The presence of Palantir and Dataminr at the new U.S. military compound in Israel offers a glimpse of how tech companies are cashing in on the genocide.
Since mid-October, some 200 U.S. military personnel have been working out of a sprawling warehouse in southern Israel, around 20 kilometers from the northern tip of the Gaza Strip. The Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) was ostensibly set up to facilitate the implementation of President Donald Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” — whose stated aims are to “disarm Hamas,” “rebuild Gaza,” and lay the groundwork for “Palestinian self-determination and statehood” — which last week received the endorsement of the UN Security Council.
Yet while no Palestinian bodies have been involved in the conversations surrounding Gaza’s future, at least two private U.S. surveillance firms have found their way into the White House’s post-war designs for the Strip.
According to a seating chart seen by +972 Magazine, a “Maven Field Service Representative” has been present at the CMCC. Built by the U.S. tech company Palantir, whose logo was visible in presentations given inside the Center, Maven collects and analyses surveillance data taken from warzones to speed-up U.S. military operations, including lethal airstrikes. The platform sucks information from satellites, spy planes, drones, intercepted telecommunications, and the internet, and “packages it into a common, searchable app for commanders and support groups,” according to U.S. defense outlets.
The U.S. military calls Maven its “AI-powered battlefield platform.” It has already been deployed to guide U.S. airstrikes across the Middle East, including in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Palantir has marketed its technology as shortening the process of identifying and bombing military targets — what the company’s CTO recently described as “optimizing the kill chain.” Over the summer, Palantir scored a $10 billion contract to update and refine the Maven platform for U.S. armed forces. (more...)
AI-powered surveillance firms are gunning for a share of the Gaza spoils
No comments:
Post a Comment