The BBC reports that the FT reports that the CIA is launching a site modeled after social networking sites:

A-Space, due to launch in December, will feature web-based email and software recommending issues of interest to the user said Mike Wertheimer, a senior official at the Department for National Intelligence (DNI).

He told the FT that the new infrastructures would help break down some of the physical communications problems in the intelligence community.

“I am unable to send email, and even make secure phone calls, to a good portion of the community from my desktop because of firewalls,” he said.

Firewalls blocking email and phone calls at the CIA? Somehow I doubt it.

Imagine what Cheney and Scooter could do to their political foes with this kind of database.

Mr Wertheimer added that while it had looked for collaboration from overseas, foreign intelligence agencies had been “the folks most virulently against” sharing information through an “intelligence library”.

I suspect they were opposed to having the US dictate the terms of the libarary and sharing, rather than opposed to the idea of sharing information. It is the habit of conservative US politicians to try and strong-arm allies in one-sided deals and then bash them for being “uncooperative”.