#SHOPTALK: Intelligence Sharing, President-Elect

Trump, & TwitterA. A.

Intro to Social Media Thursday 7pm

The Background:● President-elect Donald Trump has a history of using social media site

Twitter to post his responses to criticisms and current events.

● There is speculation and conflicting reports between the DNC and the RNC over whether or not Russia was somehow involved in ‘hacking’ the US election to favor Trump. Reports from the CIA claim Russia’s involvement in Trump’s favor.

● On January 9th, Buzzfeed News obtained a quote from a military official in Europe who wished that their identity and nationality remain anonymous. In the interview, the official stated that they believed their country’s officials may be less likely to share sensitive intelligence with the Trump party for fear he would tweet about it.

Note-Worthy● This reflects the viewpoint of

one individual and their interpretation of what Trump’s tweeting could mean for intelligence-sharing.

● An official in Egypt said that one tweet could not undo the 40-year intelligence-sharing relationship between the US and Egypt.

“We are in unchartered waters, but yes, it could be a problem.” - anonymous US Official on Trump’s personality and

disregard for U.S. Intelligence

“The larger concern is strategic intelligence: Will he be tweeting about things involving

agreements or allies that might change the big picture? A perfect example is the situation

currently involving the Russians, Turks and the ISIS coalition. Behaving erratically in public can leave a lot of room for misunderstanding

on the strategic level.”- ISIS-Focused Intelligence Officer

“It seems that if the administration’s position is knee

jerk skepticism, that could potentially make US allies less likely to share Russia related information

with the US.” Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Senior Fellow, Defense for

Democracies

Why Does It Matter?● The concern over Trump’s twitter

interfering with the sharing of foreign intelligence is largely circumstantial, but it raises several interesting questions:

In the age of social media, when any passing thought can be immortalized on the internet, what effect does that have on our future leaders? How do wedetermine what is appropriate?

Never before has tweeting even been brought up as a potential privacy violation at a level as high as POTUS,will this bring actual concern and willit bring about new legislation?

UPDATE: 1.10.2017TRUMP TWEETS ARTICLE:As of 5pm on January 10, Donald Trump has responded to the article published by Buzzfeed news in a semi-ironic manner.. By tweeting about it. The article he links, written by LifeZette, questions Buzzfeed’s journalistic integrity and reminds audiences that Buzzfeed themselves have said that the claims in the article are not verifiable.

Mentioned● Prothero, Mitch, and Nancy A. Youssef. "Trump’s Tweets Are Freaking Out

America’s Closest Allies." Buzzfeed News. Buzzfeed, 9 Jan. 2017. Web. 9 Jan. 2017.

● Kirby, Brendan. "Fake News: BuzzFeed Runs ‘Unverifiable’ Trump-Russia Claims." LifeZette. N.p., 10 Jan. 2017. Web. 10 Jan. 2017

● Donald Trump’s Twitter