Australian Public Servants Warned Against Liking Social Media Posts That Are Critical Of Government Policies

from the couldn't-happen-in-the-US-oh-wait dept

The Internet effectively turns everyone into a publisher, able to promulgate their ideas in a way that was not open to most people before. That's great for the democratization of media -- and terrible for governments that want to control the flow of information to citizens. The Australian government is particularly concerned about what its 150,000 public servants might say. It has issued a "guidance" document that "sets out factors for employees to consider in making decisions about whether and what to post". Here's why:

The speed and reach of online communication means that material posted online is available immediately to a wide audience. It can be difficult to delete and may be replicated endlessly. It may be sent to, or seen by, people the author never intended or expected would see it.

Deciding whether to make a particular comment or post certain material online is a matter of careful judgement rather than a simple formula. This guidance sets out factors for employees to consider in making decisions about whether and what to post.

That sounds reasonable enough. But it turns out that what the policy is really about is muzzling public employees, and stopping them from expressing or supporting views that disagree with government policies. As the Australian organization Digital Rights Watch summarizes:

The new guidelines warn that public servants would be in breach of code of conduct if they "liked" anti-government posts, privately emailing negative material or do not remove "nasty comments" about the government posted by others. The new policies apply to employees even if they use social media in a private capacity outside of work hours.

It also applies to your past employment with the Australian government -- and futures ones:

it is also worth bearing in mind that comments you make about an agency you've never worked in might be made public and taken into account if you apply for a job there later. Perhaps you haven't breached the Code, but you might have ruled yourself out for that job if the comment could reasonably call into question your capacity to work there impartially.

In other words, if you criticize any aspect of government policy, you'll never work in this town again. What's troubling about this move is not just that it is limiting people's freedom of speech -- something that the guidance freely admits:

The common law recognises an individual right to freedom of expression. This right is subject to limitations such as those imposed by the Public Service Act. In effect, the Code of Conduct operates to limit this right.

It's also that we have seen before where this kind of muzzling leads. Back in 2013, Techdirt wrote about similar rules for public servants in Canada, only rescinded last year. One of the most problematic areas was in the field of the environment, since it meant that even world-leading scientists were unable to point out publicly the evident flaws in the the Canadian government's climate policy. It looks like experts employed by the Australian government now find themselves similarly unable to be openly critical of the official line, no matter how misguided or dangerous it may be. There are also signs that a similar muzzling of scientists is starting to take place in the US. Despite unequivocal evidence of "drastic" climate change in a new, but unreleased US government report, emails obtained by the Guardian reveal the following:

Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference "weather extremes" instead.

At least they can still like social media posts that are critical of the US government's environmental policies. For now...

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Filed Under: australia, free speech, government employees, social media

Dept. Of Public Works Finds Watching 20 Hours A Week Of Full-Screen Porn On Work Computers To Be A Bit Too Much

from the 'I-find-working-in-public-service-to-be-[self]-gratifying' dept

I'll never understand the mentality of an employee -- government or otherwise -- who watches porn while on the clock and on company computers. I get that the mind wanders when not otherwise occupied, but rather than surf the web for innocuous time-killers, certain people decide to just head off the deep end and view something that's forbidden in every work environment not actively engaged in the production or distribution of porn.

While I may have skirted policies meant to keep time-wasting to a minimum (some days were filled with only wasted time), I have never opted to go the porn route. I have nothing against porn or those who watch it. I would just rather not give my employers (a) the equivalent of the middle finger re: computer use policies and (b) any insight into my personal sexual preferences. (LET YOUR IMAGINATIONS RUN WILD.) Both of these seem like BAD THINGS to do.

(Also, there's that whole thing about it that insinuates some sort of self-pleasure is involved, and in a work environment, that's just… amazingly gross. Even the employees at the porn shop don't relish cleaning up the spank rooms. Imagine being told after a few weeks at work that your predecessor [and previous cubicle occupant] was fired for watching tons of porn during work hours. You'd want to shower in decontaminant and return in a hazmat suit.)

And yet, we have written multiple stories about employees (most of them in the public sector) who not only watch porn at work, but do so with unimaginable gusto for hours at a time. Here's yet another, involving a Baltimore Department of Public Works employee:

Inspector General Rob Pearre Jr. released a report last week revealing the employee, a maintenance supervisor at the facilities division of the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant, was suspended in September 2014 and fired Jan. 20 at the conclusion of an investigation.

The report said officials received an anonymous complaint about the worker in August of last year and monitoring software installed on the man's work computer found he spent 39 of the 82 hours he spent working in a two-week period watching a pornographic DVD on the computer.

Nothing handles the ridiculousness of a porn-related firing more aptly than an official report so dry it could apply for disaster relief funds.

"HOW MUCH PORN DID HE WATCH?" the studio audience in my mind demands. Here's a per-shift breakdown, listed in this report as "Table 1."


It appears the employee's workload tended to diminish over the course of week, with Mondays and Tuesdays (with one exception -- a seven-of-eight work hours marathon) being relatively light and the ration of porn-to-work increasing as the week wore on. Fridays were half-days and, accordingly, roughly half of that time was given over to porn-watching.

Now, the employee obviously felt accessing porn via the internet might result in a swift dismissal. His workaround -- bringing a DVD from home -- allowed him to bypass web filters. However, the length of time it was watched, combined with how it was watched, gives the impression that no one really checked on this employee's productivity, much less ever stopped by his desk.

The City-owned computer operated by the MSI was connected to a single monitor. OIG personnel noted that when pornographic material was visible, the video was maximized to cover the entire screen.

Full-screen porn during work hours is a strong indicator that the employee was neither valued nor popular. Viewing porn in full screen can only be done by those confident their porn sessions will not be interrupted.

The Inspector's report then goes on to state the (inadvertently hilarious) obvious.

OIG personnel noted that minimal computer activity was performed while pornographic material was visible. Based on these findings, the OIG believes that little to no work was being performed during the time that pornographic material was visible on the screen of the MSI’s City-owned computer.

Doh! If only this employee would have reduced it to the upper-corner of the monitor and run a few work-related applications in the background. He might have been able to hold onto this job until retirement -- at which point his porn-watching could have resumed uninterrupted, barring the occasional trip to the bank to deposit his pension check. (Or not, what with direct deposit…) But he didn't. Instead, he did this.

OIG personnel noted that the MSI would occasionally maximize his email inbox in the Microsoft Outlook program and then minimize it moments later leaving only the pornographic material visible on the screen.

Fortunately for Baltimore taxpayers, there's no pension in the future nor the continued annual funding of Dept. of Public Works porn-watching. $30,000/year for twiddling your thumbs self is damn good money, but there aren't many entities willing to fork that out. (Barring, of course, those involved in the production/distribution of porn…)

At an hourly rate of $29.90, the MSI was paid $1,166 for 39 hours for which no work was performed. By annualizing the data gathered during the two-week monitoring based on a 2000 hour work-year, pornographic material would be visible on the screen of the MSI’s City-owned computer for 951 hours which would cost the City approximately $28,400.

Also noted in the report: the employee appealed his pending termination briefly before being persuaded to take a 10-day payout in exchange for dropping the appeal he had very little chance of winning.

The report wraps up with the DPW and OIG giving each other big, warm hugs for being so competent/cooperative (respectively). And for the moment, all is slightly more right in Baltimore's Dept. of Public Works.

Filed Under: department of public works, government, government employees, porn

Your Tax Dollars At ??: Government Agency Has No Idea How Many Of Its Employees Are Telecommuting

from the government-cannot-be-trusted-to-deploy-an-'honor-system' dept

It's 9 AM: do you know where your employees are? The GSA (Government Services Administration) doesn't. It thinks some are working from home, but can't really say for sure. It knows it has employees but it doesn't know who's at the office and who's telecommuting. Here are the findings from the Inspector General's report:

Finding 1 – GSA does not know the number of virtual employees it has, and some virtual employee work arrangements were not fully approved.
Finding 2 – Travel costs related to virtual work arrangements were not assessed annually.
Finding 3 – Official duty stations were incorrect for some virtual employees.
Finding 4 – Virtual employee hours were not accurately reported.
Finding 5 – GSA needs to improve controls over transit subsidies.
Finding 6 – Many GSA teleworkers have not taken the required training.

The Government Accountability Office found that nearly everything about the GSA's teleworker tracking was faulty.

GSA policy (CPO IL-12-04) requires that the Office of the Chief People Officer (OCPO) maintain the master tracking of all GSA virtual employees and that all virtual work arrangements be reviewed annually. The OCPO maintains a list of virtual and satellite employees and whether they have approved work arrangements. At the time of our review, the list contained 454 names; however, the OCPO did not know whether the employees were virtual or satellite. In addition, the OCPO was uncertain of the accuracy of the list because it was based a manual data call.

For most entities, teleworkers represent a cost savings. Not so with the GSA.

Virtual employees incur reimbursable travel from their duty station to the Agency worksite to effectively perform their official duties and meet mission requirements. We reviewed fiscal years (FYs) 2012 and 2013 travel costs for the 57 employees who had submitted a GSA Form 3703. For 29 of the 57 virtual employees, actual travel costs to the Agency worksite exceeded the cost estimates reflected on the forms. For 13 employees, the actual costs were more than double the estimate.

In addition, the GAO found that the GSA's virtual workers were assigned to incorrect job stations or clocking in under the wrong job code -- a problem made worse by the agency's lack of a unique identifier for teleworkers.

The GSA, in response, has promised a full "policy update" and a very belated addition of a unique teleworker job code. Of course, this comes after years of hands-off management, and the very bureaucratic promise of an updated policy is still at least 90 days down the road.

The government -- like any other employer -- needs to keep close tabs on teleworkers. But especially the government. Who knows how many GSA employees are "working" from home like this infamous EPA employee?

[An] EPA manager [...] allowed an employee to stay at home and not report for duty for several years... [T]his EPA manager not only entered fraudulent time-and-attendance records for the absent employee but also approved the same fraudulent records. It is estimated that the manager's approval of fraudulent time-and-attendance records cost the government more than $500,000...

A half-million and 20 years "on the job" and nothing to show for it. Supervisors said this mostly-faux employee had "little work" to show for his years of service, but despite this, they still managed to give him "exemplary reviews" and pay raises. Of course, The Employee Who Wasn't There had an excuse for his nonperformance and $180,000 in travel reimbursements: he was in the CIA. No further questions were asked.

The government is supposed to be a good steward of the public's money. The GSA's inability (which borders on unwillingness) to properly track its telecommuting workers is the complete opposite of this ideal. In the GSA's inept hands, a money-saving option has led to excessive travel reimbursements and incorrect paychecks. The GAO's report points out the problems, but it's up to the GSA to fix them. As we've seen far too often, Inspector General reports routinely border on "scathing," but when the next inspection rolls around, the problems still exist. So, the GSA may be taking (tentative and bureaucratic) steps towards fixing this issue, but the smart money is on little-to-no change resulting from this report.

Filed Under: government employees, gsa, telecommuting

White House Realizes That Outlawing P2P No Excuse For Gov't Employee Stupidity

from the phew dept

Over the summer, we saw Congress mistarget its anger over stupid government employees misusing P2P software to reveal government secrets by blaming the P2P software. It didn't take long for them to propose a law to deal with the problem. Thankfully, the White House is actually pointing out how unnecessary this is and how silly it is to target a single type of technology, when the issue is about how people use the technology, not the technology itself.

Filed Under: government employees, p2p