Facebook.com: A Threat to International Intelligence Agencies?

Facebook.com has now become one of the world’s top social networks. Millions of people all around the globe share latest personal updates and news, chat, discuss, and tag pictures of themselves and families to friends and relatives. Through this fast-growing social network, people can always get in touch with their loved ones and find out how they are doing.

The problem is: what if you are not supposed to find out what some other people are doing? Like the private lives of intelligent agents, for example.

Jawa Pos on Tuesday, July the 7^th, 2009 came up with the news of protest in Britain when the private pictures of the United Kingdom’s future Head of Intelligence Agency (M16), Sir John Sawers, appeared on facebook.com! Of course, it wasn’t Sir John who uploaded his photos on the network, but his wife, Shelley Sawers!

There were pictures of him dressing up as Santa Claus on Christmas. There were pictures of him playing Frisbee. There were photographs of him on family holidays and his mother’s 80^th birthday celebration. And there were photographs of him at the swimming pool, wearing nothing but Speedo swimming pants!

At the time the pictures were uploaded, Sir John was still positioned as the United Kingdom’s Ambassador for the United Nations Organization (UNO). His wife had no idea he was going to be promoted to be the head of M16.

Even so, this is one of the weak spots of intelligence system: wives are not allowed to know what their husbands are doing. What the men do is highly classified as national top secret. Poor Mrs. Sawers might not know that in his position as ambassador, Sir John had made frequent and various contacts with people outside the United Kingdom and monitored the behavior of other international leaders. He must have kept close contacts with the British Intelligence Agency as he moved about in the UNO. That alone is already considered as act of espionage. That is probably the reason why the UK government appoints him as the next head of M16.

But the government was later troubled when they found out Sir John’s photos had appeared all over facebook.com! And what troubles them more is because Mrs. Sawers also stated clearly and precisely the dates and locations of the pictures taken. What if there were photographs of other intelligent agents in those pictures she had shared on the network?

It is important to keep the agents’ track record invisible from public and the enemies of the UK. The faces of agents – and especially head of the intelligence agency – should never slip into public knowledge, for the sake of the agents themselves, the agency, and the country. Their whereabouts and personal information are supposed to be extremely classified.

But with the growing popularity of facebook.com, the term “classified” seems to be somewhat threatened. It seems that nothing and no one can shroud themselves from the web of this social network.

The leading newspapers all over the globe (The New York Times, for instance) have given sharp comments and critics on this matter, so sharp that the UK government immediately disabled Shelley Sawers’ facebook account. Now, the account is inaccessible to everyone as to prevent agents of CIA, KGB and other intelligence agencies to view the pictures of the future head of M16 half-naked.

What a laughingstock!