I've been following the U.S. Secret Service on Twitter ever since last week when they established a new account. It fascinates me to think about a man in a trench coat and a fedora, blending in on a park bench with his concealed piece while tweeting away on his Blackberry. Normally their tweets are really dull. Nothing top secret, understand: nothing about grassy knolls or underworld spies like you might think. Most of their tweets have been about recruitment fairs mixed with modestly-phrased bragging about 50K runs. And they refuse to follow anyone else on Twitter, which I don't think is playing well with others. When I last checked Twitter at 9:45 p.m., they were being followed by 19,773 people but not one of us made the cut as a followee.
The Secret Service may have to reverse that strategy and just follow a lot of people instead of letting anybody follow them . . . because today a bored agent thought he was using his personal Twitter account and tweeted this inappropriate (yet strangely appropriate) tweet: “Had to monitor Fox for a story. Can’t. Deal. With. The. Blathering.” For the record, I can't stand the Fox blathering either. But I hate MSNBC blathering every bit as much. I feel that I can't get fair or balanced news from either of these two networks. This post isn't about politics so don't get your fedora in a twist. This is about secrecy and the ironic use of social media to sustain it. That's all.
Gotta go -- man in trench coat knocking at the door . . .
You only think they don't follow anyone. That is what puts the secret in the service. Since they are at your door, you know that now don't you?
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