Category: international politics

SIPA Shushing Students over CableGate: Update

I was out of town this weekend, blissfully disconnected from phone and Internet. I came back to find out that since I blogged about Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs warning students not to discuss Wikileaks online if they ever want to work for the State Department, the story has, well, exploded.

The Huffington Post got in touch with State Department spokesperson Philip J. Crowley, who said the SIPA alum who e-mailed the Office of Career Services was acting of his own volition:

This is not true. We have instructed State Department employees not to access the WikiLeaks site and download posted documents using an unclassified network since these documents are still classified. We condemn what Mr. Assange is doing, but have given no advice to anyone beyond the State Department to my knowledge….

If an employee of the State Department sent such an email, it does not represent a formal policy position.

So it looks like the blame for OCS’s ridiculous “advice” falls squarely on the shoulders of SIPA, then. Excellent.

SIPA Shushing Students over CableGate. Seriously?

Yesterday a friend forwarded me a link to a blog post about Wikileaks. Not surprising, given the number of Wikileaks-related blog posts that are floating around the Internet in the wake of the organization’s release of a quarter of a million U.S. Embassy cables. But this blog post was different: this blog post referenced the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), from which I graduated six months ago.

The author reposts an e-mail sent from SIPA’s Office of Career Services to all current students. It reads:

From: “Office of Career Services”

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.

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

I’m currently happily employed at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, but while I was at SIPA I seriously considered a career in the Foreign Service. I applied for (and was offered) a summer internship at the State Department, and I coordinated a conference on Policy Making in the Digital Age, at which the State Department’s Director of the Office of eDiplomacy and a representative of the Office of Innovative Engagement spoke.

I guess I can kiss that possible alternate career path goodbye, given that I tweeted a link yesterday to an article about CableGate. Seriously, State Department? This is all over the news. What’s more, it’s become a focal point for discussions on how digital technology is changing our expectations for government transparency (for those who’ve forgotten: the State Department is big on using tech to promote transparency in other countries. Just not here in the US?).

Seriously, SIPA? As fellow SIPA alum Ben Colmery pointed out in a comment on my Facebook wall, since when does having an opinion about a site leaking documents equate to actually leaking documents oneself? You claim to provide committed students with the necessary skills and perspectives to become responsible leaders. Apparently that means curtailing their academic freedom and teaching them how to bury their heads in the sand.

Crossposted on The Morningside Post

Update, December 6: The State Department is denying that it provided “advice to anyone beyond the State Department” regarding Wikileaks and claiming the information in the OCS email “does not represent a formal policy position.”

GV Uganda: Bloggers react to bomb blasts

Yesterday, three bombs went off in Kampala, one at an Ethiopian restaurant and two at the Kyadondo Rugby Club. Both places were packed with people watching the final game of the World Cup.

More than three years ago, I wrote about why I opposed sending Ugandan troops to Somalia. At the time, I noted that “insurgents have ‘vowed to kill the incoming peacekeepers’ and have been launching almost daily attacks in Mogadishu, and Eritrea has warned that the presence of Ugandan forces could prompt a full-out war.”

Yesterday, three bombs went off in Kampala, one at an Ethiopian restaurant and two at the Kyadondo Rugby Club. Both places were packed with people watching the final game of the World Cup. Uganda police are blaming Somali militant group al-Shabab for the attacks. A leader of the group, which has ties to al-Qaeda, recently announced, “We urge our brothers from Chechnya, Pakistan, Afghanistan and from anywhere around the world to attack the diplomatic missions of Uganda and Burundi.”

Al-Shabab has not yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the police and the media seem to be taking their role as a given. If the bombs are indeed traceable to them, this would be the first time al-Shabab has operated outside of Somalia.

I heard about the bombings in Kampala on Twitter last night and have been reloading Google Reader since looking for more news. As far as I can tell, the blogren and my other friends in Kampala are all safe, though obviously shaken up. Baz pointed out that the location of the attacks has meant that Twitter and Facebook have played a huge role in spreading news:

Because of the location of the attacks, for once, it’s us, The Web 2.0 generation, that is affected, so we are watching our twitter and facebook feeds with trepidation, like any second now…

Thanks to those of you who’ve blogged and tweeted and commented, letting me know you’re safe. I’ve hastily pulled together the blog posts I could find for a post on Global Voices:

Soccer fans gathered in bars and restaurants around the globe to watch the final game of the World Cup last night. In Uganda, these celebrations were interrupted when bombs exploded at two popular nightlife spots in Kampala, the country’s capital.

Read more »

I’ll keep checking throughout the day in case there’s any more news. The Daily Nation is reporting that Uganda’s increasing, rather than decreasing, the number of troops it has in Somalia. Blogren, if you have anything to add, you know where to find me. My thoughts are with you and your families, and I’m praying that these are isolated incidents, rather than the precursor to the full-out war Eritrea predicted three years ago.

Also, in the course of writing the GV post I came across these photos by Trevor Snapp, a documentary photographer in Kampala. He understandably would prefer to be paid for his amazing work and has asked that I not replicate the photos on GV, but I highly recommend that you check them out.

UPDATE: Trevor has since decided to allow Global Voices to use one of his photos, free of charge, in the post. A million thanks to him for supporting nonprofit citizen media!

Government-sponsored Skullduggery

Cliff Stoll and Jonathan Zittrain are speaking at Harvard’s Berkman Center tonight. Subject: When Countries Collide Online: Internet Spies, Cyberwar, and Government-sponsored Skullduggery.

Cliff Stoll (who helped catch a ring of computer hackers/Soviet spies in the 1980s) and Jonathan Zittrain (principle investigator at the OpenNet Initiative) are speaking at Harvard’s Berkman Center tonight. Subject: When Countries Collide Online: Internet Spies, Cyberwar, and Government-sponsored Skullduggery.

I’ll be sequestered in the industrial-sized kitchen of my co-op, chopping vegetables to make stir fry for my 27 roommates, but if you’re free, check out the live webcast at 6pm EST to find out how governments are using the Internet, how far their online spying has gone, and what the legal implications of state sponsored network espionage might be.

Bad move, UN. Bad move.

It would be hilariously ironic if it weren’t so terrifying: United Nations security forces confiscated a poster mentioning Chinese Internet censorship at this weekend’s meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, a UN body that promotes open discussion on public policy related to Internet governance.

It would be hilariously ironic if it weren’t so terrifying: United Nations security forces confiscated a poster mentioning Chinese Internet censorship at this weekend’s meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, a UN body that promotes open discussion on public policy related to Internet governance.

The OpenNet Initiative, a research group headquartered at Harvard that studies Internet censorship worldwide (full disclosure: I’ve worked for them on and off since the fall of 2007, including full time last summer), held a reception during the forum to announce their new book. On the wall was a poster mentioning China’s Great Firewall censorship and surveillance project.

UN officials asked ONI to take down the poster to avoid “creat[ing] a political crisis with a UN member state.” When ONI said no, UN security took the poster away.

According to Ron Diebert, an ONI principle investigator who was at the forum, “We were told that the banner had to be removed because of the reference to China. This was repeated on several occasions, in front of about two dozen witnesses and officials, including the UN Special Rapporteur For Human Rights, who asked that I send in a formal letter of complaint.” Deibert has since filed a complaint with the UN Human Rights Commission.

A video taken at the forum shows the discussion between UN security and ONI representatives:

More info, including links to media coverage of the incident, is at the ONI blog.

Crossposted on The Morningside Post.