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No job if you link to WikiLeaks, warns Columbia
i 25 Votes From The Arabist comes yet another warning of the career dangers of a fondness for WikiLeaks in the form of an email sent to students of their School of International and Public Affairs: 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.
Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs , which grooms future diplomats, has confirmed to The Lede that it did send an e-mail to students this week warning them to avoid posting comments online about the leaked diplomatic cables, if they ever hope to work for the State Department. Issandr El Amrani posted a copy of the e-mail on his blog, The Arabist, on Thursday. It contained a warning from an unnamed former student of the school who is now working at the State Department. The warning note read:
Don't Mention the Cables, Future Diplomats
Columbia University Reverses Anti-Wikileaks Guidance
<img class="alignright size-full wp-image-21375" title="Sipa" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/12/Sipa.jpg" alt="" width="219" height="220" /> Days after Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) caused an uproar by warning its students against linking to WikiLeaks or discussing the secret-spilling website’s latest cache of diplomatic cables online, the prestigious training ground for future diplomats has changed tack and embraced free speech. Last week, the SIPA Office of Career Services sent an e-mail to students saying that an alumnus who works at the U.S. State Department had recommended that current students not tweet or post links to WikiLeaks, which is in the process of releasing 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables — many of them classified — because doing so could hurt their career prospects in government service.
i 3 Votes From the inimitable Sam Smith at the Progressive Review comes a story even more ludicrous that the New York Times giving the feds pre-screening rights on the WikiLeaked cables [see the previous post]. One major federal outfit has warned its employees that they could be prosecuted even for viewing them online, despite the fact that there ain’t enough jail cells on the planet to hold all the people who already have: At least one government agency — The Social Security Administration — is warning employees that even browsing Wikileaks could be a criminal offense.
