In J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” a Palantir is a seeing stone used to watch over faraway places and communicate great distances. Users had to "possess great strength of will and of mind" to direct the stone's gaze to its full capability.

But when wielded by those without wisdom or a moral compass, Palantirs could be used to warp the truth and create distorted versions of reality.

Such is the dual potential, as well, of the company named after those stones and headquartered in Colorado, a company that has become one of the most powerful and secretive companies in the world.

Palantir is now woven into the fabric of America’s national security, health care, immigration enforcement, transportation and data collection networks.

Palantir’s software, which sees unseen patterns in

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