Jason.Pearce.Net
Basically, it's a story of my fears realized: that my blog could get me booted from Peace Corps. This guy, Jason Pearce, didn't even complete training before his blog about his Peace Corps experience caught the attention of his country director.
The country director did not let him swear in as a volunteer because he wanted certain steps to be taken to have Pearce's website secured so that people beyond Pearce's family and friends could not access it. Pearce's future work site was informed about the incident, at which point the site said they no longer wanted him. The country director informed Pearce that another site could not be found and his Peace Corps service was terminated and he was sent home.
You know what sucks about being sent home before you swear in? YOU GET NOTHING. We accumulate a readjustment allowance--paid at termination or close of service--at a little over $260 a month for every month of service. If you terminate before swearing in, you get none of it. If you swear in and terminate ON THE DAY YOU SWEAR IN, you get the $780+ you accumulated during training and access to government health insurance. He was in Guyana for three months, went through training and got sent home.
Now, I'm not saying Peace Corps was the bad guy. Apparently Pearce put up sensitive medical information about other volunteers as well as invasive information about his host family. They gave him the chance to fix it (which another e-mail implies that he tried to do), but I'm not sure it was to their satisfaction. He then refused to do any work but IT work, and the one IT site available rejected him. Teaching work was available, but apparently he refused to take it. It could be that the "lack of site" was a face saving thing, but regardless, his blog set off a chain reaction that got him sent home.
I encourage you to read all the documents available on the site. I respect that Pearce did not flame Peace Corps on the issue (although he's obviously dissapointed) and instead presented a fantastic case study on free speech. He includes links to all correspondence that led to his termination, relevant Peace Corps publications, ethics publications and first ammendment right commentaries. Put together, it proves to be a convoluted issue worth some thought in an increasingly global world that will no doubt cause us to struggle between free speech and not pissing each other off.
Will my site get me kicked out? Who knows? I'm sworn in, which affords me a bit more protection and leeway. Also, I am pretty careful about what goes onto the site. There's a running tab of at least seven stories that will never get put on the internet just because of sensitivity issues. And no, I will not put up the uneditited story that Peace Corps shot down, regardless of the fact that they later ammended their policy on it (go me!) because I agree that I am part of a diplomatic machine and in diplomacy you sometimes just have to learn when to shut up.
In any case, the ethics of free speech and diplomacy are always a topic of interest to me, and how far I'm pushing the line in the blogosphere is always a tickle of paranoia in the back of my brain. To see it played out in another Peace Corps person's life was edifying, at the least.
Check it out!
Jason.Pearce.Net"