Article 1: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-02-05-nsa-telecoms_x.htm

Article 2: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070125-8701.html

The two articles above discuss the power behind social networks. The first article, Telecoms let NSA spy on calls, talks about the NSA wiretapping procedure and the legal implications of this procedure. Each telecommunication company is in control of a large network of users, or customers, which can be depicted using a graph. If all the users and the company itself are nodes, and edges represent a connection between the telephone service provider and the customer, then the resulting graph exhibits the power of the telecommunication company. When the NSA gained control of the Telcoms’ records, they obtained a massive call database which would then need to be processed and searched. (The establishment of the connection between the NSA and the Telcom is a good example of a bridge since it is the only way for the NSA to learn about the telephone network.) In order to search though all this information, the NSA focused their efforts and primarily screened international calls in the hope to learn about unknown terrorist plots and to find US connections to these possible plots. This example shows how nodes with power have great responsibility over their actions. In this particular case, the Telcoms have power because they have a high betweenness and dependence compared to the other nodes. When the Telcoms cooperated with the NSA, multiple legal implications arose because of the contractual relationship between Telcom and customer. It is important for powerful nodes to respect their connections (by not taking advantage of the customer’s dependence or the Telcom’s ability to exclude) since each edge represents a greater profit for the company.

The other article, similar in nature although highly opinionated, entitled, CIA uses Facebook, NSA wants social networking data, also talks about the power of social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and how the government may start to look to these social networking sites to stay a step ahead of crime or as the article says, “keep money from flowing into the hands of terror groups, mobsters, and other unsavory characters who need to launder their cash.” The article concludes that chances are there are no ulterior motives behind today’s popular social network sites but it is clear that the power these site yield should be respected.