Social media and transparency in government
There are several criminal investigations under way in San Francisco regarding the activities of undercover narcotics officers. The officers are alleged to have conducted illegal searches of suspects' residences and falsified police reports to cover up their actions. Unfortunately, at least four incidences of alleged misconduct were caught on closed circuit surveillance cameras. The public defender presented the videos as evidence in court, where it became a public record. He then called a press conference, showed the video and then posted it to the You Tube site maintained by his office.
What makes this so interesting is not the alleged crime but rather the fact that the public defender of a major city is using You Tube for official purposes. There was a time when we would have read about an incident of this type in the papers but would always wonder if the reporter got it right. Now the evidence is readily available at the click of a button from an official source.
This is yet another example of how social media is changing how we do business in government. Transparency in government is generally considered a good thing but as social media continues to evolve, we're going to be confronted by a whole host of privacy and legal issues. But there's no putting the genie back in the bottle – social media is rapidly becoming part of the fabric of our day-to-day lives and, sooner rather than later, we will need to embrace the changes it brings.