PRISM, Palantir, Peter Thiel And Medicare Fraud

In a number of the reports about NSA and especially PRISM, you will find references to a software platform called Palantir. For instance, it’s mentioned in this piece from the New York Times:

How the U.S. Uses Technology to Mine More Data More Quickly

By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU | June 8, 2013

WASHINGTON — When American analysts hunting terrorists sought new ways to comb through the troves of phone records, e-mails and other data piling up as digital communications exploded over the past decade, they turned to Silicon Valley computer experts who had developed complex equations to thwart Russian mobsters intent on credit card fraud.

The partnership between the intelligence community and Palantir Technologies, a Palo Alto, Calif., company founded by a group of inventors from PayPal, is just one of many that the National Security Agency and other agencies have forged as they have rushed to unlock the secrets of “Big Data.” …

But, weirdly, that’s all The Times says about Palantir in their very long piece. But, in fact, Palantir was founded in 2004 by Peter Thiel and others. Yes, the same Peter Thiel who wants to create man-made ‘libertarian’ islands for privacy and freedom. Isn’t irony ironic?

But more troubling is that back in 2010 we were told by Joe Biden that Palantir was used to fight fraud in Obama’s Stimulus spending — and that it will be deployed at other government agencies, starting with Medicare and Medicaid.

From Wikipedia (but heavily sourced and the sources all check out):

Palantir Technologies

Palantir was founded in 2004 by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings. Early investments came in the form of $2 million from the CIA’s venture arm In-Q-Tel and $30 million from Thiel and his firm, The Founders Fund… Palantir’s name comes from the "seeing stones" in the Lord of the Rings.

Palantir was built through collaboration between computer scientists and analysts from intelligence agencies over three years, through pilots facilitated by In-Q-Tel. The software concept grew out of technology developed at PayPal to detect fraudulent activity, much of it conducted by Russian organized crime syndicates. The team realized that computers alone (Artificial Intelligence) could not defeat an adaptive adversary. Palantir allows human analysts to explore data from many sources.(Intelligence Augmentation)…

On June 18, 2010, 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. He announced that the capability will be deployed at other government agencies, starting with Medicare and Medicaid…

So how will this technology not be used to target Americans?

PRISM, Palantir, Peter Thiel And Medicare Fraud