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Palantir, the War On Terror's Secret Weapon
hessian tips a story in BusinessWeek about Palantir, a system designed to aggregate disparate data points gathered by intelligence agencies and weave them into a more useful narrative. The article summarizes it thus: "Depending where you fall on the spectrum between civil liberties absolutism and homeland security lockdown, Palantir’s technology is either creepy or heroic."
"The day Fikri drives to Orlando, he gets a speeding ticket, which triggers an alert in the CIA's Palantir system. An analyst types Fikri's name into a search box and up pops a wealth of information pulled from every database at the government's disposal. There's fingerprint and DNA evidence for Fikri gathered by a CIA operative in Cairo; video of him going to an ATM in Miami; shots of his rental truck's license plate at a tollbooth; phone records; and a map pinpointing his movements across the globe. All this information is then displayed on a clearly designed graphical interface that looks like something Tom Cruise would use in a Mission: Impossible movie."
Big Brother.
Soon: The contents of Palantir are sent in a coded email to a wage-slave computer tech at a large big box electronics store. Hijinks ensue.
...and the cries of an outraged populace are stunning in their absence. Sad days, for sure.
can't wait to see the all seeing eye, can only be around the corner.
Who would have thought that the US Government was Sauron? The same monster which consumes over four trillion dollars of our work certainly is a monster of epic proportion. No wonder that they now even feel the need to take mythic names for what they do.
Who needs Skynet when we have all sorts of fantasy names to assign the latest abuse of our rights by our government. The US defeated (or outlasted) communism of the Soviet Union for what, a Soviet Union style government masquerading as a Republic. From control exerted over industry to health care its nearly complete, we even get the same choice in our elections, which is to say none. Vote for whomever the government has approved from these two sides of the same coin.
Oh, ignore the guy behind the curtain; in your bedroom.
Occupy Wall Street was too many miles North of where it should been, and targeting the wrong foe. Just as the Tea Party figured out and OWS was only hinting at, the real problem in the US isn't the rich and corporations but the politicians who use their position to empower the rich and corporations all the while securing themselves their position
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
...to me. Collate their combined services and presence on the web, and you'll know "everything about anyone".
Google is not empowered to use force against the populace, nor to maintain order, nor to enact law. The Government is. There is a subtle difference.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I think the summary is wrong in one aspect.
Fuck "homeland security lockdown". Think more about who has access to that information and whether you trust THEM with this kind of information about your daughter.
Do you believe that there are more terrorists in the USofA than there are perverts who would have access to that system?
Actually, now that I think about it, it is very appropriate. IIRC, the system was created for aggregating information on people who are not American Citizens, and coded to ignore and discard all data it received on American Citizens, but management removed that functionality because there was no oversight over them. Although created to be used by Good as of old a Palantir might have been used by the Lords of Gondor to track the affairs of neighboring lands, the system was taken and used for evil--indeed, one could even say that the prospect of visions within it corrupted the minds of those who watched, as with Denathor.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
When I first read Fahrenheit 451 decades ago what struck me most was when the authorities zeroed in on some hapless fall-guy who took the hit for Guy Montague. All that mattered to the public watching the video was that *someone* took the fall.
It did not matter if a crime took place. It did not matter if the real perp got caught. The public need for resolution was achieved at the expense of some/anyone. In my current work with databases I see errors that get accepted as fact even if I explain why the error occurs. Similar to my dear departed grandmother telling me "I saw it on TV so it must be true". Good grief, why is everyone so willing to hand-off their self-actualization/responsibility to some government flunkies?
Right about the same time my parents gave me 1984 to read and I've been watching us ride that slippery slope. So sad and so unnecessary except it DOES keep the powers-that-be in power!
More like "Google on steroids", with access to non public data as well as public.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is Echelon, which was operated by the "five eyes" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUSCANNZUKUS) still in operation? Is Palantir tied into it? Presumably that would give it a lot more data to work with.
Anyway, I'd be much more concerned with making sure the data matched with the right person. For example, remember how many spellings there were for Colonel Qaddafi, and he presumably wasn't trying to mask his identity! (At the U.N.: "I'm sorry Mr. Qaddafi but we don't have you down as speaking to the general assembly now, we have someone by the name of Khaddafi".)
I wonder if the recently announced initiative to collect the biometrics data for EVERY living Afghani (which will then be given to the U.S.) was "encouraged" by the U.S. for this reason. I doubt that the Indian effort to do the same for 1.2 BILLION(!) Indians had anything to do with the U.S. (but you never know, both countries ARE U.S. allies). I guess we'll know if other U.S. "allies" in the middle east (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq?) follow suit. THEN these systems could begin to really track down terrorists (who by and large come from that part of the world).
Since the CIA have all this info, they should be allowed to data mine it as much as they please. They get most of this info from people using credit cards (at least in the example). It's entirely optional to use credit cards, and people should be more careful about using them if they think it's creepy that the government can put together the info they are handing over. Alternatively, I think there would be large demand for a financial service that was easier to use than cash, but didn't hand over all the transactions to the CIA. Either way the problem, and the solution, are not related to Palantir.
Strange, because the statistics show 88,097 cases of forcible rape reporting in 2009 in the USofA.
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_02.html
Now, how many deaths by terrorists in the USofA in 2009?
Zero.
88,097 vs 0.
And yet you believe that the system will be good enough to keep out the perverts who would abuse it.
Unfortunately, there is very little enforcement about the line between terrorists and dissidents. Suppose that the African Civil Rights program were in motion right now, instead of during the 1960's. How many of the activities that happened then would be considered fighting for freedom vs fighting against the US. Or suppose that the South were trying to succeed from the Union. Would that be considered treason, or fighting for one's own liberty?
Fundamentally, a government which has enormous power over the constituents is considered right no matter what the fundamental issues are at hand. People are very persuaded and easily motivated to tow the party line, especially if they have somewhat of a stake in the outcome.
Consider the bail out of the US banks in 2008. Something like 70% of the people did not support the bailout, yet it went through. Suppose that citizens had taken up arms to influence this decision. How many of those people would have been successful in stopping their future tax revenues from ending up in the hands of rich and elite gamblers who decided to speculate in MBSs? With this level of surveillance, it would be easy to round up and send off to detention camps those who publicly opposed OUR government. The rest would fall into line. We laugh at the Soviets, but we have the best form of government that money can buy.
So, from 11-26-2001 until 11-26-2011 (10 years) you want me to provide you with statistics for forcible rape?
Why can't you provide them? After all, that is your new claim, isn't it?
Again, from 11-26-2001 through 11-26-2011 (10 years) ....
Oh, I see what you were trying to do. You were trying to get the WTC attacks included to make the numbers look more favourable to your new claim.
Except you didn't realize that they had happened more than 10 years ago.
Anyway, I've already supported my position with the statistics. If you want to change your position to include the WTC attacks then you're going to have to do your own research on rape statistics for whatever time frame you finally settle upon.
Remember, statistics first. Then opinions.
You run into problems when you get that backwards.