On Thursday, James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, signed a new policy that will allow government investigators to review a person's public social media accounts before deciding whether to issue a security clearance. Welcome to the new Normal.
While this is a limited change--it will likely be handled through an automated search that will only find public postings from accounts that are explicitly tied to the individual under review--it is a significant step into the 21st century, moving beyond a time when investigators focused largely on analog information collection in an increasingly digital era of communications and sharing.
During a hearing to review the new decision, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee's subcommittee on government operations, noted that "what a person says and does on social media can often give a better insight on who they really are."
Over the last decade, Americans have become increasingly comfortable and adept at sharing general and intimate details alike about their lives and families on social media, whether it be pictures on Instagram, political opinions on Twitter, resumes on LinkedIn, or birth dates, cat memes and favorite foods on Facebook. At the same time, mistakenly believing that they were protected by the distance and anonymity suggested by the internet, Americans have developed an acute habit of blithely sharing insults and threats online without any regard for the consequences.
The bill is coming due for our openness, and it is the right decision.
The crux of the DNI's decision, barring future unsanctioned abuses or failures in the collection and review process, has little to do with personal privacy or free speech. It is an effort to ensure that the government keeps up with life in the 21st century, and in assessing someone's qualifications to hold a security clearance, social media accounts should be fair game. It certainly is for me. For the last five years, I have made it a habit to do a quick review of every job applicant's public social media accounts. It is yet another view into the mind and life of a person who is otherwise captured through the static medium of formal application materials.
Perhaps the DNI's new decision, once it trickles down and begins to affect other employers and investigators, will serve as a necessary wakeup call. For every American who refuses to create a digital trail out of paranoia, there are five idiots who are happy to share their home address, family details or post screenshots that prove they like porn.
Social media is a wonderfully flexible and adaptable communications medium, and it has deeply embedded itself in our lives. Yet it is not without risks, risks that extend beyond the potential for embarrassment.
- The city and state where a person's parents live
- The name of a person's spouse
- The number of sons and daughters a person has
- The fact that a person's son is a Cub Scouts member
- The types of duties a person performs at work
- Whether a person has a secret clearance
- A person's habits, such as visiting the same Starbucks every day at the same time.
Social media is fun. It's professionally valuable. In some professions, such as public relations, the lack of a social media account is actually judged negatively. But it is a double-edged sword.
For sailors and their families in Rota, the information available publicly online could be used to threaten their lives, as ISIS has been known to do. But for many Americans, the end result could be more mundane. You could be denied a security clearance or a job because you shared inappropriate opinions or content online, or shared information that casts doubt on your ability to protect classified information. The Internet is not a "get out of jail" zone from the consequences of free and uninhibited speech.
Clapper's decision will not affect many Americans, but it is a step in the right direction. Americans need to learn that they can and will be held accountable for what they publish and say openly on social media, just like they would if they were speaking in a public setting in front of a crowd. This is not a matter of privacy, it is common sense in 2016.