The social media era hits the CIA, early. The Washington Post reports that the Agency fired four employees, disciplined at least 10 others and revoked the security clearances of nine contractors for exchanging “inappropriate” messages in Agency computer chat rooms. The disciplinary action is described as the largest in the agency’s history.
The Agency had created internal intranet portals for collaboration, including internal chat capabilities, and Agency employees started communicating internally from inside the network. Evidently the “inappropriate” messages—hidden from management—both included gossip as well as sexual comment and inuendo. With the incident, the Agency tightened up rules but the technologies changed faster than the enforcers could keep up.
And all that new-found collaboration? Agency veterans say that the demands of email and collaboration programs can be oppressive—just keeping up—focusing operators and analysts alike on administrative tasks and internal bureaucracy rather than the external mission. It is a problem that persists to this day—and obviously not just in government.