Arthur Thomas Claypool is a former software engineer for the NSA, and an MIT classmate and old friend of Harold Finch and Nathan Ingram. He suffers from memory loss due to a brain tumor. Arthur was responsible for a project codenamed "Samaritan", which entailed the creation of a mass surveillance system similar to the Machine for the government. In 2005, Congress canceled the project just weeks before Arthur was able to make it work.