State Dept. warning prospective recruits to steer clear of Wikileaks
Issandr El AmraniUpdate: Welcome readers from Slashdot and The Lede, and all the others who are driving traffic to this post! Follow Arabist on Twitter or subscribe to the RSS feed!
I was forwarded this email — it comes from a SIPA student at Columbia. Seems the ambitious young things studying IR and considering a foreign service careers are being warned not to touch Cablegate:
From: "Office of Career Services" <sipa_ocs@columbia.edu>
Date: November 30, 2010 15:26:53 ESTTo:
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
I wonder if the same thing is taking place at Georgetown, Harvard, Tufts and other major recruitment centers for government service.
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Reader Comments (50)
What an ass-backwards way to approach this. As a 24-year-old foreign policy junkie, I'd much rather work for WikiLeaks than the State Department, putting my Georgetown philosophy and government degree to some actual good use in the world.
Don't try to compete with WikiLeaks when it comes to the grassroots, State Department. You'll end up recruiting a bunch of young, conservative secrecy hawks who will, in the long term, only open you up to yet more WikiLeaks. As a part of our government that desperately needs manpower in order to fulfill it's expanded mission set in Afghanistan and elsewhere, State should be co-opting the popularity WikiLeaks has immediately brought to the foreign policy field in order to make their jobs look more desirable, not rejecting the most exciting development in foreign policy since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The US State Department is rejecting Wikileaks Supporters because it is an organisation that has for the past 10 years at least been devoted to the prosecution of War Crimes and ensuring they remain secret. The interlocking directorate of the various elements of the US executive branch and their defense suppliers and the media owned by those suppliers has made US reform impossible (See the book "News Incorporated").
An Internationally led inquiry into these War Crimes leading to an Internationally backed set of indictments and Trials is needed if the US is ever to be brought back to the realm of International Law.
Toward that end I made a documentary about the extraordinary revelations this summer. Running Time is about 53 minutes. It's called "Collateral War Crimes" and is free to download, duplicate, and distribute.
Watch: http://bit.ly/CWCShort or http://bit.ly/CWCShortV
Download (4 parts): http://bit.ly/CWCget
or http://fliiby.com/folders/133474/collateral_war_crimes.html
Maybe You should watch these before applying for that State Department job.
Best Regards,
Dave Manchester
Publisher, dcmDaily Group
http://bit.ly/dcmDailyGroup
Further Reference:
http://twextra.com/3w6ndh Collateral War Crimes - Short Version
http://twextra.com/1mc52p Collateral War Crimes - Full Version
http://twextra.com/46pqbp Fair Use Dispute
http://twextra.com/5s2kb5 A Short Film on Privatised State Censorship
-dcm
What a crock. State Department employees are being encouraged by none other than Secretary Clinton to spy on their foreign buddies, obtain their credit card numbers, iris scans, sperm counts, or whatever. If this is the "ability to deal with confidential information" that the State Department requires, reading Wikileaks cables is not going to seriously impair these recruits.
I can confirm that Georgetown is advising graduates exactly the same thing, just got an email from career services yesterday.
@Aaron: Careful, your comment may constitute a comment on confidential information.
just what a government needs, more yes men
wait, as techdirt pointed out - how can this be confidential if it's public? at that point it's public, not confidential.
This is true terrorism, true state-organized terrorism. There is no democracy, there is no free speech, a revolution in American town thinking has to take place. Now is the moment.
Are students allowed to read the relevant pages on the New York Times website?
Can the content be discussed at Starbucks?
Reading the NYT website is acceptable as that is essentially a USG PR agency already. Starbucks is a little bit of a grey area as it is pricey enough that many lower level State Department employees can't afford a regular cup of joe there often enough to consider it a government operation, even if the higher level employees do consider it a second office. Also, being based in Seattle makes it suspicious. However, TGI Fridays or Chilis do qualify as safe premises in which to discuss the matter so long as your batteries have been removed from your cell phones.
Good way to attract patriotic, creative, intelligent young grads, State Department.
I say: convene a secret grand jury on the Julian Assange sex charges. Even if they were committed in Sweden and if he's an Australian, and and we're in the U.S. -- sex with a consenting adult MUST always be with a condom.
Ain't it nice to have a constitution?
Governments are in the trouble they're in because they recruit in their own image. US Intelligence personnel are easy to spot abroad because of that.
People whose jobs give them access to state secrets can be as interested in Wikileaks as those whose who don't. By the State Department's logic, people who watch ESPN would be more active and fitter than those who watch News Channels or National Geographic.
What the fascists have done to the States; turned it into a pure mockery, albeit a terrifying, fascist, extremely dangerous mockery supported by the morally deranged nation that might, I am seriously concerned, finish the world altogether with itself in its, quite foreseeable, last murderous act...
Actually you should not read them because they are classified and you have not obtained the clearances to read the contents of the cables. It does not matter that the information is on the internet, it is the fact that it shows you lack the moral understanding that reading classified information that is not intended for your consumption is wrong. I would consider anyone who accesses these files from these sites a major security risk, and question their moral compass. So in other words you will not get the required clearances and will not get a job in the public sector.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCEXtpTNYU
"If you didn't do anything wrong you've got nothing to hide"
-Eric Schmidt, Google
“Innocent people have nothing to fear"
-UK ANPR
Let the suckling parasites choke on their words. The only people I feel concern for, in light of this media release, are those at risk of physical injury as a result of a compromised identity.
Western news sources are currently reporting (misrepresenting) this letter as a scare tactic where students would not receive a job at the fed. gov. if they had ever read these cables. This is obviously not what is said in the letter! The letter warns against dicussing the cables in public. A person who aims to be once working for the government and dealing with sensitive data should anyway refrain from commenting sensitive US government data in public, and any previous such behaviour is a telltale sign of subversion against any open, free and democratic government. I don't see any conflict here. But Western world is filled with moronic communists, who believe that anything America does is a Jew conspiracy. These are the same people who were behind the Holocaust (Nazi party, responsible for the atrocities of WWII, was originally called the National Socialist German Workers' Party). In fact communism is an international racist conspiracy. Karl Marx was racist and it is very well documented.
The poster who wanted to know why the information isn't public even though it's been posted to Wikileaks has never held a security clearance, so I'll try to clear some things up. The fact that some idiot in the military who is awaiting court martial for unauthorized access/disclosure to classified information (and perhaps other charges) decides to leak a ton of cables at the confidential or secret level does not declassify such material.
In order to declassify material properly, a review of the material is needed, and a request is made (through the proper channels) to determine if the document can be partially or totally declassified (this can take a while). Once that determination is approved, then the document can be downgraded from whatever to unclassified (if that is what the requestor is asking for).
The final step before you are issued a security clearance is a form known as a SF-312, which is an agreement between you and the federal government in which you agree to protect all classified information you are given access to from unauthorized disclosure (by only discussing it with persons who have the necessary clearance and a VALID need to know), the penalties for breaking this agreement can be civil and criminal in nature, including imprisonment, fines, and loss of clearance and/or employment. Also, when you leave a job which you hold a security clearance, you'll get a briefing from the SSO/FSO (Site Security Officer/Facility Security Officer) which will include your obligation to protect the information you've been given access to, until such time that the information is properly declassified, and you'll sign a document to that effect before you leave the job.
The fact that some ding-dong didn't take his agreement seriously doesn't mean what he leaked is public domain, it is still classified information.
Everyone should really calm down here.
This memo was merely RECOMMENDING that those seeking employment within the Government in the future simply abide by current law regarding dissemination of classified material. Its the equivalent of suggesting those pursuing a career in law enforcement to not consume illegal drugs, and in both cases, it simply makes sense.
If you want to truly see what it feels like to live in a void of Democracy and have your Freedoms stripped from you, try living in China for a while. You'll see how wrong your "state-organized terrorism" accusations are.
How do we incite a true revolution? I think the US government has grown too big for it's own britches and needs to be reduced to the steaming pile it's been since the Fed was recreated to completely morally, monetarily and intellectually rape the citizens of a young but promising nation. True power should reside with the State and Local governments measured through the work of its' citizens not corporations. People of the Internet...we need to do something drastic, so let's get going!
I guess we will have to add a new definition to Webster: Secret; something known which an organization wants forgotten?
This is actually pretty good advice, IMHO. What he's basically saying is that the government (and the State Department in particular) is especially stupid, asinine, and ignorant, but you need to be able to follow their rules (however idiotic they may be) in order to survive in that environment. In this case, it means ignoring the fact that the leaked cables are now widely distributed, setting aside rational thinking, and pretending that they are still secret to appease the bureaucrats in charge.
If you think about it, though, this makes a lot of sense, and matches my personal experience dealing with government agencies. Unless you're working on something which is vital enough to national security to transcend the typical bureaucratic mess and willful ignorance which permeates most government organizations (and I doubt the State Department has many such programs), being able to turn off your thinking ability could be considered a vital job skill. Just think about how low your effective IQ needs to be to grope children in the name of security, for example.
Elitists don't necessarily earn their stripes. They want exclusion, loftiness, and insular consolation. They service the necessary status quo, pay for the right credentials, and get down to maintaining their job security. That doesn't mean they've had proper philosophical and scientific training on the such security intrinsics as the physical laws of information or the unwitting subversion of mass ethics. So when they start speaking down from their lofty positions in a way that demonstrates they have not learned from their mistakes and are unwilling to cover their vulnerabilities once revealed, they can hardly be taken seriously as professionals let alone some elite. For instance, the stance of "just shut up about it" is indicative of the thinking that allowed the breach of security to begin with, which is attempt to secure through obfuscation. Or consider the logical fallacy that dealing with public information somehow reflects on your ability to deal with confidential information. The wikileaks aren't confidential, any more, and treating them that way indicates a denialism which in this situation is worse than attempted security through obfuscation, it's outright mental instability. Unless we're to believe the state department's aim is to subjugate the public domain under a confidential bloc, which would indicate a privately held confidence in some as unknown attempt at a treasonous coup against the American people, the stance that the wikileaks should not be discussed by State Department hopefuls must simply be seen as proof of inability to perform the functions of the job in a sane and educated manner.
"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."
-Nineteen Eighty-Four, pp 32
LOL! American democracy at its best. I could totally see how this country is becoming orwellian 1984.