CIA on Myspace?
August 23rd, 2007 by John Stauffer
The national intelligence agencies have launched a social networking site, A-Space, modeled after the ultra-popular MySpace, further supplying ammunition to those who claim networking sites hold potential beyond teenage users. The government-only site will allow users who voluntarily sign up to access the vast network of federal intelligence agencies.
This move “will generate better analysis by breaking down firewalls across the traditionally stove-piped intelligence community,” said Thomas Fingar, deputy director of National Intelligence for Analysis in a recent interview with Financial Times.
The A-space network will have the traditional menu of social networking features from common networks to web-based email, but will also have a recommended area of interest, similar to Amazon’s “You May Also Like…” section that recommends products based previous purchases. This will allow users to be connected to relevant material and research they may not have otherwise encountered.
In addition to the social networking applications, the site will also allow the intelligence community to access the national intelligence library.
The Director of National Intelligence is also looking to open up the site to foreign intelligence agencies, most of whom have been reluctant to log on to the networking site, citing the potential leaks among their top concerns.
Looking ahead, the DNI and the Intelligence and National Security Alliance plan to hold a conference in September to solicit feedback from both the private section and academia.
Anyone out there have any insight into A-Space, or share any of the same concerns?
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- Speeding the delivery of Web2.0 capabilities into government
- Social Video for the US Intelligence Community
- A 1.0 Business Case for Government Web 2.0 Adoption
- TIME names A-Space among its best inventions of 2008
I think this is a great idea, but I have to wonder how they will control the flow of information — which has to be important given security / confidentiality concerns. On sites like MySpace or Facebook, almost any kind of content goes, and the stuff that doesn’t (porn, hate speech, etc.) is easily identified and even removed by the users. On A-Space, restricted content could be much more difficult to identify and deal with efficiently.
I sincerely hope they work this out, because I think the model of leveraging social networking tools into a larger knowledge sharing and collaboration platform like this has the potential to be extremely successful — if done right.