Apparently one of the reasons 9/11 happened was because of intelligence failures, so following an overhaul the US Central Intelligence Agency is to launch its own version of Facebook/MySpace for spies.
No seriously, the CIA spooks believe that it will help them exchange information. It's going to be called A-Space and it should allow staff to better "analyse information together".Clearly, the people who came up with the idea haven't wasted (I mean invested, of course) enough time on Facebook. I can imagine the status updates now: "The station chief in Baghdad is bored", "Harry Hubbard is wondering where Bin Laden is hiding" or "David Webb is elusive".
These are the kind of things that I learn daily on Facebook as well as joining many groups. Admittedly, creating and joining a group on A-Space called "How to track suicide bombers" or "Finding the right caves in Afghanistan" might be more useful.
As far as I an tell the CIA has no official Facebook group – but there are plenty of "CIA" groups including Abolish the CIA (56 members); Big Brother Is Watching - Facebook Is Run By George W. & The CIA (269 members); but none have as many members as Chewbacca Is Awesome (CIA) with 328.As for our own spooks there are plenty of MI6 groups including CIA, Mossad, KGB and MI6=Axis Of Evil (10 members), but the clear favourite is Daniel Craig is the reason I want to be in MI6 (164 members).The CIA's A-Space is due to launch in December and will feature web-based email and software recommending issues of interest.Mike Wertheimer, a senior official at the Department for National Intelligence told the FT that: "I am unable to send email, and even make secure phone calls, to a good portion of the community from my desktop because of firewalls. "We are willing to experiment in ways that we have never experimented before," he said.He added that while it was understandable that some operatives were reticent about sharing information which could pose a risk, the 9/11 attacks had showed that not pooling data could also cost lives.
Gordon Macmillan
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