> Twitter said it has a long-standing policy barring third parties, including Dataminr, from selling its data to a government agency for surveillance purposes. The company wouldn’t comment on how Dataminr—a close business partner—was able to provide its service to the government for two years, or why that arrangement came to an end.

So why was the exception made to this policy?

> In-Q-Tel, a venture-capital arm of the U.S. intelligence community, has been investing in data-mining companies to beef up the government’s ability to sort through massive amounts of information. In-Q-Tel, for example, has invested in data-mining firms Palantir Technologies Inc. and Recorded Future Inc.

> U.S. intelligence agencies gained access to Dataminr’s service after an In-Q-Tel investment in the firm, according to a person familiar with the matter.

> When a pilot program arranged by In-Q-Tel ended recently, Twitter told Dataminr it didn’t want to continue the relationship with intelligence agencies, this person said.

VC funds led by US agencies that operate on a quasi-legal and opaque basis is the worst form of crony capitalism

Open version of the article http://www.wsj.com/article_email/twitter-bars-intelligence-a...