May 18, 2011

Oopsie...

It seems that someone at the US Secret Service was not as secret as they should have been. From Liberty Chick at Breitbart's Big Government:
Oops! Official Secret Service Twitter Account Bashes FOX News
By now, you�ve all seen it. Gawker has reported on it, as has Huffington Post and Jake Tapper, among others.

It was tweeted this afternoon from the official Secret Service Twitter account and subsequently deleted by its author. But Twitter has no mercy�delete can only delete if no eyes ever saw it in the first place. Unfortunately for one Secret Service employee, eyes saw it.

sstweet.jpg


I called the Secret Service Office of Public Affairs to ask for a comment. I asked the question and almost immediately after identifying myself, was transferred to the voice mail of spokesman Robert Novy. Luckily, Jake Tapper had already reached the office and received an official statement:
�An employee with access to the Secret Service�s Twitter account, who mistakenly believed they were on their personal account, posted an unapproved and inappropriate tweet,� Special Agent in Charge Edwin M. Donovan said in a statement to ABC News. �The tweet did not reflect the views of the U.S. Secret Service and it was immediately removed. We apologize for this mistake, and the user no longer has access to our official account.�
My first question was, �why is the Secret Service monitoring FOX News in the first place�? But then I realized that such agencies monitor news outlets all the time � if they didn�t, they wouldn�t know which person in Congress just said something stupid that might prompt a foreign entity, or perhaps terrorists, to get really pissed at us. And for other generally harmless reasons, too, of course. It�s their public affairs staff doing the monitoring. And besides, it�s Twitter. We all know, Twitter is a public sandbox � you get in and play, and anyone can see you, and play with you.
A classic case of: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Posted by DaveH at May 18, 2011 5:47 PM
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