Amazon-CIA Cloud Contract Is A Recipe For Big Brother Hell, Warn Privacy Activists

Grazed from IBTimes. Author: Christopher Zara.

The slogan “Amazon and you’re done” may have just taken on a whole new meaning — at least for enemies of the state. Privacy advocates and media watchdogs are challenging a contract between Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, calling it a potentially “ominous” convergence of mass surveillance and perpetual war.

In an online petition launched this month, the group RootsAction called on Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, to make a “legally binding” commitment to Amazon users that it won’t share customer data with the CIA. Following a lengthy legal battle, Amazon in October defeated IBM (NYSE:IBM) in a bid for a $600 million cloud computing contract. Under the 10-year deal, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, will build and operate a dedicated, private computer cloud for the agency…

“The relationship means that Amazon — logoed with a smiley-face arrow from A to Z, selling products to millions of people every week — is responsible for keeping the CIA’s secrets and aggregating data to help the agency do its work,” wrote Norman Solomon, co-founder of RootsAction, in a blog post. “Including drone strikes.”…

Read more from the source @ http://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-cia-cloud-contract-recipe-big-brother-hell-warn-privacy-activists-1557912

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