Amazingly we seem to have a second case of someone allegedly sending ricin-tainted letters and trying to frame somebody else as the culprit.
I want to stress this is a reader email, not TPM reporting. But I’m sharing it because after reading it through and doing some googling of my own there’s little doubt that Palantir is doing stuff like what the government is doing with those tech companies, even if they’re not part of ‘prism’ itself. Give this a read.
From an anonymous reader …
I don’t see anyone out there with this theory, and TPM is my favorite news source, so here goes:
“PRISM” is the government’s name for a program that uses technology from Palantir. Palantir is a Silicon Valley start-up that’s now valued at well over $1B, that focuses on data analysis for the government. Here’s how Palantir describes themselves:
From The Guardian: “The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.”
From the Washington Post:
The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.
A Texas man, Ezekiel Gilbert, has been acquitted of murder after shooting and killing a 23 year old escort he found on craigslist because she would not have sex with him even after paying her $150 fee. Read More
4 year old Texan accidentally shoots himself with granddad’s gun.
[Jonathan Alter, author of the new book “The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies”, is joining us as a guest blogger this week in the Editor’s Blog highlighting and discussing some key findings and revelations in his new book. – jmm]
DAY FOUR
As with my last book, I became intrigued by the character and operating style of President Obama. I spoke to a lot of people who shed light on what he’s like behind closed doors. Here’s a taste of what I found. Read More
I can’t hide my disappointment with Canada of late. A week ago they seemed to be on the brink of bringing scandal action on a scale I’ve seldom seen. But by Monday they had become like the Bill Buckner of nations, choking at the key moment, when glory was just within reach. But today, there seems to be maybe some life back in the scandal.
Here’s the latest. Read More
TPM Reader WL tells me that whatever nonsense Steven Seagal is involved in now, whatever warlords he’s chilling with and whatever reincarnated Lama he is, when it comes to pure martial arts, the guy was the real deal …
As an old martial artist, I followed the career of Steven Seagal from the beginning. He is actually a pretty elite talent, having been the first American ever to be certified to teach Aikido in Japan; this is a pretty big deal in the martial arts.
The key quote this morning from Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, on The Guardian’s big story:
This is nothing particularly new. This has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the FISA authority, and every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this.
That essentially confirms that the order obtained by The Guardian was not a one-off, isolated order. Rather, it was one of many such orders, approved by a series of FISA court judges, directed to multiple telecom carriers over many years. Seven years, as Chambliss says.