Federal Agencies and the Battle against Employee Blogging

Nearly a week ago, the U.S. Army stated that it would start requiring its service members to seek official approval before submitting personal Internet postings on the world-wide web, such as Web logs. After receiving public scrutiny for attempting to restrict free speech, however, the Army has backed off.

Although the Army’s regulation policy was not well-thought-out, it bespeaks a major issue beginning to surface for a number of other federal agencies:  “Is the government equipped to deal with a growing wave of employees and contractors who want to express their opinions in a public forum?”

The danger involved with unregulated public forums for government employees is the risk of undisclosed information making its way onto the internet. In addition, the opinion of federal employees and service members often holds a great deal of clout in the eyes of the public, especially with regards to controversial topics like the Iraq war and Walter Reed Hospital. This isn’t always a bad thing; however, blogs tend to elicit many more responses from people who are deeply opinionated on an issue, usually negative. Bashing of the government on a forum for all to see could lead to some serious problems.

At the very least, each Army soldier or federal employee who deals with private information should be required to attend a securities training session, learn how to blog appropriately, and communicate their opinions in a way that does not deface the government’s image. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and it’s my hope that people will act intelligently when posting their opinions on the internet- for everyone’s sake.

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