A foundational principle of the Intelligence Community is political neutrality, which extends to participation in political social media. Staying neutral is important because it gives US citizens the confidence they won’t be monitored or targeted for their political beliefs and an administration won’t use its intelligence apparatus for leverage or revenge.
An example of this type of overstep was COINTELPRO, which began as a government program to monitor Communist activities in the United States, but then evolved into a platform for illegal covert actions against a broad spectrum of domestic political organizations.
For analysts, the concept of political neutrality is drafted into its code of analytical standards, memorialized in ICD 203. It states intelligence products must be, “Independent of political consideration: Analytic assessments must not be distorted by, nor shaped for, advocacy of a particular audience, agenda, or policy viewpoint. Analytic judgments must not be influenced by the force of preference for a particular policy.”
Trust can be damaged by engagement in political social media because taking sides in a public forum exposes bias. No matter which side the individual supports, the result will be the marginalization of all who don’t espouse those beliefs or opinions.
A member of the IC can claim his or her opinion is just that: a personally held belief that has no influence on work. But publicly announcing one’s views can give the impression that politics guide both personal and professional interests. The marginalized portion of the public will dismiss agency decisions and publicly disseminated products because of the assumption these will be tainted by politics, too. This leads to a loss of credibility and support for the institution.
To ensure public trust in the Intelligence Community, participation by members of the IC–both current and former–in political social media is probably best avoided.