Ivy League foreign affairs students told not to link to or comment on WikiLeaks

[nancylebov]

ETA: schemingreader pointed out that students weren't told not to read the links, just to not link to or comment on them. This is still stupid, but not quite as stupid.

Here's the whole article:

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Columbia University students eyeing careers in diplomacy are being warned to avoid linking to or posting comments about secret U.S. documents released by the WikiLeaks website.

A spokesman for the Ivy League school confirmed Saturday that the Office of Career Services circulated an e-mail to students at the School of International and Public Affairs, known for cultivating future diplomats.

The Nov. 30 e-mail says an alumnus at the U.S. State Department had contacted the office, saying the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks were "still considered classified."

The e-mail said online discourse about the documents "would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information."

Most federal government jobs require a background check.

WikiLeaks has been releasing a trove of sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables over the past week.

As pointed out at Unqualified Observer, do you really expect people who are studying foreign affairs to not be fascinated by the biggest recent scoop on the subject? Ok, the students just aren't supposed to engage in public conversation about the leaks-- but wouldn't commenting and linking tend to improve their knowledge and understanding?

I will also note that it won't be that hard for anyone who's interested to find a way of looking at WikiLeaks which is hard to trace back to them. I'm not sure how hard it is to maintain anonymity while posting from the US, but I assume it's still possible.

I voted for Obama because I thought it would be good to have someone intelligent in the White House. I also thought he cared about civil liberties and was opposed to torture. Mostly, though, I was praying for a return to ordinary politics. I may have gotten that much.

If he's running against Palin, I'll definitely vote for him again.

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

Pretending the documents are still classified is patently silly, of course.

Ensuring that future diplomats don't have a track record of embarrassing comments about them on the open internet, however, does seem wise.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

It doesn't say they shouldn't look at the documents. It says don't comment on them or link to them. I think that's a suggestion to look!

explaining Obama's actions

[socialmusings.livejournal.com]

I was getting very frustrated with Obama, until I read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/opinion/05rich.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=obama's%20captors&st=Search

Now I am just heart-broken. But maybe it will help.

Re: explaining Obama's actions

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

An explanation is not an excuse.

And Obama has no one to blame but himself for his constant capitulation.

[(Anonymous)]

Going anonymous due to the discussions about my workplace here.

I work in the classified information world. In fact my job is to prevent leaks like these through implementing proper procedures and processes.

Classified information is information that will cause damage to the United States and its national security. Stuff that was classified remains classified even when it is released. Holding a clearance just means that the US trusts you to handle classified material responsibly, and ultimately that you've signed a legal contract that the US can prosecute the hell out of you if you accidentally or intentional disclose classified information. (Here's a copy of that lifetime contract (http://www.archives.gov/isoo/security-forms/sf312.pdf).)

Frankly, it is the US's best interest to minimize the number of people who can have access to classified information or Sensitive But Unclassified (which is what I think these were technically for all that they were on the SIPRNet).

I don't see a civil liberties issue here. One is free to access, discuss, and disseminate the released classified information. What Columbia is saying is that doing so may have career consequences down the line.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

The civil liberties issues are twofold here.

First, the right of free speech, to discuss material which, legally or not, has entered the public medium.

Second, the rampant abuse of government secrecy to hide flagrant violations of civil rights, including violations of privacy, conspiracy, and torture.

The reason all sides in Washington are calling for Julian Assuange's hide to be nailed to a wall (some literally) is that all parties have been acting above the law for decades now. It's long past time for their crimes and ineptitude to be made public. In this Wikileaks might be an asset- if, of course, their indiscriminate nature did not make them an equal liability.

[(Anonymous)]

They are free to read, disseminate, and comment.

It just has the consequence that they may be unclearable in the future. The ability to hold a clearance is NOT a civil liberties issue. There's no fundamental right to a clearance. That's the issue that the original post is about.

Now regarding the second issue that you bring up, honestly, I fully agree that too much is cleared. And that the system is in serious need of an overhaul - I work with the damned thing every day. I, honestly, have no problem with Mr. Assuange's actions - I have issues with PFC Manning's actions but I'm also a firm believer in civil disobedience, to protest by breaking the law, paying the consequences for what one believes is right.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

There's no such thing as a right to a clearance, but there are sensible and non-sensible reasons for denying clearances.

Do linking to and posting about the recent WikiLeakage seem like a sensible reason to you for denying a clearance?

[(Anonymous)]

Personally? No. But I'm not, yet, nor will I likely ever be, in the position of having the power of original classification authority so therefore my ability to effect change on the system is minimal. Hence why I approached your post from a descriptive rather than normative perspective - why it would be wise for Columbia/Boston/etc to warn their college graduates away from unwisely commenting - it is a business decision.

Now would I not clear someone based upon what they post? Depends on what they post. From the perspective of an adjudicator determining if someone is trustworthy to protect US classified secrets, if they are posting things that are less than complimentary of the U.S. behavior then yes, it could make things difficult, depending on other factors. The Adjudicative Desk Reference (http://www.rjhresearch.com/ADR/index.htm) provides several areas which comments could be construed under - such as Personal Conduct and Allegiance to the U.S. Hell, my own personal behavior violates one of those areas, which is why my own personal case was given a special review upon reviewing my clearance.

But yes, if my concern is only clearing people who will not divulge cleared material (there is no whistleblower clause in the SF-312) then folks who have gone out and looked for publicly available classified information and then discussed, distributed it, or otherwise manipulated it, well how could I, as an adjudicator be assured they wouldn't do so when given access to other classified information? Coming from the perspective of the government, that is my concern - not the "just"ness of act, or fairness of the act, but ensuring that classified information remains classified.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem crazy to expect people to behave differently depending on whether they have access to classified material which is still more or less secret, as compared to classified material which has been published worldwide.

[(Anonymous)]

Not really. Perhaps it is just a quirk of where I am coming from, and the indoctrination that I have (and the assumptions that come from it) versus the indoctrination and assumption that others bring to the table - but as someone who's job it is to control, restrict and protect classified information, the fact that it is widely disseminated doesn't mean I am justified in further disseminating it, which any discussion would do.

Similarly, in my position I have access to a lot of people's personal information, so just because I can find someone's personally identifiable information out there freely available doesn't give me any special right to utilize it for my own ends, even if it is interesting, topical, or what have you.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

It was not just at Columbia, but at Boston University, as well (http://abovethelaw.com/2010/12/could-just-reading-wikileaks-get-you-nixed-from-working-as-a-federal-attorney/) that students received that advice. (via Crooks and Liars (http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/students-are-being-warned-not-link-or)).

[gildedacorn.livejournal.com]

>If he's running against Palin, I'll definitely vote for him again.

I find it hard to think of *anyone* I wouldn't vote for if they were running against Palin.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Fred Phelps?

And I'm sure I could come up with someone who was overtly genocidal.

I don't think there's anyone who's likely to run who'd be worse than Palin, but I've been surprised before.

Or were you limiting it to people who could plausibly get the Democratic nomination? In that case, I'd probably agree with you.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

And I'm sure I could come up with someone who was overtly genocidal.

John McCain, for one.

Michele Bachmann, for another.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

If it was Obama vs. Palin, I'd be seriously tempted to vote for Cthulhu, as the lesser evil.

Palin's undesirable traits are obvious; she nailed the coffin shut on McCain's candidacy as far as I was concerned. On the other hand, Obama's economic and social policies have been at once much further to the left than he campaigned for (and what he campaigned for was already far enough left to be barely endurable as a price for getting rid of the Republicans after eight years of misgovernance) and transparently in the service of economic pressure groups; and at the same time, he has not done any of the progressive things I would have found admirable, such as giving the Guantanamo prisoners some sort of regular legal status, or getting rid of DOMA and DADT, or backing off a bit on federal antidrug laws. And he's reacted to public disapproval of his policies by rhetorically invalidating people who disagree with him as ignorant and confused. I'm as weary of him now as I was of Bush after his full eight years.

[avram]

Obama's economic and social policies have been at once much further to the left than he campaigned for

I find this statement pretty boggling. What supposedly leftist policies did Obama campaign on, and what supposedly even-more-leftist policies has he enacted in office? Most of the actual leftists I know consider Obama to be a ruling-class sellout, barely distinguishable from a Republican.

(Though I agree with you about the civil rights issues. I feel pretty betrayed there, to the point where I'm going to have a hard time deciding how to vote in 2012.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm still following a lesser of two evils voting strategy, to the extent that the lesser can be determined.

I'm not counting on Obama running in 2012-- he may decide he's had as much fun as he can stand, or he may not be able to get the nomination.

[avram]

A sitting president losing the nomination would be pretty extraordinary. It hasn't happened since 1968, and I think the parties have grown to hold more control over the nomination process since then, making it less likely.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm really not sure whether 1968 is a long time ago for purposes of this discussion, nor whether the Democratic party is going to want to run Obama again.

My general principle is that the world has gotten less predictable. Nonetheless, I still believe that Obama's chances for a second term have more to do with the economy than anything else.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I don't think you are parsing my sentence carefully: "much further to the left" does not logically imply that the policies he campaigned on were leftist at all. Compare "Anchorage is much further south than Nome." In fact, I took Obama to be campaigning on a much more centrist platform, one that promised that he would not owe significant allegiance either to the Republican social conservatives or to the Democratic progressives.

I would also note that the progressives are "further to the left" than typical American voters, and that remains true even if, by your standards, the United States counts as having a centrist party and a far right party; the former is still further left than the latter, and further left than the median American voter.

Finally, on this point, you appear to be using a classification that has zero discriminant value for the American political spectrum. "Left" and "right" have distinguishable meanings in American politics, and to pretend that this is not so because the two look almost the same by, say, European standards is just as parochial as for an American to classify all European political parties as socialist because they are all, by American standards, far to the left.

As to leftist policies, start with health care reform: Obama did not leave the health care system exchanged, and he imposed a new one that moved further away from a free market in health care, what with mandated purchase of health care insurance, increased subsidies for health care, increased government imposition of requirements about what health insurance must cover, and various other interventions. There was, please note, a nonleftist alternative set of reforms: do away with tax exemption for health care benefits (or grant it to all purchases of health care, including those by private individuals directly), do away with barriers to purchasing insurance across state lines, and make health savings accounts easier to set up, for a start. (I would like to do away with all mandatory inclusions in health insurance policies, but doing so directly would violate state sovereignty; simply allowing a resident of New York to buy a policy under Idaho rules would put New York under tremendous pressure to liberalize its rules, as its insurance companies lost all their healthy customers to out of state providers.) Or, as a compromise (not a good one, but one I could have lived with), combining that set of reforms with expanded Medicaid coverage for the really poor. I would have preferred either of those approaches to the monstrosity we actually got, and still more to out and out single payer.

Then there is Obama's embrace of Keynesian "stimulus" policies; Keynes is the classic economist of the left, at least if you're not an out and out Marxist. I would prefer to cut taxes, balance the budget, cut government spending drastically (starting with raising the age of eligibility for social security one year for every two that pass)—oh, and let the big investment banks that got in trouble through too free lending die. I'm a capitalist; I believe in profit and loss . . . and I emphasize "and less."

Will you concede that compared to my views, Obama is legitimately described as leftist?

[selenite.livejournal.com]

The law on classified information is clear--it stays classified information until an authorized government official says it's unclassified. So unless Obama goes on TV and says "All that Wikileaks stuff is now unclassified" the stuff keeps its classification and mishandling it (ie, looking at it on a non-cleared computer) is an illegal act.

Don't like it? Ask Congress to change the law. I think it's stupid too but I have a long list of things I'd want them to fix before getting down to that (and a much longer one of stuff I want them to stay the hell away from).

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Except, IIRC, the current court precedent on the issue is the Pentagon Papers case- that is, that only the person who initially leaks the classified material is liable, and that said material once made public may be discussed and disseminated without criminal liability. If Congress has passed laws since then, I don't know about it- and even with the current hard-right judiciary I doubt they'd stand up to First Amendment muster.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

If you have a clearance . . . or would like to have one someday . . . the Espionage Act is specific. You might escape criminal prosecution, but you won't have a clearance any more.

[madfilkentist]

So far I haven't seen any serious support for Palin as a presidential candidate. People just find her easy to ridicule, and in doing so are giving her the status of a serious candidate, which she wouldn't get otherwise.