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British Secret Service Chief's Facebook Faux Pas

by Leila Brillson on July 6, 2009 at 12:40 PM

MI-6 is Britain's snazzier, shaken-not-stirred version of the CIA. The espionage authority is so secretive that it wasn't even officially acknowledged until 1992, the AP reports. The head of the organization's identity is so carefully guarded that, until the '90s, the chief was simply known as "C."

So, when incoming head Sir John Sawers -- an experienced spy and Britain's current ambassador to the UN -- was found on Facebook through his wife Lady Shelley Sawers's page, we can only imagine that MI-6 agents everywhere (including James Bond) shook their heads in shame.

After Lady Shelley posted family vacation pictures (including an unflattering one of Sir John in his bathing suit) and after the Daily Mail published said photos yesterday, the world got dangerously more than a laugh. While a spy in a Speedo might seem funny, information on Sawers's family, location, and friends could be highly damaging to the Sawerses, the agency, and Britain as a whole.


As if this weren't bad enough, the Facebook profile in question was not only existent, but totally public. Perhaps it's time for Her Majesty's Secret Service to sit down and talk about a kind of counter-espionage that Bond never encountered: social networking stalkers. [From: AP/CBSNews.com]

Tags: facebook, government, mi6, privacy, social networking, SocialNetworking, spy, top

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