Mitch Kapor has left Groove Networks, and according to friends cited in the New York Times, it's because of his concern about the company's role in the fast-developing surveillance infrastructure.

Groove was an early beneficiary of Panopticon Pork. The peer-to-peer company, founded by Lotus Notes inventor Ray Ozzie, has been working with DARPA's Total Information Awareness Office, which develops research projects principally designed to mine information on US citizens.

Kapor declined to comment on his departure from the board. In 1990, the founder of Lotus helped set up the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and in recent months has been increasingly involved in digital rights.

At a benefit dinner during the CodeCon 2003 convention, Kapor was asked why he was increasingly involved in civil rights and the open source software movement, and less on the commercial side.

"I lost my taste for it," he said. ®