY TO ASSIST BANK OF AMERICA'S LAW FIRM, HUNTON & WILLIAMS, IN A "DIRTY TRICKS CAMPAIGN" THAT INCLUDED PROPOSALS TO FABRICATE "FALSE DOCUMENTS"[4]: "POTENTIAL PROACTIVE TACTICS AGAINST WIKILEAKS INCLUDE FEEDING THE FUEL BETWEEN THE FEUDING GROUPS, DISINFORMATION, CREATING MESSAGES AROUND ACTIONS TO SABOTAGE OR DISCREDIT THE OPPOSING ORGANIZATION, AND SUBMITTING FAKE DOCUMENTS TO WIKILEAKS AND THEN CALLING OUT THE ERROR."[5]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chamber of Commerce</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to other e-mails, the Chamber of Commerce hired the lobbying firm Hunton & Williams, and attorneys for the law firm then solicited a set of private security firms — HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) — to develop a sabotage campaign against progressive groups and labor unions, including the climate change watch group ThinkProgress, the labor coalition Change to Win, the labor union SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com. Later emails revealed that the private spy company investigated the families and children of the Chamber’s political opponents. The apparent spearhead of this project was Aaron Barr, who circulated numerous emails and documents detailing information about political opponents’ children, spouses, and personal lives.[6]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On February 10, 2011, the Chamber of Commerce issued a statement denying they hired HBGary,[7] calling the allegation a "baseless smear", and blaming the Center for American Progress and its blog, ThinkProgressfor "the illusion of a connection between HBGary, its CEO Aaron Barr and the Chamber."[8]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Creating false personas online</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In another Word document, one of the members of Team Themis spells out how automation can work so one person can be many personas on websites, twitter feeds, and comments sections: "Using the assigned social media accounts we can automate the posting of content that is relevant to the persona. In this case there are specific social media strategy website RSS feeds we can subscribe to and then repost content on twitter with the appropriate hashtags. In fact using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example. There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas."[9]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div>
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