Palantir has been in the news lately. I stay away from most news, but I make an exception for anything mentioning Palantir. Mass surveillance has now been privatized, and Palantir’s influence on the world continues to increase with the growth and advancement of A.I technology. Here are some links to news articles about Palantir with a few excerpts that I think are of interest.
“Data intelligence firms proposed a systematic attack against WikiLeaks” - Feb 10, 2011, The Tech Herald:
The proposal was quickly developed by Palantir Technologies, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies, after a request from Hunton and Williams, a law firm that currently counts Bank of America as a client.
The law firm had a meeting with Bank of America on December 3. To prepare, the firm emailed Palantir and the others asking for “…five to six slides on Wikileaks – who they are, how they operate and how this group may help this bank…
…Some of the things mentioned as potential proactive tactics 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.
“Create concern over the security of the infrastructure. Create exposure stories. If the process is believed to not be secure they are done. Cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project. Since the servers are now in Sweden and France putting a team together to get access is more straightforward.”
“Leaked Palantir Doc Reveals Uses, Specific Functions And Key Clients” - June 11, 2015, Tech Crunch:
As of 2013, Palantir was used by at least 12 groups within the US Government including the CIA, DHS, NSA, FBI, the CDC, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point, the Joint IED-defeat organization and Allies, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The prospectus holds that the US military used Palantir with great success. The Pentagon used the software to track patterns in roadside bomb deployment and was able to conclude that garage-door openers were being used as remote detonators. With Palantir, the Marines are now able to upload DNA samples from remote locations and tap into information gathered from years of collecting fingerprints and DNA evidence. The results are returned almost immediately. Without Palantir, the suspects would have already moved onto a different location by the time the field agents received the results.
“Palantir grabbed Project Maven defense contract after Google left the program: sources” - Dec 10, 2019, Business Insider:
Palantir has taken on Project Maven, a US Department of Defense program that Google stopped working on in March, according to people familiar with the project.
The project, referred to internally at Palantir as "Tron," will train artificial intelligence to analyze aerial drone footage to identify people and objects.
Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley's most prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, criticized Google's decision to drop out of Project Maven in August, calling it "seemingly treasonous" for Google to reject the US military while opening an artificial intelligence lab in China. He called for Google to be investigated.
“How Palantir, the secretive tech company, is rising in the Trump era” - May 3, 2025, NPR:
"We're doing it! We're doing it!" Karp exclaimed. "And I'm sure you're enjoying this as much as I am!"
Palantir's AI software is used by the Israel Defense Forces to strike targets in Gaza; it's used to assist the Defense Department in analyzing drone footage; and the Los Angeles Police Department relied on Palantir's "predictive policing" tools to forecast crime patterns.
Wired and CNN have reported that Palantir is being tapped by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to create a master immigration database to speed up deportations. And DOGE has hired numerous former Palantir employees.
Palantir's new work with the Trump administration follows two decades of gaining ever-larger government contracts. In November, Palantir secured a nearly $1 billion software contract with the Navy. Since Trump took office, Palantir's has been eyeing even more government work, and the company's stock has surged more than 200% from the day before Trump was elected.
“Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans” - May 30, 2025, NY Post:
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
The goal of uniting data on Americans has been quietly discussed by Palantir engineers, employees said, adding that they were worried about collecting so much sensitive information in one place. The company’s security practices are only as good as the people using them, they said. They characterized some DOGE employees as sloppy on security, such as not following protocols in how personal devices were used.
Palantir’s Collection of Disease Data at C.D.C. Stirs Privacy Concerns - June 6, 2025, NY Post:
The agency told state officials earlier this week that it would shift disease information to a new system managed by Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm co-founded by Peter Thiel.
The agency has worked with Palantir systems since 2010, and this particular move has been discussed for at least a year. Still, the decision to transfer the data now was abrupt, and took state officials and many C.D.C. staff members by surprise.
Tech execs are joining the Army — no grueling boot camp required - June 17, 2025, Business Insider:
Four top tech execs from OpenAI, Meta, and Palantir have just joined the US Army — no obstacle courses, shouted orders, or grueling marches required.
The execs — Shyam Sankar, the chief technology officer of Palantir; Andrew Bosworth, the chief technology officer of Meta; Kevin Weil, the chief product officer at OpenAI; and Bob McGrew, an advisor at Thinking Machines Lab who was formerly the chief research officer for OpenAI — are joining the Army as lieutenant colonels as part of an effort to turbocharge tech innovation and adoption, according to an Army press statement.
The name of their unit, "Detachment 201," is named for the "201" status code generated when a new resource is created for Hypertext Transfer Protocols in internet coding, Butler explained.
"In this role they will work on targeted projects to help guide rapid and scalable tech solutions to complex problems," read the Army press release. "By bringing private-sector know-how into uniform, Det. 201 is supercharging efforts like the Army Transformation Initiative, which aims to make the force leaner, smarter, and more lethal."
"Watch These Palantir Price Levels as Stock Hits Another All-Time High" - June 2, 2025, Investopedia:
Palantir shares rose 0.2% to close Monday at just above $132, after surging nearly 8% the previous session to a record high. The stock has doubled since hitting its early-April low and is up 75% since the start of the year, as investor enthusiasm for AI stocks has recovered lately and investors bet that Palantir will be a prime beneficiary of the government's efficiency drive.