The other day I was poking around The Brutalist Report, that no-frills news aggregator, and thinking how nice it would be to have something like that natively on Android. One thing led to another, and the conversation drifted to another curious name: Palantir. That’s when the penny dropped in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Palantir, of course, is the data analytics company that’s everywhere — from the Pentagon to European police forces, not to mention Israel’s Ministry of Defense. But what got me was the origin of the name: Tolkien’s palantíri, the seeing-stones. And I realized that hardly any company has ever carried a name so true to its essence… and so dangerously ironic.
The Tolkienian irony¶
In the mythology of The Lord of the Rings, a palantír is a neutral tool: it lets you see what is far away and communicate across vast distances. But Tolkien showed that, in the wrong hands, these stones become instruments of manipulation, madness, and slavery. Saruman used his to spy and was dominated by Sauron. Denethor went mad because he saw only what the Dark Lord wanted him to see. At its core, the network of palantíri was the architecture of control for the all-seeing Eye.
When Alex Karp and Peter Thiel founded the company with that name, the justification was noble: to create a “data oracle” that could prevent terrorism after 9/11. However, as I dug deeper, I realized the company became exactly what Tolkien feared: a surveillance and targeting machine that doesn’t just observe, but dictates who lives, who dies, who gets deported.
What Palantir actually does¶
Palantir’s products are platforms that integrate colossal amounts of data — from social media to phone records, from drone imagery to sensors — and turn it into actionable intelligence. Gotham is the tool for governments and armies; Foundry, the brain of corporations; and AIP brought large language models into this machinery, automating decisions that once still passed through some form of human judgment.
So far, it sounds like a software vendor’s pitch. But when you cross-reference the contracts and partnerships, what emerges is frightening.
Israel and Gaza: external laboratory¶
Palantir’s partnership with Israel runs deep. The company has provided technology to the Israeli military, Mossad, and Shin Bet since 2013, but the relationship exploded after the attacks of October 7, 2023. From that point on, Palantir became a living part of the war machine.
Its software was used in operations in Lebanon that killed Hezbollah leaders. It was deployed in “Operation Grim Beeper”, the one with the exploding pagers. And, according to investigations, it helped integrate surveillance data from Gaza to identify targets. Gaza became a lethal laboratory for AI-driven targeting systems, where the cycle between “seeing” and “striking” closes within seconds.
What makes this laboratory so valuable to the company is the absence of brakes. In a besieged territory, with no significant legal protection for the surveilled population, Palantir can refine algorithms in ways that would be unthinkable in other contexts. In April 2025, during the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington, CEO Alex Karp was confronted by a protester who accused him of profiting from the deaths of Palestinians. His response, documented by outlets like The National and Israel Hayom, was: “Sobretudo terroristas, é verdade” (“Mostly terrorists, that’s true”). That is the laboratory’s logic: deaths are validated through the “terrorist” label, which the system helps to define.
ICE: domestic laboratory¶
But this logic isn’t confined to the Middle East. Within the United States, Palantir has long-standing contracts with ICE, the immigration enforcement agency, where its software manages deportation cases. The system cross-references databases, maps family relationships, tracks vehicles, and builds profiles of people deemed “deportable”.
ICE has become the domestic laboratory — the supposedly more “civilized” one — testing mass surveillance on vulnerable populations while the rest of society pays little attention. Learnings from one side feed the other: what Palantir tests on Latin American immigrants in the U.S. can be sharpened by the brutality of Gaza, and vice versa. It’s a feedback loop that turns people into data and data into targets.
The geopolitical gambit: the veneer of terrorism¶
That’s when I saw the bigger play. To expand this model, technology alone isn’t enough; you need a legal and political justification that opens doors to markets. And that’s where the concept of “foreign terrorist organization” comes in.
In January 2025, the U.S. government signed an executive order initiating the process of designating cartels and transnational gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. Groups like Tren de Aragua and MS-13 are already on the list. But the debate is advancing toward the Comando Vermelho and the PCC. If they are formally classified as FTOs, any country that wants to “fight terrorism” becomes eligible to receive U.S. military and intelligence assistance — and guess which company is ready to supply the software?
The veneer of terrorism is the key that unlocks the planet. It turns local public safety issues into an arm of the global “War on Terror” and authorizes the installation of surveillance systems in any corner of the world under the pretense of saving lives.
Latin America: the next frontier¶
And this is where it hits our doorstep. Europe and the U.S. are already covered: Palantir has contracts with Britain’s NHS, the German police, NATO, half the Pentagon. Russia is the “adversary” that justifies a large share of military investment; it isn’t a market, it’s an indirect target of Western intelligence systems. Gaza, as we’ve seen, is the lethal testing ground.
That leaves Latin America. And the company is already here — but with far less clarity than public debate might suggest. There is very little transparency. In Brazil, the company has had an active corporate registration (CNPJ) since 2014, but the federal government’s Transparency Portal shows no public contracts with Palantir. What does exist, documented in news reports, is a mention of a “success case” presented by the National Fund for Educational Development (FNDE) in 2024. Beyond that, unverified claims circulate — without documentary proof — that the company has contracts with state public security departments and other agencies. The Federal Police, frequently cited, does not appear in any reliable public record.
In Mexico, there are records of collaboration with authorities against cartels. In Colombia, the company works with the armed forces. In El Salvador, with Bukele’s prison surveillance state, integration would be a natural path. Haiti and Chile enter the radar as soon as the narrative of chaos and the need for “order” takes hold.
If the CV and the PCC are listed as terrorist organizations, the sale of Palantir technology to Latin American governments ceases to be mere commerce and becomes antiterrorist assistance. It is the path toward a massive, worldwide surveillance network, anchored in each country under the same seal: fighting terror. And the data from each place feeds a machine that operates on a global scale, learning from every street, every neighborhood, every identified person.
The all-seeing Eye¶
I’m not a conspiracy theorist; I’m just connecting the dots that reality itself presents. Palantir is not just a software company. It is the vector of a form of power based on the infinite collection of data and the capacity to act upon it without human mediation. The Tolkien name is no poetic coincidence: it is the exact description of what they have built.
Except, unlike the Elven stones, which required wisdom and rightful authority to be used, the modern palantíri run in the cloud and are sold to whichever client pays the most — be it a democratic government, an authoritarian regime, or an agency that decides who should be removed from the map. And with each new country connected to this network, the Eye grows stronger, while our ability to escape it diminishes.
If Tolkien were alive today, he probably wouldn’t name anything. But, looking at Palantir, he would recognize at once the cold, seductive gleam of a seeing-stone in the hands of men who believe they can control what, deep down, already controls them.
And me, sitting here, I just wanted a simple news app. Instead, I found the Dark Lord’s map traced over the real world.
Sources¶
Alex Karp’s quote (verified)¶
- The National – “Palantir CEO says most Gazans killed are ‘terrorists’” (May 6, 2025)
- Israel Hayom – Coverage of the Hill and Valley Forum (September 1, 2025)
- Consortium News – “The ‘Left’ Love Affair with Alex Karp’s War Machine” (June 6, 2025)
- Spanish Revolution – Quote in Spanish of the same statement (September 4, 2025)
Contracts with Israel and military use¶
- The Indian Express – “How a US tech firm filled its coffers by helping Israel bomb Gaza & enabling Trump to spy on his critics” (broad retrospective)
- Middle East Eye – “Israel used Palantir technology in its 2024 Lebanon pager attack, book claims”
- Amnesty International UK – Denunciation of the 2024 strategic partnership
- Gigazine – “It turns out that Israel used technology from Palantir in the pager explosion...” (Mossad and Shin Bet)
ICE and domestic contracts in the U.S.¶
- Newsweek – “ICE To Get New Technology To Track Illegal Migrants: Report”
- CorpWatch – “Palantir Documents Expose How Trump Administration Tracks Migrants for Deportation”
- Military.com – “Pentagon Expands Use of Palantir AI in New Defense Contract” (Project Maven)
Brazil and transparency (no confirmation of contracts)¶
- DW Brasil – “O que é a Palantir, empresa de dados que avança no governo brasileiro?” (April 22, 2026)
- UOL – Article on Palantir’s presence in Brazil, mentioning the FNDE (April 23, 2026)
- CartaCapital – Report in line with the above, without record of federal public contracts (April 24, 2026)
- Movimento Revista – Only publication to mention the Federal Police, but without presenting any document or verifiable source (April 28, 2026)
Designation of terrorist organizations (Executive Order 14157)¶
- Federal Register – “Executive Order 14157—Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations…” (January 29, 2025)
- CNN Brasil – “Trump pode classificar PCC e Comando Vermelho como terroristas? Entenda”
- Infobae – “Brasil negocia con Estados Unidos el freno a la designación del PCC y el Comando Vermelho…” (March 11, 2026)
Tolkienian context and origin of the name¶
- Business Insider – “Secretive data company Palantir just officially revealed its plans to go public. Here's why it's named after an all-powerful seeing stone…”
- Tagesschau – “Der Versuch, mit 'Herr der Ringe' zu den Guten zu gehören”
- The Informed Alarmist (Substack) – “Palantir: How Tech Bros Misread Tolkien”
All links were verified and active as of the publication date of this post. For ease of reference, it is recommended to search for the titles in search engines.