>> Palantir stores an audit trail that shows exactly where each piece of data comes from and who has accessed it. This allows citizens, courts, regulators, etc. to see precisely how data is being used.

What are you blabbering about? What you suggest is impossible.

Are you talking about this "immutable audit log" technology? (http://www.palantir.com/wp-content/static/pg-analysis-blog/2...) That's nothing more than marketing speak powered by research papers that have proven to be insufficient. See: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~accorsi/papers/imf09....

Also, see slide 11 and 12 here: http://www.slideshare.net/Nbukhari/audit-trail-protection-av..., and then read this: http://www.std.com/~cme/non-repudiation.htm

Immutable audit trails and non-repudiation without specialized devices (blackboxes) are a lie. It is impossible to create a bulletproof auditing system for access to sensitive data, especially when you're talking about the kind of surveillance that the NSA is doing with PRISM.

I suspect that when government officials cite the "transparency" and "auditability" of NSA PRISM, this is what it all boils down to -- marketing talk from Palantir etc.