Oops! Official Secret Service Twitter Account Bashes FOX News
by Liberty ChickBy now, you’ve all seen it. Gawker has reported on it, as has Huffington Post and Jake Tapper, among others.
It was tweeted this afternoon from the official Secret Service Twitter account and subsequently deleted by its author. But Twitter has no mercy…delete can only delete if no eyes ever saw it in the first place. Unfortunately for one Secret Service employee, eyes saw it.
I called the Secret Service Office of Public Affairs to ask for a comment. I asked the question and almost immediately after identifying myself, was transferred to the voice mail of spokesman Robert Novy. Luckily, Jake Tapper had already reached the office and received an official statement:
“An employee with access to the Secret Service’s Twitter account, who mistakenly believed they were on their personal account, posted an unapproved and inappropriate tweet,” Special Agent in Charge Edwin M. Donovan said in a statement to ABC News. “The tweet did not reflect the views of the U.S. Secret Service and it was immediately removed. We apologize for this mistake, and the user no longer has access to our official account. “
My first question was, ‘why is the Secret Service monitoring FOX News in the first place’? But then I realized that such agencies monitor news outlets all the time – if they didn’t, they wouldn’t know which person in Congress just said something stupid that might prompt a foreign entity, or perhaps terrorists, to get really pissed at us. And for other generally harmless reasons, too, of course. It’s their public affairs staff doing the monitoring. And besides, it’s Twitter. We all know, Twitter is a public sandbox – you get in and play, and anyone can see you, and play with you.
I will admit however, I was slightly irked when I saw this in Jake Tapper’s report:
“Asked why the employee was monitoring Fox News Channel, Donovan said, “Our public affairs employees monitor all the news channels throughout the day for stories that effect the Secret Service.”
Asked which story this employee was focused on, Donovan said “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know” is not exactly an encouraging answer. Not the end of the world…but hey, a real answer would have been nice. Am I surprised that a federal agency employee is bashing FOX News? No, of course not. I was surprised though, as was most everyone else, to see anyone at the Secret Service actually vocalizing that opinion in a tweet. Yes, in a tweet. (Somehow, the words “Secret Service” and “tweet” don’t really seem to go together).
There are so many more angles I could cover on this, but I’ll leave those to the rest of you in the peanut gallery to offer up.
I myself started following @SecretService recently, after an announcement that the official agency account had been established on Twitter and would soon begin tweeting public announcements in the upcoming weeks. Tweets finally began going out just last week. When I tweeted about this earlier, most were bothered by it, rightly so. But I received a few tweets like this one:
Well, allow me to answer that. I assumed that it was exactly what the Secret Service office says was the circumstance – that a user with access to the account accidentally tweeted from it, thinking he/she was logged into his/her personal Twitter account. Sure, yes, we all do it, whether it’s Twitter or something else. But not all of us work for the Secret Service.
Which brings me to my final point. The majority of employees with the Secret Service are top-notch individuals. I know several myself. You cannot find more stand-up folks. But if just one individual in this agency – whether an agent, an IT person, an admin person, or even a receptionist – cannot keep track of multiple Twitter accounts, then a larger problem exists here. I don’t think I need to elaborate a whole lot on why that’s a problem, do I?
Let’s also keep in mind that it only takes one silly mistake from a single employee cause a blemish on an entire agency. (By the way…did we ever really get to the bottom of the Salahi fiasco?)
We don’t need blemishes on our security related agencies right now. In case anyone forgot, we just killed a really important bad dude. And other bad dudes aren’t real happy about that.
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84 Comments
Whoa Chic,
"I called the Secret Service Office of Public Affairs to ask for a comment."
Those guys stumbling around outside your residence tonight?
The ones with the cheap suits, the skinny ties, and the sensible shoes?
The ones rooting through your trash can?
Rest easy.
They are from the Government, and were sent to help you……………
I wouldn't worry Cowboy. I hear it takes them 10 years to find people!!!
Is this the same secret service that grills 13-year olds?
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/17/13-year-old-...
So Obama Administration officials are badmouthing Fox News… what else is new?
Is the Secret Service working for Soros now.
Or is this obamas orders to find something…
Obama's Gestapo.
First it's a 13 yr old boy being harassed by the SS, now a tweet by a SS twitwat. Do these guys not have enough to do or have their priorities gone all backasswards ???
Obama is going to have to assassinate another bad guy pronto to divert attention away again…. I hear there is a bad guy in Libya…
Edit: I think I understand the timing of going after bin Laden. He had obtained a copy of Obama's real birth certificate and was going to release it !!!
If you have not seen it all, now you have
Moochelle makes a remark last week that Americans stole the USA from the mexicans
Today the US Navy names a ship after a wetback who hated the USA and now the fruits want American men's penis to look like a camels
SAN FRANCISCO – Yes, it is a sensitive subject that will be weighed by San Francisco voters in November: Should circumcision of males under age 18 be made illegal?
City elections officials confirmed Wednesday that an initiative to ban the procedure has received enough signatures to appear on the ballot. The practice would become a misdemeanor.
Supporters of the ban say male circumcision is a form of genital mutilation that should not be forced on a young child.
Opponents say such claims are alarmingly misleading, and call the proposal a clear violation of constitutionally protected religious freedoms.
The initiative's backers say its progress is the biggest success story to date in a decades-old nationwide movement to outlaw circumcision of male infants in the United States. A similar effort in Massachusetts last year failed to get as far.
Funny I haven't been able to stand the blathering coming from government agencies. And now we have the king of all blathers Obama running the show, so maybe that's where the Secret Service (or as I call them the Gestapo) gets its expertise in blathering from.
Awe, you beat me to the word Gestapo. Kudos
Off topic, but too disgusting not to post:
Detroit News
Ron French, Detroit News staff writer
A Michigan man who won $2 million in a state lottery game continues to collect food stamps 11 months after striking it rich.
And there's nothing the state can do about it, at least for now.
Leroy Fick, 59, of Auburn won $2 million in the state lottery TV show "Make Me Rich!" last June. But the state's Department of Human Services determined he was still eligible for food stamps, Fick's attorney, John Wilson of Midland, said Tuesday.
Eligibility for food stamps is based on gross income and follows federal guidelines; lottery winnings are considered liquid assets and don't count as income. As long as Fick's gross income stays below the eligibility requirement for food stamps, he can receive them, even if he has a million dollars in the bank.
Why is the Secret Service Tweeting anyway?
My 13 year old daughter tweets.
I thought the Secret Service were supposed to be adults.
I refuse to engage in anything that is called 'tweet'.
Can't tweet, won't tweet.
I totally agree this is disgusting. He should move to California where he can get lap dances and play slots on the dole.
Don't stand near any windows . . .
Didn't I just read yesterday that they checked in on a third grader and a few months ago one was hooking up with hookers, and now this.
I have to say. If this was my job, with this guy, I might be doing the same thing.
Neither, they have to monitor all news (at least national) you never know when a guest might cross the line and actually threaten a president.
No Obama fan, but the SS has to take their job seriously. The consequence to our nation if they don't is too great.
This is a new low for the "Secret Service". I always wondered why they called it the secret service. Well, you can decide for yourself.
"The mission of the United States Secret Service is to safeguard the nation's financial infrastructure and payment systems to preserve the integrity of the economy, and to protect national leaders, visiting heads of state and government, designated sites and National Special Security Events."
From their web site: http://www.secretservice.gov/#content
How's that "preserve the integrity of the economy" thing going?
Outstanding point Steve. I feel, just a little, better now.
These are the morons we rely on to protect our president? Who is doing the hiring of thes idiots in D.C?
Interesting….
"The Secret Service was established in 1865, solely to suppress the counterfeiting of U.S. currency. Today, the agency is mandated by Congress to carry out dual missions: protection of national and visiting foreign leaders, and criminal investigations."
Seems they're extending themselves a bit too thin lately.
The idiots running DC.
Here is the reason for al this and do not be surprised if your child opens the door to the nazi obama Secret Service
Little more than a week after the U.S. Secret Service launched its official Twitter account, the federal law enforcement agency has had a major system failure.
Shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday, the Secret Service's account declared on the social media site: "Had to monitor Fox for a story. Can't. Deal. With. The. Blathering."
The posting was quickly removed, but within a half-hour dozens of other Twitter users had already begun re-posting — or "re-Tweeting" — the message.
"Love the Secret Service tweets!" one Twitter user said.
Earlier in the day, Fox News had been covering the story of Vito LaPinta, the 13-year-old from Tacoma, Wash., who was recently visited by a Secret Service agent for posting a message on Facebook suggesting President Obama should watch out for terrorist attacks in the wake of Usama bin Laden's killing. LaPinta's mother was not present when the Secret Service interviewed her son, a move she decried as inappropriate.
On the Twitter post, a spokesman for the Secret Service explained that "an employee with access to the Secret Service's Twitter account … mistakenly believed they were on their personal account" and posted "an unapproved and inappropriate tweet."
"The tweet did not reflect the views of the U.S. Secret Service and it was immediately removed. We apologize for this mistake, and the user no longer has access to our official account," spokesman Ed Donovan said in a statement to Fox News. "Policies and practices which would have prevented this were not followed and will be reinforced for all account users. We will ensure existing policies are strictly adhered to in order to prevent this mistake from being repeated, and we are conducting appropriate internal follow-up."
Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/05/18/no-s...
Twitter; Facebook;YouTube and MySpace were all consolidated into a new government domestic surveillance program known as the VIA… It is all 100% totally legal to access and copy the raw intelligence in the databases, and we have all seen stories on how that data has been accessed to both prevent and solve crimes…
The VIA – Voluntary Information Agency…
Your government is watching, and thanks you for your cooperation…
Dole pineapple?
Perhaps he should be made to sit on one in order to understand the plight of the average taxpayer…
Obviously not being secretive, nor are they providing any service….. tax dollars (not) at work.
The Ministry of Mis-information is monitering FNC to determine what's really happening in the world.
Harassed by der Schutzstaffel, eh?
Then again, this IS Junta Uuhhhbama we're talking about, so if the shoe fits…
;-D
Well, OK. But, what I'd really like to know is who at the Secret Service pipe- up one day , "Hey, let's get a Twitter account"! And who agreed to it? Sheeeeeesh!
Thanks, Big Sis!
Exactly what I was thinking.
I'm with you.
What exactly is the SS going to tweet about anyway? The presidential schedule, time and place of the first daughter's flute practice , number of body guards outside the presidential bathroom? Isn't their job to guard the President and the first family? What the hell else would they have to tweet about? The secret service huh? Not so secret anymore.
Yep, wait until Obama has that direct line into your cell phone SMS.
That will of course be hacked within hours of going live.
I can't wait.
Maybe that's how they keep in touch with His Obamaness, the King of the Twits.
Whoa. This is from the CDC.
http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/...
"There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.
A Brief History of Zombies
We’ve all seen at least one movie about flesh-eating zombies taking over (my personal favorite is Resident Evil), but where do zombies come from and why do they love eating brains so much? The word zombie comes from Haitian and New Orleans voodoo origins. Although its meaning has changed slightly over the years, it refers to a human corpse mysteriously reanimated to serve the undead. Through ancient voodoo and folk-lore traditions, shows like the Walking Dead were born."
(It seems their WWW server is overloaded, hence the above was pulled from google cache.)
SS tweets and now this?
Have I woken up today in the bizarro world?
Everyone who comments on this thread must report to the little orange men who live in my basement for a full debriefing on the plot to institute a "Joanie Loves Chachi" channel on cable and satellite…. or you can talk to the secret service about it…
Your choice.
If ya don't want to be a twit, don't tweet.
There's more.
Leroy Fick, 59, of Auburn won $2 million in the state lottery TV show "Make Me Rich!" last June. But the state's Department of Human Services determined he was still eligible for food stamps, Fick's attorney, John Wilson of Midland, said Tuesday.
Eligibility for food stamps is based on gross income and follows federal guidelines; lottery winnings are considered liquid assets and don't count as income. As long as Fick's gross income stays below the eligibility requirement for food stamps, he can receive them, even if he has a million dollars in the bank.
Food stamps are paid for through tax dollars and are meant to help support low-income families.
"If you're going to try to make me feel bad, you're not going to do it," Fick told WNEM-TV in Saginaw on Monday.
They'd never find their way to my place, I'm well hidden…. Oh wait…is that a black SUV outside behind the trees?
Secret Service no longer exists, the kenyans could not spell that so it is now the
SS, instead of a nazi sign they simply wear a rag on their heads.
I agree. I think we have so much redundancy in government, we are at a point where no agency is responsible for their intended purpose. Think CIA or NIC vs. FBI or Secret Service vs. SEC or ATF vs. Dept. of Treasury. It is too big to manage and way out of control.
Obama's revolutionary guard seem to be getting all brown shirt lately. w-t-h do they need to tweet.. some secrets?
Nice to know I'm not alone.
Today with 26 year olds considered to be dependents, adult behavior is expected of and apparently reserved for those 50+ years of age.
BTW and it's not a suggestion for the SS, but maybe they should have run with a story along the lines of investigating counterfeit news organizations. Investigating counterfeiting and fraud is in their charter. That I would have believed since most of the major media is anything but impartial and factual, news reporting agencies.
We have WAY too many government employees with WAY too much time on their hands.
AN ENTIRE CHANNEL??!! That is pure EVIL!
Secret Service or Obama's new army that is better equipped and better paid than our own military?
Do they wear Brown Shirts?
I can't imagine a real SS agent twating. This has to be a hoax.
What happened to America?
this is why elections have consequences. Supreme Court nominees, Fed. Court nominees, and yes, life time civil service employees. That person will still be with the secret service years after Obama is gone, still doing damage without anyone knowing it. (unless they use twitter again).
I have no reason to disrespect or dislike the Secret Service, I suppose. But if Obama's EPA can declare my exhaled breath a poisonous gas, then something as simple as this is not beyond belief anymore.
Yeah, then there is hope after all.
Seriously, they were right to tell the truth.
Like that tweet about that smell coming from inside the WH. Turns out it was just the medical marijuana conference. Everything is still a secret maaan.
I hear ya. My attention span is far longer than 140 characters.
Why is the Secret Service Tweeting anyway?
Maybe they t'ought they taw a putty tat?
Harry,
this is just what we need.
It is a sign of the deterioration of the times, the breakdown in civil society, that we now have a bunch of twiddling twats at the Secret Service, twittering tweets full of twaddle.
So, the Secret Service has now become a government version of Media Matter or HuffPo. Talk about redundent and waste of money.
How about instead, the Secret Service gets back to either one of its real jobs. To either track and stop counterfitting aka stop the Fed or protect the damn president. The Secret Service doing this is an insult to themselves and the country.
Can not really expect them to be professional about it.
The bad news here they were stupid enough to be caught
Or, he was able to obtain the real birth certificate name that was used for the obammy-scam.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pag...
This story keeps growing legs…
That is disgusting in so many ways, what a POS, some people have no shame.
Change the law to include an asset test.
@Liberty_Chick, makes me wonder why Indiebroad follows you?
They will also play "Charles In Charge".
Heh! Doesn't speak too highly of the Waffen SS, does it.
NO! Say it ain't so!
Arrrrrrrrrrrg! I'd rather be water-boarded!
We are watching the greatest government on the planet in full melt down mode. The Japanese may have their hands full with their nuclear melt down but it doesn't compare to an entire nation in a full throttled, no holes barred thermonuclear disaster in the making.
Unfortunately, instead of it happening in microseconds, we're watching it in slow motion…a death by a thousand cuts.
You are forgetting that the Japanese have dealt with two nuclear bombs, countless earthquakes and tsunamis, and all those damn Godzilla attacks. Yet, a singled out network throws our government into termoil and has to waste some of our best people in such a meaningless task.
Our government needs to get its damn priorities straight and not waste time on such nonsensicle matter and focus at the real problems at hand. I guess this is what happens when idiots run the country.
Heh heh! That is what I did the c&p from… I was just aiming for "fair use" so as not to get deleted by the "administrator". Thought I had already replied… Mebbe "she" deleted my reply and I wasn't paying attention…
Wanna think about something really humorous?
Arnold Schwarzenegger kept his love child hidden, longer than Osama Bin Ladin was hidden.
Maybe I'm just in a charitable mood right now, but honestly, I don't read that much into this. The employee didn't say he or she thought only Fox "blathered" – he or she may just be bored by news in general. In which case, he or she might have been just as bored by CNN or MSNBC.
Bigger fish to fly, I say.
This is just some office flunky. I'm sure the square-jawed humorless guy who stands outside the President's door takes his job a bit more seriously.
He said they are nice guys,
Yes.
This is the mentality of too many in this country. What happened to shame? "If you're going to try to make me feel bad, you're not going to do it," Another moron I would love to get in a ring with for three minutes.
"preserve the integrity of the economy" And "solely to suppress the counterfeiting of U.S. currency. "
Unless of course your the Federal Reserve…then go right ahead with QE3. Just dont you start your own xerox up.
Maybe, but that wasn't the context of this post. The concern is that any staffer for an agency of that level, regardless of whether it's an agent or an admin, who can't manage to keep different Twitter accounts straight probably presents bigger problems.
For example – what if instead of bashing FOX, he/she was bashing one of our military commanders, or maybe even Obama? Or accidentally tweeted something classified? What sort of effect do you think that might have on, say…terrorists, or a hostile foreign entity assessing where weaknesses may exist in the US' network of security agencies? Even it's just a PR person or an admin, all staffers in a security agency can become a liability.
It seems like a very benign mistake – until you look at it from an outsider's perspective like that. Just presenting the viewpoint, is all.
Yeah, they're "subtle" like that.
Another deleted tweet:
"I really like this fella Maddow on MSNBC. He's got a very petite build though."
Now a days I only watch The Hitler Channel, The Speed Network (in HD only) and The Food Channel. It's very important to maintain a healthy lifestyle with variety.
/snark
p.s. I'm too much of a old fashioned dimwit to twit or open myself up to potential internet security risks er the tagging, tracking, hacking or parking pranksters lurking about using any form of IRC, Messenger, or Twitter junk, including Phacebook or MyPhace or any other peer-to-peer roadkill. I'm down with being footloose and fancy free on a clean bulletin board or other like configured service, behind a firewall and running a reliable anti-malware protection scanner module in live mode at all times. Firefox your browser and I recommend using a neat little search engine called startingpage (tip: make it your Firefox homepage as well).
Well duh, don't have any idea why I went on this rant but found this stream amusing to say the least. So here you go. Back to my coffee now. Have a nice day everyone.
Twitter is a PRIVATE sandbox that the PUBLIC can see and participate in if they follow twitter's rules. I like to read Liberty Chick's pieces but this is a fundamental mistake far too many people make.
Public places are those funded by taxpayers' dollars. Private places are those funded by private dollars. Sure, to some this will be a nitpick, but this "blending" of the word public has just gone too far. All kinds of private businesses are called "public" and in doing so government claims the authority to decide the business models. Take a smoking ban in an eatery or bowling alley or bar or casino as example. While these places may well be open to the general public, they are not public places. There is a significant difference between being open to the public and being public. We The People must hold the line on this difference – or that line will be lost altogether. It is so very blurred today and this muddiness is one part of our overall problem. It is the one thing that allows government to creep and creep into every aspect of our lives. This must end.
But if the Secret Service/CIA/FBI/and other "Intelligence(?)" agencies would have been on the case, they would have uncovered the love child DAYS before Ahnold fessed up!!!
If you take a step back and look at it that way, it is sort of humorous.
This happened due to a 7 year old boy being interrogated in Tacoma WA without the parents present. They were monitoring Q13 Fox in Seattle waiting to be lambasted for questioning a child while the parent wasn't present.
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".
It is generally agreed that cultural tourists spend substantially more than standard tourists do. This form of tourism is also becoming generally more popular throughout the world, and a recent OECD report has highlighted the role that cultural tourism can play in regional development in different world regions.
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