Policing

This CIA-funded tool predicts crime before it happens

Palantir — a CIA-backed startup created, in part, by PayPal’s billionaire co-founder Peter Thiel in 2004 — is a little-known tool that’s changing the world right under our noses.

Once used to predict roadside bombs in Iraq based on patterns of previous deployment, Palantir is now being deployed here at home for everything from law enforcement to finance.

The tool currently resides in a nondescript building on a back street in Palo Alto, California. From the outside, you might not think much of it. Inside, the technology is protected by walls that are impenetrable by radio waves, phone signals, or internet: its only means of entry secured with advanced biometrics, and pass codes held by dozens of independent parties whose identities are protected by blockchain technology.