Of Asia's nearly 5bn people, 3.5bn are not Chinese. China's huge debts, rapidly ageing population and the crowding out of foreign competition from its domestic market is pulling global attention toward other Asian sub-regions, such as South Asia and south-east Asia.
The whole Asia region — which Khanna defines as stretching from the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey in the west to Japan and New Zealand in the east, and from Russia in the north to Australia in the south — is already a behemoth. It accounts for about 50 per cent of global gross domestic product and two-thirds of its economic growth. But the most arresting statistic in the 433-page tome is this: of an estimated "$30tn in global middle-class consumption growth between 2015 and 2030, only $1tn is expected to come from today's western economies".
As this vast undertow of spending power emerges, it will tilt the world. In spite of some "pockets of haughty ignorance centred around London and Washington", the west appears certain to play a vastly diminished role in global affairs. A wave of Asianisation is set to follow the 20th century's Americanisation and 19th century's Europeanisation of the world, argues Khanna.
The answer to Communism, in brief, is Capitalism. And once we understand this, the problems of "ideological strategy" which we have been confusedly debating begin to melt away.
This essay from 1953 by Henry Hazlitt, Let's Defend Capitalism, A Freeman Pamphlet, 1953, reprinted from the Freeman (February 23, 1953), is as true today as when it was published 65 years ago.
The State Department, Voice of America, and Western governments generally, "set up "Democracy" as the antithesis of Communism, partly because they are confused enough to believe it is, and partly because they have neither the will nor the courage to defend Capitalism.
It is in large part because of the connotations built into the smear word "Capitalism" that, while millions are willing to die for Communist delusions, nobody has been willing to die for Capitalism — certainly not under that name. But Capitalism is merely the Marxist epithet for the system of the free market, for competitive private enterprise, for the system under which each is permitted to earn and keep the product of his labor — in brief, for economic freedom.
...
The answer to Communism, in brief, is Capitalism. And once we understand this, the problems of "ideological strategy" which we have been confusedly debating begin to melt away. We do not have to discuss whether we have been "merely talking to ourselves" or not. The very question is based on a false analogy — the analogy of the lawsuit, of "our side" versus "their side." This analogy unconsciously swallows the Marxist theory of a real clash of interest between economic "classes" — employers versus workers or rich versus poor. But once we recognize that the system of Capitalism is the only workable one, the only one that promotes the interest of both employers and workers, while it provides the maximum of opportunity for the poor to conquer their poverty, then the real distinction is between those who understand the system and those who do not. A man who is known to understand a problem is never merely talking to himself; all those who sincerely wish to understand it can be counted on to listen.
Another problem which melts away is whether we should confine ourselves to combating Communism, because it is a conspiracy and a military menace, or whether we can disregard Communism, on the ground that it has been sufficiently exposed, and concentrate on combating socialist measures because there is so much more real likelihood of their being adopted at home.
The solution is simple. There is only one right answer to the sum of 2 and 2, and an infinite number of wrong answers. Once we have shown that 2 and 2 make 4, we do not have to provide separate proof that every other answer is wrong. Communism is just one wrong answer to the basic social problem — though the worst and most dangerous. Socialism (which proposes the same basic economic measures as Communism) is merely another wrong answer, in the long run only a little less bad and a little less dangerous. "Planning," price control, inflation, Keynesianism, are still other wrong answers. As in arithmetic, there are an infinite number of such wrong answers. But once we have found the right answer, we can explain what is wrong with the other solutions from that basis.
Netanyahu seeks to bolster Israeli ties with Gulf nations | Financial Times
"Israel does not want it to stand in the way of normalizing ties with the wealthy and increasingly interventionist Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia."
"The younger generation of Gulf Arab leaders have not shown the same determination as their elders to shun Israel because of the Palestinian conflict and have instead engaged in informal outreach to Jerusalem."
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, is seeking to bolster his country's ties with Gulf countries long seen as its foes in an unusual public effort focused on Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
On Friday, Mr Netanyahu revealed that he had visited the Sultan of Oman, who greeted the prime minister, his wife, and the head of Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service. Next week, his minister of transportation and intelligence, Israel Katz, will head to Oman for a conference.
At the weekend one of Mr Netanyahu's parliamentary allies wept as the Israeli national anthem rang out in an Abu Dhabi sports auditorium after a Jewish athlete won a judo championship. On Tuesday his communications minister, Ayoob Kara, is expected in the UAE, which has no diplomatic ties with Israel, for another conference.
Much of the Arab world has shunned the Jewish state since it was born in 1948, but Mr Netanyahu is betting he can create stronger relations with influential Gulf nations on the basis of shared fears over Iran and a shared interest in boosting trade ties.
The Gulf initiatives come at an opportune political moment for Mr Netanyahu. Israeli analysts predict an election early next year and note that the prime minister — who also holds the foreign policy portfolio — could claim improved relations as a win.
Mr Netanyahu's visit to Oman — the first by an Israeli leader since 1996 — was filmed and made public at the request of the prime minister's office, according to a person familiar with the talks leading up to it.
Although Israel has maintained clandestine ties with Gulf nations for at least a decade, they have not been publicised because Arab leaders worry that they would anger their citizens as long as the Israel-Palestinian conflict remains unresolved.
The Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said Al Said, severed ties with Israel during the second intifada, but he hosted some of the talks that led to the Iran nuclear deal and is seen as an intermediary between Jerusalem and Tehran.
Other Gulf nations share Israel's concerns about Iranian expansionism in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.
Because of Oman's strong relations with Iran it has been left out in the diplomatic cold by the Trump White House, which has abandoned the nuclear deal.
A visit from a western ally helped shore up the Sultan's standing in Washington, while allowing Mr Netanyahu to advertise an example of Israeli-Arab co-operation, said Eli Avidar, the former head of the Israeli delegation to Qatar.
"This visit to Oman was made possible purely because of the interests of the Sultanate of Oman," said Mr Avidar, who also advised former prime minister Ariel Sharon on diplomatic issues.
Iranian officials have criticised the Israeli leader's visit to Oman, but few expect Muscat to pivot away from Tehran as it seeks to balance interests across the divided region.
While the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is stalled, Israel does not want it to stand in the way of normalising ties with the wealthy and increasingly interventionist Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia.
The younger generation of Gulf Arab leaders have not shown the same determination as their elders to shun Israel because of the Palestinian conflict and have instead engaged in informal outreach to Jerusalem.
"Israel is building a wall of countries [with] which it has interests that it can use as leverage to get Iran to start backing down," said Michael Stephens, research fellow for Middle East studies at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank. "The idea is to surround Iran from all sides — it's the diplomatic equivalent of putting missiles in Cuba."
Next week, Mr Katz, the transportation minister, will go to Oman to present a somewhat improbable plan for a railway line to connect Haifa in northern Israel with the Gulf via Jordan.
The plan, nicknamed, Regional Tracks for Peace, has Mr Netanyahu's approval, despite the fact that all the countries involved except Jordan still officially consider Israel an enemy state.
"Mr Katz is going as the minister of transportation to a conference of ministers of transportation, but he is going also in his double function, as part of his intelligence portfolio," said Arye Shalicar, an adviser.
"Already we see that little by little countries in the Middle East are approaching each other and approaching us, and we're sure that contacts on a wider and a more intensive scale will probably take place."
#Hamas pushes #Gaza's people into harm's way because it knows…images of their hardship will be shared widely, wept over, and held up as proof of the allegedly uniquely barbarous nature of the Jewish State. Hamas knows there is a hunger among the West's so-called progressives for evidence of Palestinian pain, and by extension of Israeli evil, and it is more than willing to feed this hunger.
The ugly trade in Palestinian pain
The Israel-Palestine conflict is unique among modern wars. No, not because Israel is an unnaturally wicked state, as its many critics across the West, and in the Middle East of course, would have us believe. And not because this conflict has been a long one. Or because it is a sometimes asymmetrical one, pitting a well-armed state against protesters armed with catapults and attitude. Many wars have been long and imbalanced.
No, this war is different because of who shapes it. Who impacts on it. Who contributes to it, usually unwittingly. This war is unique because very often its distant observers, those who watch and comment and hand-wring from afar, play a role in intensifying it and making it bloodier than it already is – without even realising they are doing so.
This should be the central lesson of the terrible events at the Gaza-Israel border last week: that much of what happens in the Israel-Palestine conflict is now largely a performance, a piece of bloody theatre, staged for the benefit of outsiders, especially for myopically anti-Israel Western activists and observers.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Hamas pushes Gaza's people into harm's way because it knows their suffering will strike a chord across the West. Because it knows images of their hardship will be shared widely, wept over, and held up as proof of the allegedly uniquely barbarous nature of the Jewish State. Hamas knows there is a hunger among the West's so-called progressives for evidence of Palestinian pain, and by extension of Israeli evil, and it is more than willing to feed this hunger.
The clashes at the Gaza border, in which more than 60 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured, cannot be viewed in isolation from Western liberals' peculiar and disproportionate obsession with Israel. It now seems undeniable that this was no instinctive, grassroots protest, but rather one that was carefully orchestrated by Hamas. As a New York Times reporter described it, after midday prayers clerics and leaders of Hamas 'urged thousands of worshippers to join the protests'. And Hamas's urging was littered with false claims. It told people 'the fence had already been breached' and Palestinians were 'flooding into Israel'. This was a lie. A Washington Post reporter details how Hamas's leaders told people to keep attacking the border fence because 'Israeli soldiers [are] fleeing their positions'. In truth, as Hamas knew only too well, the IDF was reinforcing its positions.
This from Canaccord on the approval by Canada's senate of Bill C-45 fully legalizing cannabis
In a watershed moment for global cannabis, last night, the Canadian Senate passed the third and final reading of Bill C-45 by a vote of 56-30 (with one abstention). As a result the official legalization of cannabis in Canada has effectively reached the finsih line; however, the amendments made to the Bill in the interim will have to be approved in the House of Commons and then ratified by the Senate before reaching Royal Assent and brought into law. We expect this remaining process to be procedural in nature and likely completed in the coming week.
Looking ahead, provinces will continue to finalize respective distribution platforms, and we expect meaningful legal rec sales to roll-out on a national level by September/ October. However, we caution investors that there remain several issues to be ironed out, and it is not likely that the launch will be smooth given challenges for retail distribution and ramping up cultivation capacity.Although logistical hurdles remain, we believe positive industry catalysts are still on the horizon. This includes major provinces such as Ontario, Alberta and BC still to announce initial tender allotments for product and the legislation of more recreational friendly products, such as vape pens, edibles and other derivative cannabis product that will become increasingly important for producers as the cultivation of cannabis is expected to become largely commoditized.
For further analysis and review please see our full analyst coverge attached here
Block.one has sold 900 million EOS tokens over nearly a year, most via daily auctions. Every 23 hours, it has auctioned off 2 million tokens, and accepted the high bid as the set price for that block. It has received proceeds from the sale in ether.
Investors Bet $4 Billion on a Cryptocurrency Startup
"The Mossad knew in advance what documents, files and disks it wanted to steal and what was not important for the mission. Thus, there was no need to take the entire archive—just part of it. So the decision was made not to "soak" the materials or copy them, but to steal the original materials of the military program and take them out of Iran....
They stayed for approximately a few hours …and left by cars with their treasure—half a ton materials."
BY YOSSI MELMAN June 6, 2018 in Jewish World, Latest, Politics
In the early morning hours of January 31, 2018, a sigh of relief broke the tension in the situation room at Mossad headquarters in Glilot, north of Tel Aviv. Present in the room were Yossi Cohen, the head of Mossad, as well various Mossad department heads and communication experts.
Dozens of Mossad operatives had just sent over the code word, which meant: We left Iran and are safe with the treasure. It was one of the most daring operations ever executed by Israeli spies. They had snatched the central archive of Iran's secret nuclear military program from a warehouse in a Tehran suburb. Exactly three months later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the news in a dramatic press conference in Tel Aviv. The brazen coup, which humiliated Iranian leaders, military chiefs and its top nuclear scientists captured the world's imagination. Because most operational details were not revealed, speculation has grown about how it occurred. In reality, the operation was more imaginative than the best suspense thrillers and crime films.
Since Netanyahu's announcement, Hollywood producers and Israeli and European screenwriters have approached the Mossad, asking for its cooperation to write and produce a film, which will be "based on a true story." Obviously, Cohen liked the flattery but turned down the offers. Israel is a country that likes to keep its secrets.
Cohen, who was raised in a religious family from Jerusalem, is an old hand in the Israeli intelligence community. In 1984, at the age of 22, he was recruited by the Mossad and rose through its ranks as a case officer running Arab and Iranian agents.
When Cohen was appointed by Netanyahu in January 2016 to lead the agency, it was a few months after the six world powers signed the nuclear deal (known as JCPOA) with Iran. JCPOA restrained and limited Iran's efforts and capabilities to produce nuclear weapons. Most of the international community, and even many in the Israeli security establishment, believed that Iran's nuclear ambitions would be sidelined for the 10-year duration of the agreement.
Cohen thought differently. He ordered his staff to increase their efforts to focus on Iran, believing that it was continuing its secret nuclear military program. Cohen said he had a gut feeling. For most of his colleagues in the intelligence community, Cohen was perceived as obsessive, similarly to his boss Netanyahu, who has defined his career by labeling Iran as the most evil regime on earth.
A few weeks after Cohen entered his office, Mossad learned that Iran was creating a central archive which would store all documents, drawings, computer simulations and analytical research papers related to its nuclear military program. Before that, all the materials had been dispersed and stored in dozens of sites, offices and laboratories, including civilian institutions such as physics and chemistry departments of universities associated with the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which is in charge of the nuclear military program.
The decision to create the central archive was part of a large Iranian deception plan to hide the materials from future inspection of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was authorized to monitor the JCPOA. Iran feared that if the IAEA inspectors found out that Iran was involved in a military nuclear program, the U.S. and maybe other major powers would change their minds and void the nuclear deal.
According to the JCPOA, Iran has committed to provide all the information, data and documents and disks related to its past military activities defined by IAEA. Additionally, it is obliged by the deal to turn over or at least to show to IAEA all the equipment having to do with the military program. Iran not only didn't do it (and thus violated the deal) but also claimed time and again that it was never involved in any nuclear military activity and that its nuclear work was for peaceful purposes: to generate electricity and for use in medicine, agriculture, industry and research.
Yossi Cohen, the head of Mossad. (Wikimedia Commons)
A senior Israeli intelligence officer involved in the operation told me that Iran wanted to achieve three goals by gathering all the documents in one place: to conceal it from IAEA and the international community, to hide it from its own public and to turn it into a storage, which would conserve and keep the accumulated know how for a future use. The circle of those privy to the secret of the archive's existence were very few, probably no more than a few dozen—including the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Many wonder why the IRGC, who was responsible for information security, didn't hide the archive in an underground bunker in a military base, which would be off limits to IAEA inspection. Intelligence officials who learned the Iranian way of thinking provided me with a few explanations.
First, it has been a typical pattern of the managers of Iran's nuclear program to conceal components of it in workshops for civilian purposes and locate them in industrial zones. For example, the place where Iran manufactured its first centrifuges in the early 21st century was disguised as a workshop for electrical clocks called Kalaya Electrical Company, in a suburb of Tehran. The other explanation given was that Iran's security chiefs who suspect that the Mossad has penetrated many layers of their military and nuclear communities feared that if the archive was stored in a military base, too many people who weren't privy to the secret would notice something suspicious, including Mossad agents.
From the moment the initial information about the new central archive was gathered, Cohen decided to launch an operation. First he went to ask for confirmation from Netanyahu, who is legally in charge of the Mossad. The prime minster approved and allocated a special budget for it. "We didn't know where that archive was housed and what its exact content was," I was told by another intelligence officer, "but we believed it was an important and worthy task to try to find it."
Cohen consulted with experts from the military intelligence and the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) and set the first outlines of the operation. It is a standard procedure in the Mossad to appoint one of its heads of departments as a "project manager" for sensitive operations. But in a rare decision, Cohen decided to be his own "project manager."
The Mossad and military intelligence began the search for the location of the archive but, from the outset, it seemed like mission impossible. "It was like looking for a needle in a haystack," explained a former Mossad operative. As a top priority operation, the Mossad began to utilize all the means available to them including bugging phones, infiltrating computers, hacking emails and monitoring social media. (In the last years, the Mossad increased its campaign to recruit Farsi-speaking experts, and now it employs hundreds in a variety of positions, including research analysts, communication specialists and field operatives.) All involved in the operation were asked to be alert to even to the simplest and seemingly insignificant details. In some past Mossad operations, the best tips and information arrived from an unexpected source.
After months of intensive searching, the intelligence spots were focused on several suspected sites. Until that moment, the task was mostly conducted at headquarters level by the Mossad's intelligence department and a unit known as NABAK (a Hebrew acronym for unconventional weapons). Representatives of Mossad's best operational departments were asked to join the brainstorming and deliberations. They included Caesarea, Kidon (bayonet) and Keshet (bow). The operatives in these units are called "combatants."
Caesarea is in charge of running agents under deep cover in enemy countries and terror organizations known in Mossad jargon as "target" countries. Kidon is a small special operations unit whose combatants are trained in the most delicate and dangerous missions, including assassinations, sabotage and the planting of bugging devices in enemy lands. Keshet is in charge of surveillance. All of these units have their own in-house communication experts and locksmiths, which can, within seconds, break in or unlock any door or decipher any coded safe.
The Israeli censor has tightened its grip on the flow of information regarding the most sensitive details of the operation so one can only base his or her reportage and description on the past known modes of operations. After further searching, and nearly a year after the operation was launched, the exact location of the archive was found. The place looked from the outside rickety, deliberately. It looked simple and did not draw attention.
At this point began the process of how to get to the warehouse, how to break into the archive and what to do with the materials there. The hope was to find documents, which would incriminate Iran by proving that, even after signing the JCPOA, the country secretly continued its nuclear military program.
The first decision was to put the warehouse under watch to find out the daily routine of the neighborhood. Is the place guarded? And by who? How often? How frequently is the place visited? Who has access to it? Who are the neighbors within the vicinity? What is the traffic like? To find answers to these questions, Mossad dispatched agents with deep cover with borrowed identities or Farsi-speaking individuals with knowledge of Iranian culture and customs.
Iran is not an unknown land for Mossad combatants. In the last two decades Mossad conducted many risky and dangerous operations there, mainly to gather information on Iran's nuclear program. They included the implant of viruses (stuxnet and others) inside the computers which were running the centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility. Mossad combatants sabotaged equipment which was sent to Iran in various parts of the world. Between 2010 and 2012 Mossad combatants penetrated Iran and killed four top nuclear Iranian scientists and wounded another one by small but powerful bombs attached to their cars by motorcyclists. All of these scientists worked on "weaponization," the final and most crucial stage of assembling a bomb.
The planning of how to break into the archive took almost a year. The most crucial dilemmas the planners faced were not how to get there but how to get out and whether to copy the materials inside the parameter or to steal the originals.
Being a vast country with long land borders with seven countries and maritime borders with others, also having air links, all options (air, sea and land) were weighed. Among Iran's neighbors is Azerbaijan, which is a strategic ally of Israel. Previous reports years ago suggested that the country helped Israel in its intelligence operations against Iran. After Netanyahu's revelations, Azerbaijani officials rushed to deny it had any hand in the Mossad operation.
All the options evolved around the most important consideration: how to bring the combatants home safe. All of the planners and participants knew that if something went wrong or if the Iranians were lucky and clever and caught the combatants, one fate was awaiting them: torture and eventually hanging from a crane at Tehran central squares, as the customary death penalty in the Islamic Republic is exercised.
What determined the final decision was the fact that, at that late stage, the Mossad already knew that in the archive were not only materials associated with the military program but also a lot belonging to the civilian nuclear program. This is the most amazing part of the operation. The Mossad knew in advance what documents, files and disks it wanted to steal and what was not important for the mission. Thus, there was no need to take the entire archive—just part of it. So the decision was made not to "soak" the materials or copy them, but to steal the original materials of the military program and take them out of Iran.
A team of dozens of combatants was picked for the operation. Before that, a lot of logistics had to be dealt with to prepare cars, safe houses, communication gear and other vital equipment. As is also a standard procedure in the Mossad, all participants practiced many times how to best execute such a complicated mission. A structure similar in size to the warehouse in Iran was built and the combatants practiced on it.
Cohen, who personally observed the rehearsals, had to give the green light. But his confirmation was not sufficient. The prime minister is the ultimate authority on such situations. Netanyahu consulted with defense minister Avigdor Liberman and, despite having a reputation of being hesitant and reluctant to take risks, he approved it.
The combatants arrived in Iran and on the night of January 31 broke into the warehouse after making sure that it wasn't guarded and the area was safe. They stayed for approximately a few hours and unlocked and emptied the relevant safes where the exact materials they needed were stored and left by cars with their treasure—half a ton materials. Despite the danger and tension surrounding them, everything went according to plan.
Their destination is the most well-kept secret. It is assumed that they escaped to one of Iran's neighbors where they would feel most safe. After a few hours the security personnel at IRGC discovered what had happened under their nose. The Iranians privy to the secret, including the Supreme Leader, were in shock.
The materials are in Farsi and English. Once the materials arrived, an army of dozens of Israeli Farsi experts read and scanned the documents, disks, drawings and simulations. The material proved to be a gem, but the jewel in the crown was missing. There wasn't a single document which can indicate or hint that Iran continued its military activities after it signed JCPOA. Also, the Israeli intelligence didn't know if Iran had a backup with copies of the originals. Olli Heinonen, who was deputy director general of IAEA a few years ago and is now a scholar at a think tank in Washington, told me that, knowing the Iranians, he believed they do have copies. "It's not their habit to put all their eggs in one basket," he said.
Nevertheless, the documents had their impact. Cohen personally took a copy of them and in early March flew to Washington and showed it to his counterpart, CIA Director Mike Pompeo (now Secretary of State). The CIA experts reviewed the material and reached the conclusion that it was authentic.
At the same time, Netanyahu met Donald Trump and shared with him the main findings. For the U.S. president, the documents helped to cement his decision to pull out of JCPOA.
After Netanyahu's press conference in May, experts from the French (DGSE) German (BND) and British (MI6) intelligence communities arrived in Israel and were also shown the materials. They expressed their admiration for the Mossad operation. But aside from the psychological blow Israel inflicted on Iran, and the fact that Iran lied even under the terms of the JCPOA, in diplomatic terms, the effect remained minor. The U.S. left the deal, but all the other five signatory members decided to honor it, though they hope Iran will agree to modify it.
This piece has been adapted into English from a previously published Maariv article.
By Peter Waldman, Lizette Chapman, and Jordan Robertson
April 19, 2018
Peter Thiel's data-mining company is using War on Terror tools to track American citizens. The scary thing? Palantir is desperate for new customers.
High above the Hudson River in downtown Jersey City, a former U.S. Secret Service agent named Peter Cavicchia III ran special ops for JPMorgan Chase & Co. His insider threat group—most large financial institutions have one—used computer algorithms to monitor the bank's employees, ostensibly to protect against perfidious traders and other miscreants.
Aided by as many as 120 "forward-deployed engineers" from the data mining company Palantir Technologies Inc., which JPMorgan engaged in 2009, Cavicchia's group vacuumed up emails and browser histories, GPS locations from company-issued smartphones, printer and download activity, and transcripts of digitally recorded phone conversations. Palantir's software aggregated, searched, sorted, and analyzed these records, surfacing keywords and patterns of behavior that Cavicchia's team had flagged for potential abuse of corporate assets. Palantir's algorithm, for example, alerted the insider threat team when an employee started badging into work later than usual, a sign of potential disgruntlement. That would trigger further scrutiny and possibly physical surveillance after hours by bank security personnel.
Featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, April 23, 2018. Subscribe now.
Over time, however, Cavicchia himself went rogue. Former JPMorgan colleagues describe the environment as Wall Street meets Apocalypse Now, with Cavicchia as Colonel Kurtz, ensconced upriver in his office suite eight floors above the rest of the bank's security team. People in the department were shocked that no one from the bank or Palantir set any real limits. They darkly joked that Cavicchia was listening to their calls, reading their emails, watching them come and go. Some planted fake information in their communications to see if Cavicchia would mention it at meetings, which he did.
It all ended when the bank's senior executives learned that they, too, were being watched, and what began as a promising marriage of masters of big data and global finance descended into a spying scandal. The misadventure, which has never been reported, also marked an ominous turn for Palantir, one of the most richly valued startups in Silicon Valley. An intelligence platform designed for the global War on Terror was weaponized against ordinary Americans at home.
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