Wikileaks Fallout: No Security Clearances for Bloggers

Well, not quite that broad, but almost.  This letter from career services at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (posted here) is a stunner:

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 believe it.  The security clearance apparatus loves bright-line rules (like the rule against security clearances for dual citizens), and this would be one.  Not that it would make a lot of sense, for reasons that I hope are obvious.

UPDATE:  It gets worse.  USAID has banned employees from even talking about the leaked documents in anything but a secure area (no chatting with your spouse about the front page of the NYT!), and from accessing the documents on their home computers.