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US tech giants to expand role in post-war Gaza strategy: Report

Press TV – December 2, 2025

A new report has revealed that US-based artificial intelligence firms Palantir and Dataminr are positioning themselves to take on a pivotal role in shaping the post-war security framework proposed for the Gaza Strip.

According to a report by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine on Tuesday, the companies have been integrated into the newly established Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), a US-run operational hub in the southern part of the occupied territories where Washington and Israeli officials are coordinating the implementation of President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.

An official seating chart reviewed by +972 indicates that a “Maven Field Service Representative” from Palantir, referencing their battlefield analytics platform Project Maven, is assigned to the CMCC.

The hub, situated approximately 20 kilometers from the northern Gaza boundary, was opened in mid-October and currently accommodates around 200 US military personnel.

Project Maven, for which Palantir recently secured a $10 billion Pentagon contract to upgrade, gathers intelligence from various sources such as satellites, drones, spy planes, intercepted communications, and online platforms, reorganizing it into an “AI-powered battlefield platform” aimed at expediting military decision-making, including lethal airstrikes.

Palantir executives have described the system as “optimizing the kill chain,” and it has been previously utilized in US operations in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

Palantir has also strengthened its partnerships with Israeli forces during the current war, following a strategic agreement signed in January 2024 to support “war-related missions,” and has expanded its recruiting in Tel Aviv, doubling the size of its office over the past two years.

CEO Alex Karp has defended the collaboration amid international concerns over war crimes, saying that the company was the first to be “completely anti-woke.”

Documents reviewed by +972 also reveal the involvement of Dataminr, a US surveillance company, in internal CMCC presentations.

Dataminr, which utilizes AI to scan and analyze global social-media streams in real time, promotes its platform as providing “event, threat, and risk intelligence,” and has established partnerships with X to provide governments and law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, with extensive access to public social-media data.

Both companies are expected to shape the “Alternative Safe Communities” model proposed under the Trump plan, which suggests relocating Palestinian civilians into fenced, heavily monitored compounds controlled by US and Israeli forces.

Within these zones, systems enabled by Palantir and Dataminr would be used to track mobile phones, monitor online activity, analyze movement, and flag individuals classified by AI as security risks.

Critics and analysts argue that this arrangement mirrors the predictive surveillance already deployed in Gaza over the past two years, including the AI-driven Lavender system used by Israel to create kill lists of suspected Hamas affiliates, which included public-sector employees such as police and medical workers.

Human-rights observers caution that such technologies have contributed to the extensive targeting of Palestinian families during an ongoing genocide.

The integration of US tech companies into the CMCC underscores a privatized model of occupation, one that sidelines Palestinian participation while expanding the role of AI-enabled policing, according to analysts.

For technology firms, the war presents an opportunity to access vast datasets and conduct real-world testing for new military systems.

Additionally, for Israel, it offers a way to outsource parts of the occupation while maintaining extensive control over Gaza’s population.

December 2, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Democrats fundraise from arms dealers amid Pentagon budget fight

Press TV – April 29, 2023

Top Democratic lawmakers in the US are holding a fundraising meeting with major arms companies on Thursday as Washington plunges into a budget battle in which concessions to the Pentagon and the defense industry could mean cuts to welfare programs such as food stamps.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, his deputy Pete Aguilar, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chair Rep. Suzan Delbene have been selected as the honorees to be invited to the event. The downtown D.C. function ― dubbed a “defense and national security dinner” ― is set to raise funds for the committee, which is the campaign arm for House Democrats and is central to their hopes of regaining the lower chamber of Congress.

Dozens of representatives of Pentagon contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, SpaceX, Palantir, and General Dynamics will attend the event.

The group includes figures who previously worked for congressional Democrats, such as Shana Chandler, director of government relations at General Dynamics. Chandler spent 15 years as chief of staff for Rep. Adam Smith, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and another co-host of Thursday’s event.

The event could provide a significant signal about the priorities of the House Democrats as they prepare for the 2024 elections and battle Republicans who are demanding spending cuts in exchange for passing critical legislation. It could be a disappointing message to those who want the party to support social justice and progressive reform.

A senior congressional aide said news of the fundraiser set off alarm bells among staffers, and the event could be a stark example of senior Democratic leaders saying one thing but doing another. Democrats claim to support reining in out-of-control defense spending and criticize Republicans for serving America’s most powerful corporate interests while doing exactly that themselves.

In the coming months, Democratic lawmakers are expected to make key decisions that will affect the US defense industry as they fight Republican efforts to cut government spending.

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he wants comprehensive cuts. But signals from influential Republicans and analysis by budget experts suggest that McCarthy will protect the Pentagon budget.

Democrats can also demand limits on Pentagon spending to protect other government agencies. However, the defense industry will lobby hard to prevent such a development.

The United States remains by far the world’s biggest military spender, according to new data on global military spending published today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

US military spending reached $877 billion in 2022, which was 39 percent of total global military spending and three times more than the amount spent by China, the world’s second largest spender.

The 0.7 percent real-terms increase in US spending in 2022 would have been even greater had it not been for the highest levels of inflation since 1981.

“The increase in the USA’s military spending in 2022 was largely accounted for by the unprecedented level of financial military aid it provided to Ukraine,” said Dr Nan Tian, SIPRI Senior Researcher. “Given the scale of US spending, even a minor increase in percentage terms has a significant impact on the level of global military expenditure.”

US financial military aid to Ukraine totaled $19.9 billion in 2022. Although this was the largest amount of military aid given by any country to a single beneficiary in any year since the cold war, it represented only 2.3 percent of total US military spending.

In 2022 the USA allocated $295 billion to military operations and maintenance, $264 billion to procurement and research and development, and $167 billion to military personnel.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Looking into Palantir: Activists want NHS to come clean about secretive deal with data-mining company

RT | February 26, 2021

Under a deal negotiated in secret with the British government, shady data firm Palantir will continue to manage NHS data for two years. Activists calling for transparency have now brought the NHS to court.

When the British government unveiled its ‘Covid-19 data store’ last March, controversial “spy tech” firm Palantir was given control of the data collected from the public, which included sensitive data such as patients’ ages, addresses, health conditions, treatments, and whether they smoke or drink, among other private information. Awarded the contract for a nominal fee of £1 ($1.40), Palantir was only supposed to hold this data until the end of the coronavirus pandemic, but was awarded a second £23 million contract in December, ensuring the data-gathering project will continue until at least December 2022.

The government’s data store – used to inform its pandemic response – was criticized last March for its reliance on US tech firms, like Microsoft, Amazon, and the aforementioned Palantir, to handle Britons’ data. According to an NHS impact assessment, Palantir processes data that includes details on patients’ sex lives, political views, and religious beliefs.

The government inked the deal behind closed doors, and large sections of the contract are redacted – including sections laying out who has access to patient data, how it will be used, and with which third parties it will be shared. Readable in the contract is a line stating that after the coronavirus pandemic subsides, the database may be repurposed for “general business-as-usual monitoring.”

Activists with OpenDemocracy and lawyers with Foxglove Legal this week sued the NHS, claiming that the renewed deal with Palantir warranted a fresh impact assessment and demanding public consultation over the deal, which was awarded without the usual tender process.

As news of the lawsuit broke on Wednesday, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism also revealed that Palantir executives had been lobbying the NHS for access to patient data since summer 2019, six months before the coronavirus first cropped up in China. According to emails seen by the bureau, Palantir’s UK boss, Louis Mosley, hosted a meal attended by Lord David Prior, chair of NHS England, in July. In the days afterwards, Prior thanked Mosley for supplying him with “watermelon cocktails,” and asked him to get in touch with ideas to help the NHS “structure and curate our data.”

In the months afterwards, Palantir offered demonstrations of its services to Prior and his colleagues at its San Francisco offices, and at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

In October 2019, NHS bosses reportedly met with representatives of Microsoft, Amazon, and vaccine manufacturer AstraZeneca to discuss the creation of a “single, national, standardised, event-based longitudinal record for 65 million citizens,” which would be built in the following two years and contain medical and genetic records of every single UK resident. Palantir was said not to be present at the meeting, but Mosley reportedly told Prior shortly afterwards that he had a “very positive meeting” with a top NHS official in private.

Like the mythical seeing-stone it’s named after, Palantir is a company shrouded in secrecy. Launched by billionaire Peter Thiel, Palantir received start-up funding from the CIA and counts multiple US government agencies, law enforcement departments, and military branches among its clients. Its true number of employees is unknown, and former workers are reportedly often forbidden from talking to the media.

Its software has been used by police departments to profile likely offenders and predict future crime, by the military to predict roadside bombings in Middle Eastern war zones, and by immigration authorities to help track, apprehend, and deport illegal immigrants – a partnership it has tried to keep under wraps before.

With both Palantir and the NHS seemingly keen on continuing their partnership, Foxglove director Cori Crider told the BBC that her aim is to prevent the government using “the pandemic as an excuse to embed major tech firms like Palantir in the NHS without consulting the public.”

“The datastore is the largest pool of patient data in UK history. It’s one thing to set it up on an emergency basis, it’s a different kettle of fish to give a tech firm like Palantir a permanent role in NHS infrastructure,” she added.

February 26, 2021 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment