CIA Recruiting on Facebook

Whilst browsing online the other day I ran into an article about Facebook on the Wired.com website. It appears that the Central Intelligence Agency is reaching out to the networking youth of America through Facebook, in an attempt to recruit American college students. The CIA has had a NCS (National Clandestine Service)-sponsored group on Facebook since December 19th, 2006, where it will stay for two months. Although it's not news that companies advertise on Facebook and other networking sites such as MySpace, using them as pools of potential new employees and customers, this is a new strategy for a national agency in an attempt to recruit "increase the human intelligence capabilities" of the agency and and hire more officers that can "blend more easily in foreign cities." (Wired.com)

Although (apparently) the CIA group is strictly a gateway, an invitation to find out more about the possibility of a career on the CIA payroll (you need to be a U.S. Citizen and have a GPA of atleast 3.0 to apply), and the CIA can't access anyone's profile on Facebook, keep in mind that this is an agency which infiltrates peace groups in the US (um... why? for kicks, maybe?). As the American Civil Liberties Union ponders, what exactly stops them from gathering information from online networking sites? Maybe paranoia and conspiracy theories are just getting the best of us...

[Read the full article]
[Check out the CIA Facebook group(login required)]

Sources: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,72545-0.html?tw=rss.index

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