Since using Facebook by itself is one alternative to using a website like this, it might be amusing to poke fun at Facebook here a bit:

Facebook CIA Project: The Onion News Network	Small | Large

Totally by accident, I just came across this news story:  Facebook 'Like' Button Declared Illegal In Germany, dated August 19, 2011.

Unlike the "Onion" piece above, this is a real news story from the Huffington Post, not a joke:

The state of Schleswig-Holstein's data protection commissioner, Thilo Weichert, on Friday ordered state institutions to shut down the fan pages on the social networking site and remove the "Like" button from their websites, saying it leads to profiling that violates German and European law.

"Whoever visits facebook.com or uses a plug-in must expect that he or she will be tracked by the company for two years," Weichert said. "Facebook builds a broad individual and for members even a personalized profile."

Here's another funny Facebook scene, this time from South Park, illustrating that one cannot delete one's Facebook account, and raising questions about why that is:

Delete profile :-D (The video's owner prevents external embedding)

South Park Facebook vs Twitter

Two smart guys I spoke to in the past week told me this thing about the CIA and Facebook is not just a joke, that the CIA has a very active venture capital firm that funds companies, and that Facebook has been linked to this firm.

If you Google this, you'll find some articles and videos that say more about this.

In-Q-Tel is a venture capital firm established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1999. This firm works in various aspects of information technology and intelligence, particularly in "tools for the rapid deployment of distributed, economical data collection networks. Systems that are self-organizing or that provide tools for the aggregation and management of data from large numbers..." and other items "of interest to the CIA."

Here's the In-Q-Tel website.
So if you're a student of history, or have read any of Noam Chomsky's books about the CIA, then I guess you can draw your own conclusions about how trustworthy or untrustworthy they are for having data about everything in your life.

I'm not trying to suggest Facebook is bad, or good.  Clearly it provides an extremely useful service to vast numbers of people.  I just like to know what's going on with my data so I can make conscious decisions about it.

I bring all this up because a number of people have told me they are reluctant to discuss Not-Two Is Peace online because of concerns over privacy and anonymity.  I just posted a privacy policy for this website, to help allay such fears.

In any case, the book Not-Two Is Peace seems to be calling us to become more intelligent as a collective, though I'm not sure exactly what this means:

The negatively dominant bureaucracy of the world of egos becomes obsolete only through non-use. And, once its negative and parent-like powers become obsolete through non-use, even the State will be obliged to become the simple instrument of the responsible agreements of the people.  If the people become truly intelligent and freely cooperative, then the State will, inevitably do (or become) likewise.  And if the people truly become collectively intelligent and responsible, then individual freedom can never really be eliminated by the state of the "news".

- Not-Two Is Peace, p. 125

What is meant here by "becoming truly intelligent" and what is the "individual freedom" referred to here, I wonder?

This article reports on a document that may present some of Facebook's own policies in this area:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/facebooks-law-enforcement-guidebook-leaked/64155

And this other article is a good summary overview of current threats to privacy in the U.S.:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/reasons-to-wear-tinfoil-hats/

An article criticizing Facebook and the like from an alternative news site (it links to the same video):

http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=630034

A pretty good article on Google's activities that might impinge on privacy:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=COR20120421&articleId=30440

This other article, on the NSA by James Bamford, is referenced in the one above:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/