I think it’s wonderful that more politicians are beginning to discover social media tools and use them to add transparency for their constituents. The problem is when people like Pete Hoekstra, representative for Michigan’s 2nd District in the US House, go and ruin it for everyone.
For security reasons, the congressional delegation led by House Minority Leader John Boehner to Iraq today was supposed to be secret. Everything had been going fine in that regard. Even media outlets which knew of the trip, like the Congressional Quarterly, kept a lid on the news.
That was, until Representative Peter Hoekstra Twittered his arrival into Baghdad. “Just landed in Baghdad. I believe it may be first time I’ve had bb service in Iraq. 11 th trip here,” he sent from his Blackberry.
You’re not supposed to use your Blackberry to document your supposedly secret trip to Iraq, especially when you’re the Ranking Member of House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence!
All this is going to do is give fuel to secretive, backdoor politicians to start trying to ban the use of social networking tools. I hope Mr. Hoekstra’s peers will keep this in mind. If Hoekstra had gone to Iraq, gotten off the plane and proceeded to start bashing at the engine of the plane with a hammer, not one of you would even consider making legislation to ban hammers.
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