Bennie G. Thompson, photo courtesy of The Washington Post
I have this very real fear that the terrorists are going to one day use Twitter to take out Western civilization. I’ve discussed it before. No one really seems to care. And when I use the word terrorist, I don’t even really have a specific group in mind, just the notion that there are people out there who put bombs in Nissan Pathfinders/their underwear and try to blow things up.
So you can imagine how disturbed I was to receive the following e-mail this afternoon:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Homeland Security Committee Now on Twitter
November 30, 2010 (WASHINGTON) – The Committee on Homeland Security, and Chairman Thompson, have started a Twitter Account! Follow us with news updates, press releases, links, etc. @ HomelandSecCom.
Um, what??!! This is the most preposterous thing I have ever heard of. We can’t just be letting people know about everything that’s going on with the HSC, Bennie Thompson. Even though the whole Wikileaks thing turned out to be mostly fantastic stories of dentists escaping Iran on horseback (ok, and I guess some important things, also), we can’t just start giving away secrets via social networking sites.
You may think I’m being totally irrational, but I usually am. My basic argument is that some terrorist is going to plant something akin to a “Justin Bieber surprise concert now in Times Square” message on Twitter, people are going to flock, and then all of a sudden everyone is dead. This will happen in several locations, kind of like Independence Day sans spaceships. It will be like a game of Telephone gone terribly wrong.
I would also like to note that I have been receiving emails from the Homeland Security Committee since my days as a reporter/intern in Washington, D.C. I have tried several (and by several I mean 105) times to unsubscribe; thank God I was unsuccessful! If somehow the job of saving the world from global terrorism has fallen into my lap by way of not being able to Safely Unsubscribe from government emails, so be it!
(@HomelandSecCom Osama Bin Laden is ugly. #thetalibancanreadtweets)
NoMad Blogger 