Julian Assange: Facebook Is 'Appalling Spy Machine' (VIDEO)

In an interview with Russia Today (RT), Julian Assange called Facebook the "most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented."

He told RT's Laura Emmett,

Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to U.S. intelligence.

It's not new ground for the Wikileaks founder. In March, Assange told Cambridge University students that the Internet is "the greatest spying machine the world has ever seen."

During the Russia Today interview, Assange explained that Facebook, Google and Yahoo all provide automated interfaces for the U.S. intelligence (starts around 2:00 in the video below). "When they add their friends to Facebook," Assange said, "they are doing free work for United States intelligence agencies."

Unlike The Onion's prescient fake news piece that poked fun at Facebook's success as a CIA program earlier this year, Assange says that these Web sites aren't being run by the government. Instead, the intelligence community is able to "bring to bear legal and political pressure to them."

Comments

[Cheryl12345]

10:52 PM on 05/26/2011

Assange is so smart. I appreciate every interview I see him give.

[Steve-o-k]

11:06 PM on 05/15/2011

Solution. Don't use fartbook. My life moves forward perfectly well.

[Nando Boston]

12:44 AM on 05/15/2011

He might be right!
Assange, please, marry and start a family in London and make a generous donation to one of Princess Diane's cause and you are all set!

[philio8008]

04:49 PM on 05/13/2011

this whole topic is like beating a dead horse...we get it, a lot of people don't want to make their lives public...ok good for you, then don't! I love how people continuously press this issue by making comments on the internet...seriously do you not see the irony???? Whenever there is something that becomes insanely popular like facebook there are always going to be people trying to tear it down....look at Oprah, most people love her but there are a few that think she is the anti-christ and her only goal is to take down the church. We have to choose our battles and at some point all of you are going to have to realize that this is a battle that you are going to lose. It's more likely that they are going to add the facebook symbol to the American flag then it is that they will get rid of it. Sorry folks. Just "keeping it real".

[Skullbash]

04:28 PM on 05/12/2011

I agree with Julian

[John Roman]

09:36 AM on 05/12/2011

I agree. I was a member once for a day then I cancelled. Who needs their lives be an open book or more like an open trash bin with all your unshredded life ready for plucking? Facebook is dangerous.

[philio8008]

04:38 PM on 05/13/2011

let's see "who would need their life to be an open book?" ...well, maybe people that have family and friends spread all over the world and do not wish to just allow great relationships to fade away just because it's too hard to keep in contact with everybody. Also, just because somebody posts a comment saying how there day is going or a couple pictures they want to share does not make your life an "open book"

[Barbara Reiner]

01:04 PM on 05/11/2011

He is so right re the media, FB, the mideast, etc. I hope he is not extradited anywhere.
I like the say he says "people have to be fooled into war" .... yes, the media is no
Walter Croncyte (sp?)

[nothinbutgenius]

01:06 PM on 05/07/2011

he's got a point.

[miss casablanca]

10:57 PM on 05/05/2011

I cannot believe no one is making note of the Breaking News Streamer running during the Lassange/Laura Emmett interview for "Russia Today" ? This item having been posted 5/2/11,
breaking is news of Bin Laden's death having occurred "a week ago"? That would then have been 4/25/11. All accounts so far have Bin Laden killed Sunday, May 1st, 2011. What gives???

[kaakaa]

09:11 PM on 05/05/2011

Once you enter the internet zone every thing you say, feel, do, or write is public record. even if its encrypted, its still public record. Remember that and it wont matter what they find because if you care you wont PUT anything on here that matters to anyone..

[Susan Shaffer]

04:36 PM on 05/10/2011

i see your point but this sort of mentality reminds of the stasi
does anyone have the time to sort through all the stuff that is put up on the net even if you use a computer and ask it to look for everytime someone has written september 11 revenge.
think of how many hp posts would come up alone

[kaakaa]

05:04 PM on 05/10/2011

yes, there are organizations (and they are huge) that do so on someone elses behest. I was just saying that if you post something on line, someone, sometime, somewhere will find it and if they chose to they will use it reguardless of how benign you think it is when you post it.Example: I posted this 5 days ago and you just brought it back up. But I dont care what people find in my posts here or anywhere else for that matter, so with me it dosen't matter.

[MyFatCat]

03:58 PM on 05/15/2011

Agree to a point, although I'd observe that it doesn't have to be--and probably isn't--an "anyone." More likely a legion of web crawlers, spiders, and federated search engines logging in and looking for patterns about anything from what you bought on your credit card last month to whether you have an undue interest in the latest scare du jour.

[DanC35]

04:17 PM on 05/05/2011

I hate to disagree with him, but "appalling"? Nonsense. It's only a little worse than WWW, where people know their thoughts are going out to everyone. I doubt it's nearly as bad as email, where we may feel we're talking privately while our messages go through a wide variety of computer systems. People should only post on the Internet what they're willing to accept that our corporate overlords will also read. Any movement is better off without the fools who do otherwise.

[andycash]

08:10 PM on 05/04/2011

If you deem yourself a "FaceBooker" and contribute to it with abandon, you probably are not of much concern to the CIA. Boring people do not threaten a nation unless you are a T_Bagger.
In that case you are of interest only to the CUA, Central Unintellegence Agency .
Not to worry!

[Shivprasad Dixit]

03:43 AM on 05/04/2011

Assange said true about facebook. We all doing free work for US intelligence. We are all foolish who give our important information to facebook or social networking sites. It seems there is no trustworthy in the world of internet. There is also loopholes in this system. We should stop being 'facebookholic'. Lets hope new technology will find answer on this stuff.

[maslin]

10:34 PM on 05/04/2011

'Lets hope new technology will find answer on this stuff.'

LMAO!

Yes, it will find a new answer, that also performs a rapid automated cheek swab PCR DNA readouts and auto-tweets the weight, density, and components of our latest bowel movement.

[acacia72]

12:00 AM on 05/04/2011

The gov't has already been recording and storing ALL of our phones calls, texts, emails, faxes, online activity, etc. At this point Facebook is probably only confusing them.

[observer9]

09:51 PM on 05/04/2011

Oh, I have an audience?--Cool.

[teachone]

11:00 PM on 05/03/2011

Julian Assange has a genius intellect and the guts to "tell it like it is". Unlike average people, like those who made the last few comments! Nothing is more mundane than uneducated people "calling others of intelligence" names in order to try to make a statement of some sort. Please do everyone a favor and contain your words if they are "mindless, ugly remarks". What Julian's organization does is extremely important to millions of people and although some may not agree..tough, don't watch him if you cannot handle reality or are simply not intelligent enough to grasp what is being said, but instead go sit in a bar or in front of a T.V. watching a sitcom to fill your days and nights and be uninformed.

[acacia72]

11:51 PM on 05/03/2011

...Or, watch faux news and be MISinformed(at your own peril, of course!)