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Did you know that the CIA funded and created a company called In-Q-Tel, which is known to have funded Facebook, Amazon, Google, Palantir, Apple, and hundreds of other “secret” companies?
In-Q-Tel is the venture capital arm of the CIA. Founded in 1999, its mission is to identify and invest in cutting-edge technologies that can serve U.S. intelligence and national security interests. How many companies exist today that have actually been funded and virtually created by the CIA?
There are so many rabbit holes I could go down with this company, especially when you start looking into just how many of the technology companies we use every single day have connections to the American intelligence apparatus. But for this article, I want to focus specifically on Facebook, because I think most Americans would be absolutely horrified if they knew the history behind the technology they’re voluntarily using to document practically every aspect of their lives.
FACEBOOK = PENTAGON PROGRAM
Before Facebook ever existed, the Pentagon was developing a program called LifeLog through DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Its objective was to create a comprehensive digital database of a person’s entire existence, recording practically everything they said, touched, read, watched, purchased, and everyone they interacted with, allowing the government to track and analyze their relationships, movements, activities, and behavioral patterns.
In other words, the Pentagon was developing technology capable of documenting practically every aspect of your existence.
Now, here’s where this gets particularly interesting.
On February 4, 2004, DARPA’s LifeLog program was reportedly shut down, supposedly bringing an end to the Pentagon’s attempt to develop this comprehensive system for collecting personal information. People did not want to give the government access to their personal information and photos.
And would you like to know what else happened on February 4, 2004?
MARK ZUCKERBERG “FOUNDED” FACEBOOK.
On the exact same day that the Pentagon’s LifeLog program was reportedly shut down, a Harvard student just so happened to launch a social networking website that would eventually accomplish practically everything the Pentagon had been trying to achieve.
And we’re supposed to believe that’s just one enormous coincidence?
Think about what Facebook actually does. It encourages people to upload photographs of themselves and their families, document their relationships, share their locations, discuss their interests, record their activities, and voluntarily provide a continuous stream of personal information that can be used to map their behavior, social connections, movements, and daily habits.
Billions of people are now voluntarily feeding Facebook the very information that the Pentagon was trying to collect through LifeLog.
The technology has essentially made it possible to build detailed digital profiles of people’s lives on a scale that would have been unimaginable when DARPA first began developing its program.
And the most remarkable part is that people willingly participate in it, because instead of being presented as a Pentagon surveillance program, it’s presented as a harmless social networking website where you can share pictures of your children and keep up with your friends.
To recap:
The Pentagon develops a program designed to document practically every aspect of a person’s existence, that program is reportedly “shut down” on February 4, 2004, and on that exact same day, Facebook is launched and eventually becomes one of the largest personal data collection platforms in human history.
How could that possibly be a coincidence?
And while we’re discussing the rather interesting relationships between Silicon Valley and the American intelligence community, here’s another one worth mentioning.
Guess whose grandfather was the co-founder of DARPA?
JEFF BEZOS.
And of course Bezos “founded” Amazon, which we now know was funded by the CIA (In-Q-Tel).
I keep my news, investigations, and analysis free and accessible to everyone. If you value my work, your support makes it possible for me to keep doing it. Please like, comment, share, and subscribe.
CIA CONNECTIONS
Now, let’s take a look at some of the people who were responsible for financing Facebook and helping transform it into the enormous corporation it eventually became, because the connections to the American intelligence apparatus certainly don’t end with LifeLog.
Facebook’s first major outside investor and member of its board of directors was Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir, which is a CIA-front company (funded by In-Q-Tel) that focuses on mass surveillance and data harvesting that emerged as a continuation of a DARPA program aimed at predictive policing.
Another early Facebook investor was Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm that participated in a $25 million investment round in Facebook in 2006.
And would you like to know who one of Greylock’s longtime partners was?
Howard E. Cox, who also served on the board of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm.
Another interesting connection is Regina Dugan, who was the director of DARPA from 2009-2012, and served as the head of Facebook’s “Building 8,” the secretive advanced technology division, from 2016-2018.
So…a former director of the same Pentagon agency responsible for developing LifeLog eventually ended up running an experimental technology division at Facebook. Got it.
THE CLUES
Even the name “Facebook” becomes rather interesting when you consider the nature of the surveillance-based technology and what it actually does.
A “face” represents one of the most identifiable forms of human biometric information while a “book” can serve as a written record or “log” of someone’s life.
And what was the Pentagon’s program called again?
LifeLog.
When DARPA reportedly “shut down” LifeLog in February 2004, MIT researcher David Karger told Wired:
I am sure such research will continue to be funded under some other title…I can’t imagine DARPA ‘dropping out’ of such a key research area.
Well, neither can I.
Facebook looks like a modern-day rebranding of DARPA’s LifeLog program, except this time, instead of asking Americans to participate in a government surveillance project, they convinced billions of people to voluntarily document their own lives through a seemingly private technology company.
Did you know that the CIA has its own venture capital firm and that they have used it to invest in some of the largest companies that exist today?
How comfortable do you feel using Facebook, META and Amazon now?
Relevant reading:
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