The CIA claims to be using facebook as a recruiting mechanism, but there's no way of being sure if that's the extent of what it's doing. Knowing its past as the primary organization given to illegal military-interfence in leftist countries (most of Latin America, West Africa and South East Asia), conducting tremendous programs of surveillance and harassment of progressive American leaders (Dr. King, John Steinbeck, Bella Abzug, Hubert Humphrey, &c.) and supporting a power structure that includes the military industrial complex, which many liberal, progressive and leftist student groups oppose, it is logical to suspect that it could very well use or plan to use facebook as a way of keeping tabs on student activist groups.

This is not a conspiracy theory, but a skeptical position taken after carefully gathering extensive knowledge about the CIA's past in domestic surveillance (see, among other things, Project MERRIMAC, Project RESISTANCE, Operation CHAOS and HTLINGUAL).

Here is Wired News' report on the issue: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,72545-0.html?tw=rss.index

Says Nicole Ozer, the civil liberties and technology policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California: "If (the CIA) knows about Facebook, and they have a page on Facebook, it would be surprising if they weren't using it in other ways... It seems if they would go to the trouble to infiltrate peace groups that they are also online looking at information." (Source: the article linked above)

In the name of civil liberties and a regard for how beautifully democratic facebook is, those who choose to be members of this group register our voices in protest of the CIA's involvement in the facebook community and insist that it not collect names, biographical information or resumes of anyone on facebook. (read less)

The CIA claims to be using facebook as a recruiting mechanism, but there's no way of being sure if that's the extent of what it's doing. Knowing its past as the primary organization given to illegal military-interfence in leftist countries (most of Latin America, West Africa and South East Asia), conducting tremendous programs of surveillance and harassment of progressive American leaders (Dr. King, John Steinbeck, Bella Abzug, Hubert Humphrey, &c.) and supporting a power structure that... (read more)