Palantir Technologies, the data-mining company co-founded by billionaire and Trump transition adviser Peter Thiel, will likely assist the Trump administration in its efforts to track and collect intelligence on immigrants, according to a review of public records by The Intercept. Since 2011, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s Office of Homeland Security Investigations has paid Palantir tens of millions of dollars to help construct and operate a complex intelligence system called FALCON, which allows ICE to store, search, and analyze troves of data that include family relationships, employment information, immigration history, criminal records, and home and work addresses.
In a separate multimillion-dollar contract signed in 2014, Thiel’s $20 billion company is building a complex case management system for ICE’s HSI, which processes tens of thousands of civil and criminal cases each year.
Working closely with a president-elect who has pledged to dramatically expand ICE, Thiel’s varied connections to the immigration agency place him in a position to potentially benefit financially from a deportation campaign that carries highly personal stakes for millions of Americans.
Peter Thiel delivers a speech during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
“Given the broad scope of Palantir’s business with the federal government and Mr. Thiel’s investments, it seems to me that he should step away from a pretty broad set of transition issues,” Norman Eisen, a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic who served as chief ethics lawyer to the Obama administration during its first two years, told The Intercept.
Eisen pointed to Palantir’s contracts with ICE as an example. “Whenever anything touching on that agency is at issue, he should step out of the room and he should not be copied on emails about it,” said Eisen. “The information he learns about that agency could be immediately useful to him in his Palantir duties.”
Aside from an assortment of federal budgeting and oversight reports, Palantir’s FALCON system has received little public scrutiny. The system is meant for use by ICE’s office of Homeland Security Investigations, which is separate from ICE’s deportation-focused division known as the Enforcement and Removal Operations. HSI is generally tasked with pursuing more serious cross-border crimes including terrorism-related cases and human trafficking, but the office has openly acknowledged routinely sharing information about deportable noncitizens with ERO. HSI has also led some of ICE’s most high-profile and controversial immigration raids — operations of the sort that some activists fear might proliferate under Trump.
In 2011, in an effort to radically overhaul its “pre-existing, non-optimal” system of data storage and analysis, ICE launched FALCON, according to a funding document. ICE turned to Palantir to implement the system, which would combine various streams of intelligence — including from law enforcement agencies outside ICE — into one tool. Palantir was even asked to design an iPhone app to allow ICE agents to query FALCON while working in the field. Public records show that in May of this year ICE signed a two-year agreement with Palantir for “operation and maintenance” of the FALCON system.
In addition to containing information on family relationships and immigration history, the records FALCON collects can also include photographs of subjects, employment information, educational background, and “geospatial data.” An analytics subset of the program, according to the Department of Homeland Security, allows HSI agents to create data visualizations “to identify trends, develop investigative leads, discover connections among investigations and targets, and enhance the overall investigative and analytic process.”
In response to a list of questions from The Intercept, ICE declined to provide the names of the other law enforcement agencies that share intelligence collected and analyzed within the FALCON system. The agency said that information stored in FALCON is considered “law enforcement sensitive and is only shared with authorized individuals with a specific need to access the data.” In a report published in October, the Department of Homeland Security makes clear that FALCON’s intelligence can be used to pursue a broad range of criminal and civil laws that ICE enforces.
Restrictions on this type of data sharing within the executive branch are often not governed by hard, legal regulations, according to Anil Kalhan, a professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law.
“Legislation after 9/11 authorized and encouraged information sharing within the executive branch,” said Kalhan “There is general authorization, and the scope and limits and constraints upon that authorization have not really been spelled out.”
Even if FALCON’s intelligence were to reside squarely within HSI, that office has spearheaded operations that represent one reported front in Trump’s planned deportation push.
Last month, it was reported that Trump and his advisers are drafting plans to launch a campaign of workplace raids across the country to find undocumented immigrants. With a mandate to enforce laws relating to unauthorized employment, HSI has been identified as the primary component within ICE that conducts such job-site raids. This past October, after a lengthy investigation, HSI agents raided several Mexican restaurants in Buffalo, New York, arresting more than a dozen workers, some of whom were charged with criminal counts of “illegal re-entry,” raising an outcry from immigrant advocates. In 2013, after an HSI raid on carwashes in Phoenix, more than two dozen immigrants were reportedly sent to Enforcement and Removal Operations officers for possible deportation.
ICE can conduct such raids even in so-called sanctuary cities that have refused to allow local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE in finding and removing undocumented immigrants.
ICE’s HSI has also been linked to ERO in its efforts to track noncitizens believed to be affiliated with cross-border gangs in operations that draw upon gang-membership databases. Critics argue the databases have proven unreliable and run the risk of pulling innocent people into the country’s deportation proceedings. (Kalhan believes that the incoming administration’s strongest tools of mass deportation would be its leveraging of relationships with local law enforcement agencies in efforts like ICE’s Secure Communities program.)
As a part of maintaining FALCON, Palantir has helped to build ICE’s tip line, which allows the general public to report violations of law, according to a funding document. With a significant uptick in anti-immigrant sentiment across the country coinciding with Trump’s victory, the tip line could begin processing a higher volume of calls. Last week, the Texas Observer reported that anti-immigrant activists had seized upon the tip line as a tool, distributing fliers around Texas State University encouraging people to call the number to report undocumented immigrants. “We are entering an era of law and order in this country,” the flier stated. “Do your part to make such a change for the good!”
Palantir, which is backed by the CIA’s venture capital arm, did not respond to a request for comment regarding its ICE contracts and concerns over potential conflicts of interest. Peter Thiel spokesperson Jeremiah Hall declined to comment on a list of emailed queries, including a question asking whether Thiel has yet signed the Trump transition ethics agreement.
In response to questions from The Intercept, a spokesperson for ICE confirmed Palantir’s current work with the agency. “The current contract options with Palantir will run through November 2018,” agency spokesperson Danielle Bennett said in an email. Bennett, however, declined to comment on ICE’s work with Palantir under the Trump administration, stating: “We cannot speculate on future renewals.”
Update: December 12, 2016
This post has been updated to include a response from ICE that was received after publication. In addition, ICE revealed that the value of its contract with Palantir is $34,650,000.
Thiel’s an ugly mother fucker inside and out!
Why is it with our government watchdogs that “eyebrows raised” NEVER translates into ACTION to stop the crooked insiders and lock them up?
Although this story makes some legitimate points concerning potential conflicts of interest related to Thiel’s purported role in future intelligence gathering for the Trump administration, It fails to provide its readers with the necessary disclosures that would allow them to understand that Pierre Omidyar has a personal vested interest in undermining Thiel’s ambitions:
http://www.newsweek.com/peter-thiel-vs-pierre-omidyar-silicon-valleys-one-percenter-slugfest-464550
Regardless of where one stands in this family feud of CIA connected billionaires, I believe that transparency demands complete disclosure when it appears that Omidyar (First Look Media: Intercept) may be masking a personal vendetta behind the cultivated veil of first amendment protections that are enjoyed by US based Media outlets.
Really, the only reason there is a piece on Thiel is because Omidyar is going to greenlight anything that casts him in a negative light.
If it wasn’t Thiel’s Palantir building a consolidated ICE database, it would be some other well connected billionaire.
If it wasn’t Adolph Hitler who…
Ha ha. We should be locking up people like Thiel no doubt. It’s All getting pretty Orwellian ass backwards!
Deport all illegal aliens including and first the DREamers.
You will get yours
ALL actual American citizens will profit from mass deportations.
Really though? Ready to pay $10 for a head of lettuce? Who is going to be picking our produce at less than minimum wage, 12 hours a day? If we don’t pay for it one way, we’ll pay for it another. You think you’re going to get teenagers out there during the summer?
Without these people (that yes benefit from federal and local entitlements) we will be spending quadruple the amount on food and services. We need to shore up our borders for sure and track those who commit violent/drug crimes, but there are a lot of hard working people who just want a better life and we’d surely feel it in our pocketbooks if those particular people were all deported.
Can’t say i know enough about the man (Thiel) aside from the superficial bio stuff you find online, but a couple of things come to mind regarding the points/assertions in this article. 1) Thiel may be part of the transition team but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be a ongoing member of the administration; 2) his company, having already enjoyed a fairly fruitful business relationship with the gov’t and is contracted to do so till 2018, will likely enjoy future business regardless of his current role in the transition team. Hell, his company is backed by the CIA. My guess is that he’s been seeing a lot of inside info all along.
I know there’s quite a bit of vitriol aimed at Thiel for his seemingly “vindictive” nature because he helped Hulk Hogan bodyslam a representative of sleaze journalism and settle a score in the process, but he couldn’t have done it if there wasn’t a case. Aside from that, is there a long list of actions that document a ‘vindictive’ personality?
All in all I’m a fan of The Intercept and especially Glenn G., but i think this article is a bit thin.
Awwww some pro wrestling fans just never grow up. It’s all fake buddy!
Is he going to drain them of blood first?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3718758/Peter-Thiel-believes-blood-transfusions-young-key-living-forever.html
Interesting to note the ICE is now collecting social media data and potentially using FALCON to analyze relationships that potential immigrants might have with friends/associates–potentially further endangering not only the innocent but people who might attempt to protect and aid the innocent as well.
The Intercept has some balls, and I guess enough legal resources. Thiel is notoriously vindictive and litigious. Plus Palantir was already involved in nefarious plans to neutralize Glenn Greenwald in 2010. Their sociopathic tendencies know no bounds.
The author of this article must have some kind of financial interest in making sure American prisons are filled.
I’ve tried to read Thiel’s shit writing (unreadable – Stanford? lol Seriously? wtf), and the guy comes across like a self-loathing psychopath unfit to live with humans. Why can’t he just fuck off and leave everyone alone! … Ohhhh yeeeeeah, the whole psychopath thing … What a pitiful, lonely life to live.
Peter Thiel is not motivated by money.
“[…] carries highly personal stakes for millions of Americans”
If by “Americans” you mean people permitted to live here legally, there would be no personal stakes for them.
If you really mean “illegal aliens”, then what exactly is the problem with deporting them?
The major thrust of the article concerned the inherent conflict of interest of Mr. Thiel, who is simultaneously on the transition team and poised to incur a monetary gain from it.
We can expect to see this story played out over and over again. In fairness to Mr. Trump, his will be by no means the first to involve profits by Administration insiders; in fact Dick Cheney set the bar very low indeed for that. But what we may expect to see in this administration is the pattern of rewards and punishments operating at a never seen before level, at least for the Federal government.
I get that.
But most of the people involved in this administration came with their own considerable wealth earned elsewhere and by other means (fair or foul as you please).
The opportunities for trading on inside knowledge (now institutionalized in the Congress) are always considerable in any government which does nothing to penalize them.
That said, having the Secretary of State firmly attached at the hip with a “foundation” receiving vast sums of cash from foreign entities with interests which lay fully within her zone of authority — and having plainly become quite wealthy while in public office — offers some reason to wonder if “poorer people” on the make may not be more tempted by office to become “less-poor people” on the take.
>will likely assist the Trump Administration in its efforts to track and collect intelligence on immigrants
This assumes, quite absurdly, that this data does not already exist. For an organization whose bread and butter is discussing leaked information containing details about what government collects on citizens, articles like this sound more trusting than fits the evidence.
So, what’s the motivation for publishing it? Probably the same tired leftist drivel: rich guy only wants to get richer, hate the rich guy. It’s all about corporations. Do not pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Trust your government. The same one that spies on you. It doesn’t have databases that tell it exactly where you came from, who you talk to, what you say and think and do. They would never collect data illegally and then brazenly lie to Congress and the American people about its existence.
Two things stand out in this article.
#1. – Obama had ethics lawyers???
# 2. – Trump has a “transition ethics agreement”????
I guess “ethics” means something other than what I thought it meant.
I don’t think I’d want to have either of their “ethics.”
There are two, equally logical, explanations:
1] The term “ethics” has taken on an Orwellian connotation, which is to say the word has come to mean the precise opposite of what it once did; and
2] The concept of ethics is so alien to the two named individuals that they must hire someone to tell them what it means, so that they can continue to avoid it.
I prefer the first alternative because the second would require that they admit being less than omnipotent, something any politician of their kind is loath to do.
Both fit. And given how both the past two campaigns had ties to a cult who betrays any sense of ethics while trying to “get ethics in.”