Originally Posted by
Wrathmonk
And there is a laid down system for that called the Freedom of Information Act. Simples!
Indeed, and I'd observe that a FoI submitted when the OP last asked the question would have been answered a good couple of months ago. There is nothing stopping them doing so: FoIs are routinely received from members of public and get treated no differently than those from journalists or campaign groups. On topics where there has been no previous FoI traffic then there might be - arguably - a little room for judgement in such discussions on here, but on topics where the MOD secretariat has made a deliberate decision on what information to place in the public domain (informed by a range of legal, commercial, security, operational, and many other considerations) then asking people to provide additional information is effectively inviting them to breach regulations. In the case of these regulations, that could have knock-on effects for their security clearance and by extension their careers, with many areas of capability now protected by a requirement for DV clearance. You can argue that social media and public comms regulations are bollocks, or that I'm being pedantic thread police, or that it's objectionable to hide senior officials' mistakes behind rules, or that the snippets of information provided by Cpl Clott are innocuous non-operational stuff and can't hurt anyone. All of those things are probably true, but they are all beside the point, which is the effect on individuals should the 'system' decide to pursue them for having broken the rules. And if senior officials really are hiding their mistakes behind the rules in this case (which is highly debatable but let's assume it's true for the sake of this final point), how do you think they would react to those rules being broken? I'm no expert on cyber surveillance matters, but I post on here under the assumption that our friends in Cheltenham could readily identify me should an irritated senior official direct an investigation to be carried out.