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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Report: Peter Thiel’s secretive Palantir builds ‘the engine for Donald Trump’s deportation machine’ As controversy rises around deportations underway across the U.S., a new report says Palantir, the secretive Palo Alto security firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, has built “the engine for Donald Trump’s deportation machine.” Trump has brought in new policies directing authorities to ramp up arrests and deportation of people in the U.S. illegally. And Palantir, valued at $20 billion, is key to that effort, according to a report published March 2. The company did not respond immediately to a request for comment. In 2014, Palantir won a $41 million contract to build and maintain an intelligence system called Investigative Case Management for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to government records unearthed by The Intercept. ICE carries out the arrests that lead to deportation of undocumented immigrants. The Palantir case-management system is up and running, scheduled to operate at full capacity by September, The Intercept reported. “The documents identify Palantir’s ICM as ‘mission critical’ to ICE, meaning that the agency will not be able to properly function without the program,” according to (paywall) The Intercept, which in its headline for the article described the system as the “engine for Donald Trump’s deportation machine.” Funding documents reveal the Palantir system can provide a deep view into the lives of potential ICE targets, The Intercept reported. It gives users access to intelligence platforms of the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the FBI and other federal and private law enforcement groups, according to The Intercept. “It can provide ICE agents access to information on a subject’s schooling, family relationships, employment information, phone records, immigration history, foreign exchange program status, personal connections, biometric traits, criminal records, and home and work addresses,” The Intercept reported. This is not the first time The Intercept has shone a harsh light on Palantir and Thiel, a billionaire investor and adviser to the President. Last month, a report in the subscription-based online magazine said that Palantir was “co- created with American spies” and had spent years boosting the “global dragnet” of the U.S. National Security Agency. “Palantir has helped expand and accelerate the NSA’s global spy network, which is jointly administered with allied foreign agencies around the world,” The Intercept reported (paywall). The firm built software to accelerate use of the NSA’s XKEYSCORE tool, which sweeps up internet users’ communications including “emails, chats, and web- browsing traffic … 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,” according to The Intercept. The online magazine said a government document showed that not only was Palantir funded in its early days by the CIA’s venture capital arm In-Q-Tel, its software was built in a collaboration between the firm’s computer scientists and “analysts from various intelligence agencies over the course of nearly three years.” Although Palantir didn’t immediately offer up comment on the March 2 Intercept article, the company professes on its website to an appreciation for civil rights. “Analytic technology, especially in the hands of powerful institutions that hold large volumes of data, can pose serious risks to privacy and civil liberties,” the company says. “That’s why we build privacy-protective capabilities into our products, help customers understand how to use them responsibly, and work with advocacy groups and the policy community on how technology can be used to protect privacy interests today and in the future. “We have always been, and continue to be, committed to helping organizations get value out of their data while protecting sensitive information from misuse and abuse.” Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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