On Saturday, The Lede -- a blog at The New York Times -- posted some confirmation of news that had started spreading the day before: Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs had sent an email to its students "warning them to avoid posting comments online about the leaked diplomatic cables, if they ever hope to work for the State Department." The Lede linked to a copy of the email, as posted on The Arabist:
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
While I have yet to hear of such notices being sent to students at similar programs, this is the sort of thing academic librarians working with said programs in the US should be aware of, regardless of their own opinions of how various organizations are addressing the Wikileaks cables.
An update! Columbia seems to have reversed its stance on this issue:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/columbia-wikileaks-policy/
Jim
Posted by: Jim DelRosso | 12/06/2010 at 10:38 AM