Kentucky Agrees To Stop Selectively Blocking State Employees From Reading Critical Blogs
from the hearing-what-your-critics-say-is-a-good-thing dept
A couple of years ago, we wrote about the fact that the state of Kentucky had started blocking certain political blogs from the computers of state employees. The interesting part was that the state was only blocking blogs that were critical of state officials. The group Public Citizen filed a lawsuit saying that the selective blocking was a First Amendment violation. It looks like that issue won't get settled in court any time soon, as a new administration in Kentucky has decided that it is changing that policy and won't block critical sites, leading Public Citizen to drop the lawsuit.Of course, without a court ruling, it's now not clear if the original actions were legal -- and there's nothing to stop a future administration from reversing the policy yet again. In the meantime, what kind of politician actually thinks it's a good thing to block out those who disagree with them rather than hear what they have to say? Talk about sticking your head in the sand...
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Filed Under: blogs, first amendment, kentucky
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the ones who disagree with you
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Re: the ones who disagree with you
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What kind of person?
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That kind of person...
Also, Thom, you would do well to look into the number and circumstances of the presidential pardons issued by the "Clinton White House" in the final days of that administration.
Do note that the block list was extensive and included a great deal more then just the site(s) of the leading party's opposition. While many are being opened back up there are still numerous sites which were/are blocked... why? People weren't doing their work.
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Pardon, schmardon
Every president issues pardons at the end of their term. That's just the nature of the beast. I wouldn't be surprised to see W pardon Ken Lay this December. Rarely, however, does someone have to pardon half of their own administration.
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If I'm smart, I want to hear what my critics have to say. If I'm a politician, I don't want other people to hear what my critics have to say.
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Re: That kind of person...
I did some contract work for about 8 months at the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Trust me, those blocks weren't keeping people from wasting time, they found plenty of other ways to do that.
I did about 8 hours of work in the 8 months I was in that office. The rest of the time I spent surfing the web (was easy to remote out of that network and then I could access whatever I pleased), twiddling my thumbs, and hating the fact that before they took over the project I was actually getting work done and now I was having to sit there and do nothing. There was plenty of thinking about doing stuff, talking about doing stuff, and planning to do stuff, but in 8 months time they never even got me server space to start the project, which was 3/4 done on another system before they decided to take it over and start it on a new system. It was pretty easy for me to decide that I never wanted to work for the government again.
If you're the kind of person who likes to go to meetings and have conference calls while doing as little real work as possible it might be the place for you. As for me, I like to get shit done and move on.
I suppose that's enough quasi-ranting from me for now.
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Re: That kind of person...
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Uhhhh, if they had their way - how about the vast majority of them?
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Cyberpunk will live again.
Marshall
http://www.zercurity.com
Cyberpunk will live again.
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Use your own time for political activities
If your employer provides a car for performing job activities, we don't question the concept that he might prohibit that employee from running personal errands with it. Why is email or other Internet activity any different? It's your employer's tool, not yours. He gets to set the terms for its use.
Now, of course, a reasonable employer will likely understand that most employees will not abuse these tools if given some leeway. There's the occasional personal phone call from the office phone, using the company car to stop at the store on the way home from work, etc. No big deal. We're all adults, and employers who treat their employees that way will get better results. However, that doesn't at all justify trying to claim some sort of "right" to use the employer's tools for personal purposes.
So, if the State of Kentucky wants to block certain websites from the PCs it provides to its employees, that's fine. Those employees can use their own PCs on their own time if they want to peruse those blocked sites. Or, if the restrictions really make folks unhappy, the state will find it hard to hire good people, and they'll have to change their policy.
HM
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Here's the deal..
These political blogs weren't blocked to prevent people reading them or wasting time; they were blocked to prevent people posting to them. It was spin control, pure and simple.
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