Is it safe to carry on using Dropbox with Condoleezza Rice on the Board?

Drew Houston, Dropbox (Wikipedia)

No. How could you even ask? Leopards do not change their spots except on the road to Damascus; and Rice was too involved in the road to Baghdad with warrantless wiretapping along the route.

And what is Drew Houston, founder and CEO of Dropbox even thinking? On 9 April he blogged:

Finally, we’re proud to welcome Dr. Condoleezza Rice to our Board of Directors. When looking to grow our board, we sought out a leader who could help us expand our global footprint. Dr. Rice has had an illustrious career as Provost of Stanford University, board member of companies like Hewlett Packard and Charles Schwab, and former United States Secretary of State. We’re honored to be adding someone as brilliant and accomplished as Dr. Rice to our team.
Growing our leadership team

Condoleezza Rice, 2005 (Wikipedia)

It is true that Rice has had an illustrious career. However, some of the bits not mentioned by Houston include being a board member of Chevron (one of the top six ‘supermajor’ oil companies) before becoming Bush’s National Security Advisor (the two positions actually overlapped for one month). As National Security Advisor she understood the need for the petrodollar invasion of Iraq and was a strong supporter of the 2003 invasion.

On Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, the primary and false premise that justified the war, she said, “The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” As Ming Campbell said of Tony Blair, you are either incompetent or lying.

There’s more. Rice was a strong supporter of the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program; and it is claimed she personally authorised eavesdropping on UN officials. The Guardian reported on a leaked memo in 2003 instructing the NSA to increase surveillance “‘particularly directed at… UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)’ to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq.”

The existence of the surveillance operation, understood to have been requested by President Bush’s National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is deeply embarrassing to the Americans in the middle of their efforts to win over the undecided delegations.
Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war

Now, seriously, do we want a supporter of warrantless surveillance to be on the Board of a company that holds some of our most precious documents, photos and thoughts?