13 CommentsStudents eyeing federal government positions, beware. The U.S. State Department has barred its staffers from reading classified documents released via WikiLeaks. A SIPA alumnus working in the State Department saw fit to email SIPA’s Office of Career Services to warn students against linking to any leaked documents on social media sites as well, as it could jeopardize their future government employment. A Reddit user posted the full email on a thread discussing the topic:
“Office of Career Services” sipa_ocs@columbia.edu Date: November 30, 2010 15:26:53 EST To:
Hi students,
We received a call today from a SIPA alumnus who is working at the State Department. He asked us to pass along the following information to anyone who will be applying for jobs in the federal government, since all would require a background investigation and in some instances a security clearance. The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with >confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.
Regards, Office of Career Services
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13 Comments
@Anonymous Linking to a NY Times article about the leak? Cool.
Linking directly to Wikileaks? OMG YOUREATERRORIST!
@Harmony Hunter But can the wikileaks tell me where harmony is?
@... wait… this ->\<- is not a double quote, but it should be.
aha… fail the captcha and it screws up quotes…
@... this ->”<- is not a double quote. but it should be.
@... quite frankly, i think having my ability to \deal with confidential information\ be called into question, by an organization that is so unbelievably incompetent in the realm of information security that they’ve literally jeopardized the ability of the most powerful country on earth (which, mind you, they’re supposed to serve) to engage in effective foreign relations for decades to come, would actually be a badge of honor that indicates i might just have some fucking clue maintain discretion.
can i get certified by the state department as unable to \deal with confidential information\? i think i’d like to put that on my resume.
one hundred and thirty thousand documents were leaked. think about that. how fucked up must things be for someone to get their hands on not 30 documents, not 100 documents, but 130,000 documents?
UTTER INCOMPETENCE.
@more than that actually ur talking about the 130,000 iraq war cables. The new leak has 250,000 more new cables. Waddup transparent gov’t
@Anonymous wow. that was really nice of him.
people who aspire to be involved in the federal government shouldn’t be wasting their time on facebook anyway. i hope that the leaders of tomorrow are not spending their time engaging in such frivolity, but rather are studying furiously in butler or in their apartments off-campus (like a certain notable alumnus).
@Hmm... Are you one of those holier than thou, Facebook abstainers ?
Facebook has its uses both good and bad. I don’t think Facebook use and intelligence/high potential are mutually exclusive.
@Anonymous But I’ll bet they’re negatively correlated (at least in the U.S.)
@Anonymous even though I really want to agree with you that 1) obama is baller, 2) the leaders of the free world should be held to high standards, I have no choice but to declare you a d-bag.
Unless you are a parent. And then it kind of makes sense that you have an idealized image of everything.
@Anonymous dammit, now I am convinced that the OP is a parent. I feel bad for saying mean things.
@no That’s absurd. Obama isn’t president because he was a studious hermit. He’s president because he was editor of the Harvard Law Review and worked as a community organizer in Chicago for years. The idea that the future leaders of the world should not be engaging in the world is crazy!
@Anonymous Great so people who might otherwise be great employees, may be in danger of not getting a position because they may have made a fleeting comment on facebook about a document that anyone can currently get online.
That’s fucked up.