Congressman twitters secret trip to Iraq
Rep. Peter Hoekstra tweets upon landing in Baghdad with a congressional delegation, and we wonder: is somebody available to revoke his BlackBerry privileges ?
Update, 2/11/09: Pentagon is "reevaluating current policy," regarding movement of congressional delegations.
For security reasons, the congressional delegation led by House Minority Leader John Boehner to Iraq today was supposed to be secret. Everything had been going fine in that regard. Even media outlets that knew of the trip, like the Congressional Quarterly, kept a lid on the news.
That was, until Rep. Peter Hoekstra twittered his arrival into Baghdad. "Just landed in Baghdad. I believe it may be first time I've had bb service in Iraq. 11th trip here," he sent from his BlackBerry.
I don't know if Rep. Hoekstra broke any laws by revealing the trip, but the political blogs are fond of pointing out that such a security lapse is surprising for the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee.
Also news: Apparently, you can now get BlackBerry data service in Baghdad. Although I doubt anyone will be surprised if that service is taken offline for a bit after this gaffe.
Previous coverage of Rep Hoekstra: McCullagh's Law: When politicians invoke the do-this-or-Americans-will-die argument.