Columbia students told job prospects harmed if they access WikiLeaks cables

From The Guardian,

Columbia University warning students they risk future job prospects if they download any of the material.

The university's Office of Careers Services's cautionary note drew criticism from observers, who expressed alarm that the liberal bastions of academe in the US would be complicit in restrictions on access to the documents.

Instead of debating the issues of fighting a losing war in Afghanistan or talk about the other information in the documents released by Wikileaks, the US media is talking about the more sensational aspects of the State Department cables.

WikiLeaks dominated the Sunday morning talk shows, with views ranging from fears about what is still to come to calls for the Obama administration to adopt a more muscular approach.

Much of the debate centres on the need to restrict the number of people with access to classified material while avoiding a return to pre-9/11 when the number of people with such access was much more restricted.

Columbia University confirmed to the Associated Press that the Office of Career Services had emailed students at the university's school of international and public affairs, a recruiting ground for the state department.

The office said it had received advice from an alumnus who "recommends that you do not post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government."

The state department insisted no such advice had been sent out formally. Its spokesman, PJ Crowley, in an email to the Huffington Post, which had posted the Columbia University warning on its site, wrote: "This is not true. We have instructed state department employees not to access the WikiLeaks site and download posted documents using an unclassified network since these documents are still classified."

Just another example of how the US is turning into the garrison state that Eisenhower warned about in 1961.