That train's long since left the station

Some members of the Twin City Metro area's Gang Strike Force have filed a lawsuit against their bosses, as well as the Department of Public Safety, because the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper named them publicly in an April story about a seemingly overly large number of them attending a conference about Asian gangs. In Hawaii. On the public dime.

Ordinarily, we'd be very supportive of the officers as well as their lawsuit, since undercover gang work is quite dangerous yet is necessary for stopping that particular urban scourge, and officers performing such duties as well as their families shouldn't be unnecessarily exposed to possible retaliation from the kind thugs they deal with daily.

It's hard to be very sympathetic with these particular cops, however, since they've already done a bang-up job of outing themselves:

"One officer's gang Strike Force affiliation is listed on the social networking site classmates.com. Another is cited as a Strike Force member who donated to a social service agency.

A third was mentioned online as the recipient of a medal for undercover police work. A fourth is on the public roster of his police department."

If you go so far as to brag about your job on a social network, you probably don't have much of a case for complaining about someone else discussing your employment status publicly as well.