Surveillance of Banksters Please
Tim Shorrock explains the general nature of the surveillance state in this post in Salon. The most interesting part is the ability of the government and its private business partners to analyze vast amounts of data in real time.
In April, I wrote about one of those companies, Palantir Technologies Inc., in Salon. It sells a powerful line of data-mining and analysis software that maps out human social networks that would be extremely useful to NSA analysts trying to make sense of all the telephone and Internet data downloaded from Verizon and nine Internet companies that was described in the latest blockbuster stories in the Guardian and the Post.
‘Their bread and butter is mapping disparate networks in real time,’ a former military intelligence officer who has used Palantir software told me. ‘It creates a spatial understanding that can be easily used by analysts.’ (See the detailed profile of Palantir I posted on my website last Friday.)
This software could be used to look at money laundering. It would make it possible to see in real time how money is moving around in the banking system. We could use it to spy on drug money, terrorist financing, and black market arms sales. With a few tweaks, we could use it to watch derivatives traders cheating people, rich people moving their money around in tax havens, Ponzi Schemes, and filthy practices like those alleged in a recent complaint against Zions Bank of Salt Lake City.
http://my.firedoglake.com/masaccio/2013/06/11/surveillance-of-banksters-please/
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