Software Pioneer Quits Board of Groove (neat picture of Micth)

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Software Pioneer Quits Board of Groove

March 11, 2003
By JOHN MARKOFF 

SAN FRANCISCO, March 10 - Mitchell D. Kapor, a personal
computer industry software pioneer and a civil liberties
activist, has resigned from the board of Groove Networks
after learning that the company's software was being used
by the Pentagon as part of its development of a domestic
surveillance system.

Mr. Kapor would say publicly only that it was a "delicate
subject" and that he had resigned to pursue his interests
in open source software.

The company acknowledged the resignation last week when it
announced that it had received $38 million in additional
financing. 

"Mr. Kapor resigned from the board to focus 100 percent of
his time on nonprofit activities," said a spokesman for
Groove Networks, whose software has been used to permit
intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials to
share data in tests of the surveillance system, Total
Information Awareness.

However, a person close to Mr. Kapor said that he was
uncomfortable with the fact that Groove Networks' desktop
collaboration software was a crucial component of the
antiterrorist surveillance software being tested at the
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Information
Awareness Office, an office directed by Vice Adm. John M.
Poindexter. 

The project has generated controversy since it was started
early last year by Admiral Poindexter, the former national
security adviser for President Ronald Reagan, whose felony
conviction as part of the Iran-contra scandal was reversed
because of a Congressional grant of immunity.

The project has been trying to build a prototype computer
system that would permit the scanning of hundreds or
thousands of databases to look for information patterns
that might alert the authorities to the activities of
potential terrorists.

Civil liberties activists have argued that such a system,
if deployed, could easily be misused in ways that would
undercut traditional American privacy values.

"Mitch cares very much about the social impact of
technology," said Shari Steele, executive director of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group
that was co-founded by Mr. Kapor in 1990.

"It's the reason he founded E.F.F.," she said.

Several
privacy and security experts said that Mr. Kapor's decision
was significant and was indicative of the kinds of clashes
between security and privacy that could become increasingly
common. 

"With the dramatic change of funding availability in the
high-tech sector, it's become difficult for companies to
turn down the funding opportunities presented by the
federal government," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "It
does show that some people in the high-tech community,
including some of the founders, are not happy with what's
happening." 

The debate echoes an earlier one that placed scientists at
odds with advancing technologies. The war on terror is
raising ever more difficult civil liberties issues.

"Computer scientists are going to have the same kinds of
battles that physicists did amidst the fallout of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki," said Michael Schrage, a senior adviser to
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies
Program. 

On Feb. 11, House and Senate negotiators agreed that the
Total Information Awareness project could not be used
against Americans. Congress also agreed to restrict
additional research on the program without extensive
consultation with Congress.

Congressional negotiators gave the Defense Department 90
days to provide a report to Congress detailing its costs,
impact on privacy and civil liberties and likelihood of
success against terrorists. All further research on the
project would have to stop immediately if the report is not
filed by the deadline.

But President Bush can keep the research alive by
certifying to Congress that a halt "would endanger the
national security of the United States."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/business/11PRIV.html?ex=1048367544&ei=1&en
=492a77eeb13df314


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