The Electronic Privacy Information Center has obtained government documents that show the CIA has begun quietly funding federal research into surveillance of internet chat rooms as part of the so-called war on terror. Some of the research is being done at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. The funding officially comes from the National Science Foundation but the CIA played a role in selecting grant recipients. EPIC director Marc Rotenberg said “The intelligence community is changing the priorities of scientific research in the U.S. You have to be careful that the National Science Foundation doesn’t become the National Spy Foundation.”