Peter Thiel, Palantir, NSA... versus You!

[grarpamp]

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/

Top Secret Strap 1

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

Peter Thiel became one of the American political mainstream’s most
notorious figures in 2016 (when it emerged he was bankrolling a
lawsuit against Gawker Media, my former employer) even before he won a
direct line to the White House. Now he brings to his role as
presidential adviser decades of experience as kingly investor and
token nonliberal on Facebook’s board of directors, a Rolodex of
software luminaries, and a decidedly Trumpian devotion to controversy
and contrarianism. But perhaps the most appealing asset Thiel can
offer our bewildered new president will be Palantir Technologies,
which Thiel founded with Alex Karp and Joe Lonsdale in 2004.

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
...