I'm getting there right now. This was our concern about opening this Pandora's box. It is not clear whether they are attacking a former Liberal, House of Commons resources, or anonymous attacks. This is the issue here. Twitter lives in the anonymous realm, and Facebook less so, but Facebook is the use of parliamentary resources.
The House allows us to have Facebook on our apps as well as Twitter, because it is seen as a legitimate form of public relations with our constituents. That is something we use. We use Twitter. We use Facebook. We use cellphones. We use e-mail. These are all legitimate resources.
With Facebook, you can set up a fake page; you can create any number of fake personalities and run a Facebook page. You can do that to attack a member of Parliament. You can do it to undermine the credibility of a political opponent. Twitter is almost entirely in the realm of anonymous. People set up all kinds of names under Twitter accounts and write all manner of spurious things. I have nothing against Twitter, but I had a gentleman write to me the other day who said he can't call his dog in 140 characters and asked how could he get involved in an intelligent discussion.
It's not our purview to decide whether Twitter is an addition to the parliamentary political discourse or a dumbing down of it. The question has to do with using House resources for new media. We've opened a Pandora's box. Now we're going after House use of Twitter, which has clearly been identified as legitimate. My honourable colleague says it's Facebook, which can be used in the exact same way, and we're now looking at that.
I think people back home are going to get worried about the intrusiveness of government. This goes back to the intrusiveness of Bill C-30, of government deciding to shut down Twitter accounts to be able to investigate. We've all agreed that it has been a very seedy little side story about the minister, with allegations or documents flying about an unsavoury divorce. Now, once again we're forced to discuss it, but that could have been done on Facebook.
This is where we need to really understand where we're going. Political staffers and bureaucrats are online all day. They're using House resources all day. When I'm at my desk, Facebook is often open. We're now talking about the use of House resources in new media.
We've had numerous instances when anonymous sources have been traced back to IP addresses in the House of Commons. Posting online comments, digital troll comments on news sites, changing the appearance of public commentary on a newspaper—all these activities have been traced back to the House of Commons. It would be understood that either a political staffer or a civil servant is hiding his or her name and is trying to undermine someone from another party. That has happened. We know that biographies on Wiki have been changed, and they're traced back to people who have been bombing the Wiki sites. They're traced back to IP addresses in the House of Commons.
We will be in a discussion of the House, going back to the original issue—the issue of anonymous attacks and House resources. What my honourable colleague has done—I don't blame him for trying—is open the door to a whole Pandora's box. If we are going to identify a former Liberal staffer—