New Times,
New Thinking.

14 April 2014updated 09 Jun 2021 8:32am

Dropbox users are angry that NSA-loving Condoleezza Rice has been appointed to its board

The former US secretary of state, who supported the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping programme, is seen as a terrible choice to sit on the board of the cloud storage company.

By Ian Steadman

You take out one contentious tech company board member, another pops up somewhere else. Dropbox, the cloud storage service, announced on 9 April that Condoleezza Rice would be joining its board of directors, enraging some users and making many more simply uncomfortable.

This comes not long after the successful campaign to unseat Brendan Eich as CEO of the Mozilla Corporation over his support of an anti-gay marriage referendum campaign in California. That backlash was predicated on the obvious contradiction between Eich’s political beliefs and the wider political mission of Mozilla, which works for an open, emancipatory internet for everyone. (As its manifesto says, the internet “must enrich the lives of individual human beings”.)

  • As a member of the Bush administration, she was one of the chief architects of the Iraq War.
  • Also, as part of the same administration, she was one of those who justified the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (that is, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, enforced nudity and other forms of torture) while US national security advisor.
  • She also authorised the NSA to spy on UN Security Council members, and has argued in favour of the Bush administration’s mass warrantless wiretapping programme.
  • Before joining the Bush administration she was a board member of oil company Chevron.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
Antimicrobial Resistance: Why urgent action is needed
The role and purpose of social housing continues to evolve
More than a landlord: A future of opportunity