Michael Steinberger

Exactly.

He thought that if there were more terrorist attacks and many more mass casualty events because of terrorism, voters were inevitably going to turn to the far right because they think that the far right will protect them and they will become much less inclined to protect minorities and so forth because they're scared and they want protection and they think the far right will protect them.

They will turn to authoritarianism.

He wants to prevent that outcome and he sees Palantir as a means possibly of helping prevent that.

Well, it begins with the CIA, which becomes a Palantir client.

They then develop a business with the U.S.

military.

This is very much in keeping with their mission.

They want to be the software supplier of choice to the national security state.

But then in the 2010s, they start developing business on the civilian side of the federal government.

With a number of government agencies, including ICE.

And this contract becomes a flashpoint for Palantir, the most controversial part of Palantir's work for the government.

Well, it's a relationship that began actually under the Obama administration.

A lot of Palantir's work begins with clients in moments of crisis.

and ice had a crisis on its hands and now news about the shooting of two americans south of the u.s border in mexico one immigration and customs enforcement agent killed another wounded an ice special agent had been assassinated by a mexican drug cartel special agent jaime zapata was shot several times in the chest and killed and ice needed help finding the assassins

And turned to Palantir.

And within a matter of hours, Palantir engineers had the software up and running for ICE and were pulling in a wide variety of data, including phone records, bank records, any footage that might have been pulled from surveillance cameras.

And within two weeks...

They had apprehended the assailant and also confiscated millions of dollars worth of drugs.

After that, ICE awards Palantir a contract in 2014, working with a branch of ICE called Homeland Security Investigations, which deals with things like human trafficking and drug trafficking.