Will Palantir be the next Silicon Valley company linked to NSA's PRISM program?
- Lauren Hepler
- Economic Development Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal
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What about throwing a super secretive defense contracting startup from Palo Alto in the mix?
On Friday, Valleywag published a rundown of Palantir Technologies' data mining offerings, government contracts and a software program also (coincidentally, according to the company) called Prism.
A statement tweeted by a GigaOM reporter reads: "Palantir's Prism platform is completely unrelated to any US government program of the same name."
Still, the company has other ties to the U.S. government and others already involved in the NSA PRISM program. Here are the highlights:
- Palantir is a well-established government contractor, amassing $7.7 million in fees over the course of 32 transactions with the U.S. government, according to federal records (see them here).
- A Palantir website outlining their Prism program (see it here) explains that customers with large quantities of data can use the software to "automatically construct the data provider and database code for you." Valleywag points out that this is "exactly the kind of action that the NSA allegedly makes use of to suck up your Facebook browsing, Gmail inbox, and Google searches in realtime."
- Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel is also on Facebook's board of directors and a mentor of CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook is one of nine tech companies listed in a leaked government presentation outlining the NSA's PRISM program.
Lauren Hepler covers economic development, sports, and hospitality for the Silicon Valley Business Journal. She can be reached at 408.299.1820
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