...And nobody noticed.
Over the next couple of postings here, I hope to explain why. When one deactivates one’s FB account, there is a questionnaire asking why and offering a list of options to choose from (“I am spending too much time on FB” or “There are too many apps” or “I have a duplicate account” or “I didn’t find the happiness I was looking for”). None of these come close to my reasons.
Reason #1A– John Poindexter had 5 felony convictions
Who's John Poindexter?
John Poindexter was National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, and was convicted of 5 felonies for his involvement in the Iran Contra scandal (one count of conspiracy (obstruction of inquiries and proceedings, false statements, falsification, destruction and removal of documents); two counts of obstruction of Congress and two counts of false statements).
Poindexter was brought back by the Bush Administration to work his magic for them, and didn't even get fired for this crazy idea. He was allowed to resign.
Reason #1B – The Patriot Act, Operation TIPS, The Homeland Security Act, H.R. 1528
In 2002, the Bush administration tried to implement a “Terrorism Information and Prevention System”. The goal of the program was to establish a reliable and comprehensive national system for reporting suspicious, and potentially terrorist-related, activity. Operation TIPS was going to be phased in across the country to enable the system to build its capacity to receive an increasing volume of tips.
Reason #1C – TIA
The Information Awareness Office (IAO) was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in January 2002 to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying surveillance and information technology to track and monitor "terrorists" and other asymmetric threats to national security, by achieving Total Information Awareness (TIA). This would be achieved by creating enormous computer databases to gather and store the personal information of everyone in the United States, including personal e-mails, social network analysis, credit card records, phone calls, medical records, and numerous other sources, without any requirement for a search warrant. This information would then be analyzed to look for suspicious activities, connections between individuals, and "threats". Additionally, the program included funding for biometric surveillance technologies that could identify and track individuals using surveillance cameras, and other methods.
Following public criticism that the development and deployment of these technologies could potentially lead to a mass surveillance system, the IAO was defunded by Congress in 2003. However, several IAO projects continued to be funded, and merely run under different names.
Reason #1D – Facebook was Poindexter's Wet Dream
