"Facebook as 'Most Appalling Spying Machine'"

"Assange, who is currently fighting extradition to Sweden from the U.K., claimed on the Russian news channel that the social networking site was used by the U.S. government to spy on its citizens.

"Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people -- their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives -- all sitting within the United States, all accessible to U.S. intelligence," he said. "Facebook, Google, Yahoo -- all these major U.S. organizations have built-in interfaces for U.S. intelligence.""