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War on Terror
Is Facebook the face of Total Information Awareness?
An expose finds intriguing similarities between US government aims and the popular online social network site (edited and reprinted without the knowledge of the original author, who we couldn’t find)
By Josh Smith
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Facebook is an online social networking site that allows 20 million users to upload pictures of themselves and can include information about their favorite music, books, movies, their address, phone number, e-mail, clubs, jobs, educational history, and even political affiliations. Facebook is extremely popular, attracting on average 80 percent of a university’s undergraduate population. However, there are some questions raised regarding privacy concerns on the site, and when some digging is done to find out who is really behind the site's management, there are more questions than answers.
The first venture capital money to come into Facebook, $500,000 worth, came from venture capitalist Peter Thiel, founder and former CEO of Paypal. A Stanford graduate and former columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Thiel is author of the book "The Diversity Myth," an anti-multicultural argument which received praise from notable neo-conservatives such as William Kristol. Thiel is on the board of the radical conservative group VanguardPAC.
Further funding came in the form of $12.7 million from venture capital firm Accel Partners. Accel's manager James Breyer was former chair of the National Venture Capital Association (NVAC). Breyer served on NVAC's board with Gilman Louie, CEO of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1999. This firm works in various aspects of information technology and intelligence, including most notably "nurturing data mining technologies."
Breyer has also served on the board of BBN Technologies, a research and development firm known for spearheading the ARPANET, or what we know today as the Internet. In October of 2004, Dr Anita Jones climbed on board, becoming a part of a firm packed with leaders from other areas of Silicon Valley's venture capital community, including none other than Gilman Louie. But what is most interesting is Dr Jones' experience prior to joining BBN.
Jones herself served on the Board of Directors for In-Q-Tel and was previously the Director of Defense Research and Engineering for the US Department of Defense. Her responsibilities included serving as an advisor to the Secretary of Defense and overseeing the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
While the nearly $13 million that came from Accel to fund Facebook certainly looks suspicious and unfortunately disturbing after reviewing all of this information, the only problem on the surface seems to be the appearance of some incestuous relationships between the Pentagon, the CIA, and these venture capital firms.
But the questions go further than just these initial appearances. DARPA shot to national fame in 2002 when John Markoff of the New York Times announced the existence of the "Information Awareness Office.” According to Wikipedia, "the IAO has the stated mission to gather as much information as possible about everyone, in a centralized location, for easy perusal by the United States government, including (though not limited to) Internet activity, credit card purchase histories, airline ticket purchases, car rentals, medical records, educational transcripts, driver's licenses, utility bills, tax returns, and any other available data." Protests came from civil libertarians on both the right and the left who saw the IAO as a new Orwellian arm of the United States government. After Congress investigated DARPA's project, funding was cut off and IAO was essentially dead in the water.
The Information Awareness Office might have survived some of its original purposes in a mutated form, found in today's Facebook. In fact, one of IAO's original example technologies included "human network analysis and behavior model building engines," a surprising echo of the social networking mapping that Facebook does using SVG visualizations. Add that to the information that Facebook collects and compare it to the startlingly similar goal of the IAO. It appears at first glance that DoD, along with the CIA, has managed to circumvent its previous Congressionally-established limitations to find corporate sponsorship for its programs under the thin veil of a useful social network for unwitting college students.
The "Privacy Policy" of Facebook includes a statement saying that they "may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." It goes on to say that, "We may be required to disclose customer information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law or to protect our interests or property. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies."
Some of the aspects of the privacy policy are downright creepy and confusing. This particular gem is especially disturbing: “Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience. By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to, and processed in, the United States.”
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