Here's our Twitter topic of the day:
Republican congressman Pete Hoekstra is facing criticism over his use of Twitter during a trip to Iraq.
Hoekstra, a member of the House intelligence committee, sent out Tweets using his BlackBerry making announcements such as "Just landed in Baghdad" and "Moved into green zone by helicopter".
Although the updates seemed innocuous, Hoekstra's actions have riled up Democrats who say his updates endangered the safety of the cross-party delegation he was travelling with.
What are your thoughts? Should elected officials should be allowed to use Twitter during visits to war zones?
Share your thoughts by sending us a response on our GuardianUS Twitter page. You can do this by logging on to your Twitter account, typing @GuardianUS and then your comment of 140 characters or less. Of course, you can always comment on this blog post.
UPDATE: Here are some responses from Twitter users
as the mgr of @GovTwit, I think we should encourage elected officials to use Twitter; follow basic rule: think 1st/tweet smart
Govt officials may someday use Twitter 4 primary communication tool. World is changing. War zone twitters may become commonplace
twittering in war zones? Same rules should apply as 4 journo/photojournos. Just b/c its real time doesn't make it wrong
I think reps should twitter the heck out of the war zone
Pretty obviously a huge security risk if you're going to broadcast your position in near-realtime while in Iraq. Hoekstra's dim.
Really depends on the content: specific movement details could be a risk, so no, but reactions and thoughts should be fine.
Only if they're not idiots about it (cf "Rivera, Geraldo")
If has nothing to do w/ troop movements or sensitive info, I don't see a problem. But there should be limits.
Thank you for all the great contributions.
· This article was amended on Thursday February 12 2009. The congressman in question is Pete, not Mike Hoekstra. This has been corrected.
