When Politicians and Technology (Don't) Mix

As someone who recently acquired a BlackBerry, I was a little concerned to read some quotes by the seemingly addicted President Obama about his smartphone:

Obama had one attached to his hip, if not his ear, through the entire campaign, and resisted calls to hand it over because of security and espionage concerns. “I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry. They’re going to pry it out of my hands," Obama told CNBC this month.

This was from a Boston Globe story announcing that Obama would be able to keep his BlackBerry with some added encryption. The announcement followed weeks of speculation about whether or not Obama would be able to keep it, and led to some interesting debate about whether the president's need to stay on top of things trumped national security concerns.

Well, here's a new chapter for the politicians playing with technology saga:

A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret.

But the cat’s out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter.

“Just landed in Baghdad,” messaged [Rep. Peter] Hoekstra, a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.

So much for the surprise visit.

It wasn't just this one Twitter post, either.

Not only did Hoekstra reveal the existence of the lawmakers’ trip, but included details about their itinerary in updates posted every few hours on his Twitter page, until he suddenly stopped, for some reason, on Friday morning.

“On the way to Andrews Air Force base.12 hour flight to mid east. Be back on Mon instead of tues. Votes mon. I’ll keep you posted,” he wrote on Feb. 4.

In his last dispatch today, he wrote: “Moved into green zone by helicopter Iraqi flag now over palace. Headed to new US embassy Appears calmer less chaotic than previous here [sic].”

My guess is that Hoekstra, who is 55, thought his Twitter was only visible to certain people. But as a public figure, he should have known better (or had someone on his staff point this out to him).

Even more embarrassing was the photo of Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau grabbing inappropriately at a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton. The picture, which was on Facebook, was discovered in December by the Washington Post.

From that controversy comes this unintentionally hilarious line:

It's been reported that Favreau has reached out to Clinton to apologize.

There's plenty of incriminating stuff about me on Facebook (and probably this blog, too), but you can bet that it would all disappear if I ever ran for office or gained a significant position. Why don't politicians think more about this?