Word of caution for bloggers, SNW students

I have maintained from the outset that students who post details of their teams and departments are violating the proprietary information held by the University, and in turn are subject to sanctions. I get a lot of first amendment flak on that -- my counter is wait until you get into the real world. Well folks, here's the real world situtation; this is not a drill:

Blogger who posted Foley e-mails fired
BY LAURIE KELLMAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - A gayrights group has fired an employee who admitted posting the first publication on a Web site of Rep. Mark Foley’s emails to a former male page.
The e-mails and later disclosures of sexually explicit computer messages from the Florida Republican to other male pages sparked a campaign-season scandal.
“He inappropriately used Human Rights Campaign resources. He was fired,” Human Rights Campaign Vice President David Smith said of the employee.

You can go to your local newspaper for the rest of the details. This currently unidentified person -- cause that's coming by the end of this newscycle, I garr-OHN-tee it -- is supposedly a democrat who wanted to out the republican, and obviously did a good job at it. But oops, your private employer wasn't real keen on the potential blowback. No whistle blower act protection for you, private business employee.

Why? Because the bottom line is, nobody likes a tattle-tail. You can dress this up in whatever language and situational garb you wish, but some things don't change. People don't like people who rat others out. But what about those noble individuals who right a wrong? Depends on how many people are effected by the wrong. Now, this is no value judgment at all on what Foley may or may not have done. This is looking at the hard facts of secrets and the violation of trust. Think about your own life. Did you trust someone without reservation that you knew had once been a whistle blower?

Here's where it applies again to the SNW world and the millenials. How many friendships have ended because of Facebook, or some other service, because secrets were told to wide numbers of people that in the past would not have. Or more accurately, would have not been traceable to the source -- call that digital blowback cause you can't deny when they have your IP and account login; and there is no time for the poison pen letter to digest. Precious few people have the best of judgment at the speed of light.

Remember the old Harry Truman story about his daughter. She wanted to be a singer, and apparently wasn't very good. She got horrible reviews, probably from the combination of talent and who her dad was. Truman was mad about the media giving his daughter grief, but he usually wrote his letters to the editor complaints, sealed the envelope and stuck it into a drawer in his desk until the next day. The only one of those he regretted was the one he stuck into a mail slot instead of his desk drawer.