The news that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be joining the board of directors at Dropbox on Wednesday was met with widespread criticism. Many pointed out that her support of warrantless wiretapping runs counter to the company's commitment to user privacy.
Silicon Valley news outlets like
Wired,
Techcrunch, and
Valleywag pointed to an online petition on
Drop-Dropbox.com that takes issue with Rice's involvement in wiretapping, the Iraq war, waterboarding, and Chevron.
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The website provides Twitter and Facebook buttons that let petitioners send a pre-written message to Dropbox's CEO that reads, "Drew Houston: Drop Condoleezza Rice or I will #DropDropbox!" along with links to Dropbox competitors.
Many speculate that the petition was inspired by a similar outcry from last week involving Brendan Eich, the newly appointed CEO of Mozilla. Eich resigned after employees and citizens voiced their dislike of him over a $1,000 political donation he made to the anti-gay marriage Prop 8 campaign.
Drop-Dropbox.com explains the issues users have with Rice on the board.
On wiretapping, it said, "Rice not only spoke in favor of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program and expansive domestic surveillance program, she authorized the warrantless wiretap of UN Security Council members. Given everything we now know about the U.S.'s warrantless surveillance program, and Rice's role in it, why on earth would we want someone like her involved with Dropbox, an organization we are trusting with our most important business and personal data?"
The Wall Street Journal reported that Silicon Valley has a history of reprimanding companies with conservative leadership, pointing to an incident last year in which many backers pulled out of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us effort to reform immigration rules after discovering there were some conservative politicians among the coalition.
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