Peter Thiel's Hush-Hush Palantir Technologies to Raise More Capital

Peter Thiel

Silicon Valley-based and venture capital darling Palantir Technologies provides an interesting case study of today's military-tech complex. The firm, founded by PayPal and Facebook zillionaire Peter Thiel, "sells software for data mining and data visualization," according to reporter Heather Somerville's recent story posted in siliconvalley.com. That bland definition gains color and form when one learns more about the enterprise's hush-hush client list. A story appearing earlier this year on techcrunch.com cited internal Palantir documents from 2013 noting the company's contractual relationships with the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, portions of the Armed Services, and the Los Angeles Police Department.

In this context, Thiel is marching in step with Amazon's notoriously secretive Jeff Bezos. As you may recall, Amazon controversially won a CIA data management contract, as well as a similar deal with NASA. Big Data's coziness and opaque contracts with the military and especially the intelligence communities should give one pause. As the Snowden revelations made clear, it's a very short step from dodgy data collection to unacknowledged data sharing.

Meanwhile, federal contracts, such as those obtained by Palantir and Amazon, are money magnets. That's why Palantir was able to land a half-billion dollars from VC investors in 2014. The siliconvalley.com story notes that Thiel's data gold mine is looking for more money, and is very likely to get it. Palantir's ability to easily obtain venture capital suggests the company may generate a financial windfall. The bet is that the firm's lucrative connections with the "military" side of the military-tech complex will become entrenched and, ironically, insulated from partisan politics.

Grand Jury Begins LAUSD-iPad Probe

John Deasy
(Image: educationnews.org)

Former Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) superintendent John Deasy might need an attorney specializing in federal criminal cases. According to an Associated Press story posted in siliconvalley.com, FBI agents "seized 20 boxes of documents" related to LAUSD's iPad project. (LA Times reporter Howard Blume's story on the episode adds significant detail to the seizure.) A grand jury probe will review the documents.

The billion dollar initiative intended to put an iPad in the hands of each of the district's students and faculty. Apparently, Deasy thought it appropriate to speak extensively with Apple representatives before the district issued a request for proposal. One could reasonably suspect that the superintendent and Apple essentially attempted to game LAUSD's procurement and bidding systems. As it happened, Apple won a splendid deal, providing gadgets that would be obsolete in a couple of years, thus requiring an "upgrade" that would force the district to pony up even more millions. The deal did not include software, for which the district had to pay an additional fee. The iPads didn't have keyboards, so of course -- cha ching! -- an extra fee was required.

Who said there was no money in education?

FBI Reluctant to Run Background Checks on Prospective Washington State Pot Employees

Pot
(Image: dea.gov)

Do you wonder who the people are who own and operate legit marijuana stores? Where does one find these fine citizens? I don't suppose GE's once-vaunted management program is one's first stop here. The top MBA programs? Wall Street? (Well, maybe there.)

I don't have the answer. However, in Colorado and in Washington State, prospective pot store employees and management wannabes are literally lining up for the opportunity to sell legal Mary Jane. One issue that quickly emerges is a background check.

According to a story in today's Seattle Times, the FBI ran such checks during Colorado's inaugural run for the weeds. However, the Feds are apparently reluctant to repeat the procedure in Washington State. While no official reason or confirmation has been issued from the J. Edgar Hoover Building, some have speculated the Feebies are in a legal bind.

You see, pot remains illegal in most states. That may be a complication for a federal law enforcement agency lacking legal or congressional mandate on the issue. For the time being, a propos of the law, the FBI appears to taking the "high" road.

Investigative Reporter Michael Hastings Dies In Spectacular LA Car Crash

Michael Hastings
(photo: motherjones.com)

In 2010, reporter Michael Hastings wrote a piece for Rolling Stone about General Stanley McChrystal, who led American forces in Afghanistan at the time. The profile included some of the general's unflattering opinions about President Obama and some of the administration's key staff members. Needless to say, the U.S. commander-in-chief was displeased and General McChrystal quickly became the former leader of American forces in Afghanistan.

Hastings, as investigative reporters know only too well, worked in a rough neighborhood. I'm not referring to the Taliban. The forces Hastings' Rolling Stone article pissed off were formidable ones, with long personal and institutional memories. Payback in some form seemed possible.

It cannot be proven, at least not today, that Hastings' passing earlier this week at age 33 had some connection to the elements the reporter was willing to bring to light. However, his death, the result of a dreadfully fiery, one-car accident in Los Angeles' upscale Hancock Park neighborhood, remains a deeply disturbing, very suspicious incident.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Hastings was recently on the trail of another hot story. This one involved Jill Kelley's lawsuit against the Department of Defense and the FBI. Ms. Kelley was mixed up in the sex scandal that brought down then-CIA director David Petraeus. Ironically, President Obama had designated Petraeus as McChrystal's replacement as the leader of America's legions in Afghanistan.

PS. The New York Times' obituary of Hastings includes what his wife viewed as the newspaper's significant mischaracterizations of his work. The story, as relayed in mediate.com, is an interesting one, and begins to shed light where some prefer shadows and darkness.

The Movie "J.Edgar" Tackles American Political Taboos

J. Edgar Hoover (Photo from fbi.gov)

Whatever the merits of Clint Eastwood's new film J. Edgar, it does deserve attention for tackling American political taboos. His subject -- FBI director J. Edgar Hoover -- could intimidate the nation's toughest insiders. Nothing could be said about Hoover during his lifetime, except praise (often defined by the head Fed). Criticism was harshly dealt with.

Even after the FBI director passed away, few ventured into the dangerous waters of Hoover studies. The FBI had files on just about anyone who could get the public's attention. Clearly, those files included dossiers on Hollywood power brokers and high-profile actors. How that information could be used to induce silence or "cooperation" was something Hoover mastered. Even the Cold War Russians were impressed.

During the Bush-Cheney years, Americans discovered just how extensive our National Security State's "information gathering" has been. Its corrupt use gravely jeopardized all civil liberties. (To this day, the American political conservative movement, with its supposed "love" of the Constitution, has never looked itself in the mirror about its complicity with the Bush-Cheney administration's odious domestic eavesdropping and surveillance campaign and likely blackmail efforts.)

Eastwood is now old enough where a vengeful national security apparatus can't really hurt him. He's free to publicly depict J. Edgar Hoover's sexual dramas, his family life, his dishonest mythmaking, and his occasionally delusional final years. In essence, Eastwood's movie frees Hollywood from the shackles of the Hoover taboos. Whether producers now rush to make movies without the FBI's intimidating shadow modifying its scripts is not so important. In a way, J. Edgar minimizes the power of the "personal and confidential" files the FBI was fond to maintain. That is a significant achievement.

J. Edgar makes other points that won't make today's audiences so comfortable. Notably, Eastwood doesn't spare a 1930s public (and Hollywood) for embracing gangsters and thug psychology. While the point is an historical one, its echoes of our own contemporary society are pertinent. As we discovered during the Bush-Cheney years, liberty is something to be cherished and protected. That's a sentiment J. Edgar Hoover would have understood.

PS. A considerable number of former and current FBI personnel have objected to the movie's depiction of Hoover. A fair, objective article presenting this perspective appears in The Washington Post.

James P. Hosty, Lee Harvey Oswald's FBI Interrogator -- RIP

James P. Hosty (photo), the FBI special agent who interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy's murder, passed away Friday in Kansas City, Missouri. The Kansas City Star's obit provides a very simple overview of the man's life and significance in the JFK story.

Hosty's professional connection to the lurid JFK assassination saga led to an unrelenting light on him that severely diminished his personal privacy for the remainder of his life. Just about any theory about Kennedy's death, no matter how dimwitted, would include Hosty. He spent many years trying to clear his reputation after director Oliver Stone smeared him in the movie JFK. Hosty also submitted his documentation about the Oswald affair to the National Archives.

That this most unfortunate FBI special agent lived and ultimately passed away in Kansas City was not an accident. J. Edgar Hoover had him transferred there one year after JFK was buried. I happen to like Kansas City (my parents lived there). However, it strikes me that, for special agents in the limelight, KC is the FBI's equivalent of the Witness Protection Program.

Hosty's life, with its suggestion of Greek tragedy, has finally ended. May the man rest in peace.

Anthrax Investigation Delay

The New York Times reported in today's editions that the F.B.I. has asked for a delay in the National Academy of Sciences' report on the 2001 anthrax scare. It appears the Bureau has found another 500 pages of documentation, even though the Academy had asked for all relevant material when it started its review over a year ago.

The anthrax scare was a weird series of incidents that characterized the creepy fall of 2001. I still possess a Postal Service plastic envelope stating that my mail, sent during the height of the scare, had been irradiated for my safety. The most troubling episode occurred at the Postal Service's Morgan Annex in New York. Postal employees died from anthrax exposure. The federal government's response was to place yellow crime scene tape at an arbitrary point inside the annex, and declare one side anthrax-free. It also meant postal employees returned to an obviously unsafe work environment.

The government's bizarre, unfeeling response to the anthrax scare made one wonder about the sanity of those elected or appointed to represent the interest of American citizens. That question was definitively answered some years later, in the indifferent federal response to Hurricane Katrina's survivors in New Orleans. The government's lethal legacy remains, even though the F.B.I. and other agencies who work the dark shadows would prefer the whole business be forgotten.

The photograph shows a cordoned off mailbox in Washington, D.C. during the 2001 anthrax scare.