What are your thoughts about your "Social Media" activities being a part of your background check for a clearance?

Call me stupid, but I actually thought it was part of the investigation. It is a great idea. You can tell so much about someone with what they post. I have friends that post questionable things (luckily none of them are active duty) that would raise major red flags if they were going for a clearance. I feel time and money can be saved if that is one of the first things checked. I find it hilarious when underage persons post pictures of them drinking. That might point to a problem. Many Soldiers are not the brightest, and many issues can be caught early on. People reveal a lot about lifestyle, extremist views, dissatisfaction with the government, differing allegiances as well as criminal activity on their sites, in an effort to look cool.

I have mixed feelings about this. 

In one hand it's my private life.  I don't want the government knowing what I decided to post at 0230 after I got back from the bar with the guys.  The least the government knows about me and my private life the better and safer I feel.  All my personal social profiles are more or less on lock down.  You can't see anything unless you are a direct friend of mine.  I have to approve every tagged photo, comment, status etc, before it's linked to me.

On the other hand I realize when you go through the process of applying for a security clearance you are willfully allowing the government to go through your private life, social media included.  As long as that is as far as it goes.

I saw someone post above that they think our CoC should be monitoring our social media use.  To this I say, No.  Absolutely not.  It's my life.  My circle of friends.  They don't need to know about anything we do, unless it has some affect on my performance with in the Army.

I think it's a good tool to gauge who someone REALLY is...especially in this age.<br><br>Also, social media background checks are already happening in corporate America and during law enforcement screenings (my brother is a Sheriff's Deputy and interviews potential candidates)

Honestly, a background check should cover any and all information that can be obtained legally. If an individual is posting things on social media that would disqualify them for a security clearance, then I would not want them to have said clearance.&nbsp;

HELL yes!&nbsp; If you can't control yourself on social media, how can you be trusted with our nations secrets?&nbsp; In addition to being a window into a persons self control and personal information filters, what a person puts on their Facebook is often a direct line to their base beliefs.&nbsp; If they are bashing their chain of command or complaining about the lack of privacy we have due to 'NSA spying' on their Twitter account, they may not be a good condidate for a TS clearance.

There is NO privacy on the internet, once it's out there it's fair game.
I think internet footprint should be part of all background checks civilian and government.

As many others, I have mixed feelings.

I not only believe that social media should be a part of all backround checks, but should also be something that needs to be checked up on, on a regular basis by higher ups. Whether it be specially assigned people Like PAO, or just having NCOs following their soldiers, and checking up on them, and making sure that the soldiers are aware of just how big an impact social media has on his/her image, and the image of the Army. There are multiple examples of Social media being used to help a buddy in need. there was a guy who used this app that let others rate your hotness. the dude posted a picture of him holding a gun to his head. Thanks to social media, this perosn was found, and he got the help he needed. There are multiple different examples of this. the other side of this is malcontent. Society thrives of negativity. As such, we love to post all the bad things, so people can see how bad we think we have it. It's like being "cool" in high school. the more depressing an individual's posts are, the more attention they recieve. This will naturally make people want to post their negative emotions online, due to it being the more popular topic, and getting more "likes" and what not. There is plenty of exampls of soldier posting about doing bad things, before they happen. Snowden is a big one. He posted all over his site about the things he was gearing up to do.

MSG,<div><br></div><div>I think you make an excellent point. &nbsp;With how popular social networking has become in recent years, I would argue that people can now interact more via social networks than face to face. &nbsp;With so much interaction, it is probably a very good idea to look at someone's activity for a clearance, especially if they have foreign contacts on that social network.</div>

MSG Stankovich, You beat me to the punch! I was seconds behind you in this post. Actually, I think that if you are applying for a security clearance, you give up the right to claim privacy in background checks.