Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg personally called US President Barack Obama on Wednesday to express frustration over the US government’s surveillance programs.
Zuckerberg spoke with the president following the most recent leaks of Edward Snowden that revealed NSA’s Facebook surveillance tactic.
“I’ve called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform,” wrote Zuckerberg.
He claimed that Facebook’s “engineers work tirelessly to improve security,” imagining that they are protecting the users “against criminals, not our own government.”
Zuckerberg said he is “confused and frustrated” by the recent cascade of revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden and added that “the US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they’re doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.”
A White House official Caitlin Hayden confirmed that the President spoke with Mark Zuckerberg “about recent reports in the press about alleged activities by the US intelligence community.”
However, the official refused to comment further and pointed to the recent statement by NSA denying the accusations stating “NSA uses its technical capabilities only to support lawful and appropriate foreign intelligence operations.”
Technology companies including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have been increasingly vocal about frustrations over the US government’s spying programs.
Similar to Edward Snowden encouraging the tech community to develop secure tools, when he appeared remotely at the SXSW conference, Zuckerberg said “So it’s up to us — all of us — to build the internet we want. Together, we can build a space that is greater and a more important part of the world than anything we have today, but is also safe and secure. I’m committed to seeing this happen, and you can count on Facebook to do our part.”
