Documents suggest Palantir could help power Trump's ‘extreme vetting’ of immigrants

Palantir, the data-mining firm co-founded by tech billionaire and Trump transition adviser Peter Thiel, has provided largely secret assistance to the US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) in operating a system that tracks and assesses immigrants and other travelers, according to public records. Known as the Analytical Framework for Intelligence, the system draws from a variety of federal, state, and local law enforcement databases that gather and analyze often-sensitive details about people, including biographical information, personal associations, travel itineraries, immigration records, and home and work addresses, as well as fingerprints, scars, tattoos, and other physical traits.
Records show that Palantir has played an apparently important, although largely undisclosed, role in US Customs and Border Protection intelligence
Training documents suggest Palantir has helped power a government program called the Analytical Framework for Intelligence, which privacy experts say could underlie Trump’s proposed “extreme vetting” of immigrants
In a two-and-a-half-day AFI training session, classes simply labeled “Palantir” occupy far more time than any other single subject
Among the information accessible within the AFI system is data collected by NSEERS, a Bush-era program that required foreign nationals from selected countries — all predominantly Muslim ones with the exception of North Korea — to registerCBP lends out access credentials for the Analytical Framework for Intelligence (AFI) to other law enforcement agencies, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, the country’s primary deportation force. Though little is understood by the public, the Palantir-linked system could represent a powerful and far-reaching tool in Trump’s quest to limit migration into the country.

“When Trump uses the term ‘extreme vetting’, AFI is the black-box system of profiling algorithms that he’s talking about,” says Edward Hasbrouck of the Identity Project, a civil liberties initiative that focuses on the rights of travelers. “This is what extreme vetting means.”

Dozens of heavily redacted references to Palantir appear in AFI documents that the Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained through a lawsuit..........