BS: Big Brother is watching YOU

Subject: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 06:32 AM

Just seen this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/business/30digi.html?ex=1356670800&en=55ef6410

Looks like you can lose your job (and hope of future references) if you're too careless on the internet. In your own unpaid "free" time. Even if you're doing nothing illegal.

You not only have to mind your carbon footprint, better mind your digital footprint too.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 08:04 AM

Employers can only engage in such snoopy behaviors because employees allow them to do so. The first time an employee is dismissed for off-work behavior, every employee who doesn't want to be the next victim should submit his or her two-weeks' notice. Big Brother can't exist without little brothers and little sisters to push around.

If an employer is a big enough asshole to monitor your off-work behavior, screw him. Go to work for someone else. Better yet, become self-employed. You can't be fired when you work for yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: artbrooks
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 08:57 AM

The article seems to be mostly editorializing, with only one (already well known) example. I've not seen or heard any indication that this is at all common. The example involved a teacher (OK, a student teacher) - and that one is in litigation. School systems are overreacting to a lot of recent and highly publicized incidents. As a former HR director, I would have strongly advised against taking any action against an employee for doing anything, on the internet or otherwise, without nexus (connection to his/her job).

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 10:35 AM

Exactly my thoughts, Art. I would further ask if the school (either the University or the school at which the person was student-teaching) had informed her of any restrictions. I assume she was over 21 and therefore of legal age to drink, and entitling a picture means only slightly more than nothing.

What you do at work is one thing, what you do away from work is another. There are exceptions: police, for example, shouldn't get drunk and tear up bars or post nude pictures of themselves on the Internet. In my position I should be discrete enough not to do things that would bring the Library or the City (in that order) into a bad light -- but I'm pretty much "on duty" 24/7/365 (366 this year). Unless I'm in bad company, like hanging out with one or both brothers....

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 10:37 AM

And by the way -- I absolutely LOVE it when people complain that they "have no privacy" when surfing the web on the Internet computers we provide.

The correct response is "What part of PUBLIC library and PUBLIC Internet computer don't you understand? For that matter, what part of PUBLIC place don't you understand?"

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 11:31 AM

Rapaire, well put but if you're doing things that even if legal are private or you wish them to be use your home computer. The gist is though that the student teacher was fired for her (?) conduct outside of work. Seems dodgy to me. But too with the devices out theior now like GPS tracking and CCTV if the government wants to invade your privacy they could do so without you knowing it. Happy new year all! Neil

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 11:37 AM

It looked to me like she was fired for what she put on her MySpace page, so whatever computer she used is beside the point. Surely she has the right to post what she wants (barring obvious extremes). It seems to touch on freedom of expression as well.

(I didn't realise the case was already so well known - I live in rural Ireland.)

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: topical tom
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 11:46 AM

I'm just wondering.Has anyone on Mudcat been approached, reprimanded or fired because of personal opinions expressed?I realize that Mudcat names offer us privacy but can this security be compromised? I'm quite new to Mudcat and ,I confess, I have not posed these questions before.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 01:04 PM

I know a high school principal in western New York State who monitors the MySpace pages of her students, and who has called several into her office to nip trouble in the bud. The most common reasons are malicious gossip and plans for cutting school. For some reason, her students are surprised when she catches them. Have they not yet learned that anyone can read what they post?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 01:28 PM

You'd think so, wouldn't you? It's a little scary how naive kids can be, for all their aspirations to sophistication (and their spending power). But those were clear statements of intent. The teacher got axed for a joke party photo on her MySpace page in which she was wearing a pirate's hat and holding a glass of something (not clear what). In the caption she'd lightheartedly written "drunken pirate". (Do the authorities KNOW the meaning of a joke?) The consequence this has had does sound awfully freedom-restricting. Even if it's only a lone case, I think it should not be able to happen. Getting intimidated into making literal statements only - what's next, Newspeak?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 01:33 PM

Absolutely right, Bonnie. These are the times that try men's souls, and women's souls, in a flood of little tiny encroachments; it is like being nibbled to death by krill.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 01:35 PM

In thi age of PC, shouldn't it be "Big SIBLING is watching YOU"?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: skipy
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 01:58 PM

If you have nothing to hide, then you have no problem, same as ID cards, bring them on!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 02:15 PM

Skipy:

"If you have nothing to hide, then you have no problem".

I do have a problem. I have nothing to hide, but I have NO desire to surrender privacy just because I am not hiding anything. I think that logic is specious, and the sort of lamb-brained complaisance that informed the good citizens of Germany in the run-up to the second WW, and the good folks in this country during the encroachments of the Bush administration.

The issue is not whether or not you have something to hide; the issue is the sovereign right to privacy, or not; whose domain is which, and what are the rights of an individual being.

I'm all for supporting the larger cause of national well-being as well, but I am not for surrendering individual integriity or the right to mind my own business and require others to mind theirs.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 02:18 PM

What you do in private should be private (assuming it's legal or you're willing to take the consequences if caught, doesn't hurt anyone, is consensual, etc. etc.). I can see a far better reason for checking out and even censoring the websites posted by minors (note that!) than those of an adult.

The "Zero Tolerance" policy adopted by many schools of all levels is stupid when applied without thought. A seven-grader, back in Indiana, talked a friend out of committing suicide with pills the friend had brought to school; the kid brought his friend AND the pills to the Principal who suspended the kid who did the good work for being in possession of unauthorized drugs!! The Principal and the School Board stuck to their guns, but only until public outrage showed signs of forcing the Board out of office via a recall election. For people to whom we entrust the task of teaching children to think they often show a lack of talent in the area.

I was once censured by my boss (not censored) for using the word "iatragenic" in a memo explaining why I was off sick, but that's about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 02:24 PM

If your illness was in fact iatrogenic, why should he censure you? Or was it your innuendo in spelling it iatragenic, which sort of implies it was a female doctor who caused it?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 02:32 PM

Maybe he didn't like you using longer-syllable words than he could; or maybe he was a friend of the doctor's ;-)

Meaning: (of a medical disorder) caused by the diagnosis, manner, or treatment of a physician.

But I cheated. I had to look it up - [Whoah, Amos, you're way ahead of me...]

Seriously, if it weren't for the public outrage, that horrendously stupid decision would have stood, the kid would have had it on his record (and what do you want to bet that they would have summarised it simply as DRUG POSSESSION) and that worse-than-incompetent school board would have remained in power to wreck more young lives/educations. It's why it's important to protest, even if they're only in isolated cases. I keep remembering that evil-exists-when-enough-good-people-do-nothing saying.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 02:35 PM

It was because my boss didn't know what it meant and she had to look it up. (I spelled it correctly at the time, Amos. My fingers slipped this time.)

Stand back! I've got a vocabulary and I know how to use it!

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: MaineDog
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 02:35 PM

When I was working they had a policy that said "no personal use of company computers", and they searched you disk frequently to make sure.
No outside emails.
no personal files.
no shopping.
no games.
no unauthorized web sites .
no use of search engines.
If you wanted to access an outside site for business reasons, you were supposed to get written permission from your boss first.
Obviously most people violated these rules frequently, and most people didn't get fired for it. But if they wanted you out, they had ample evidence of misbehavior.
MD

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 03:32 PM

What an awful p[policy. I am sure it was counter-productive.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: skipy
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 03:51 PM

Don't be scared of Big Brother! be VERY scared of "little" brother,
for he is the one that is out ot kill you, and kill you he has!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 04:39 PM

I'm sure the internet is breaking new ground, but in this case, can't one 'frame' a parallel situation without the myspace angle, where a school principal is at a party and sees a student teacher she recognizes behaving poorly in a public setting? Is the principal within her rights to consider that it has work repercussions at school?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 05:20 PM

In Britain not only is big brother watching you(More cameras than anywhere else), he is listening to your conversations in the street. Keeping a record of your e-mails and websites visited for 10 years (So that means constantly)from March this year. Keeping a record of your phone messages, and numbers dialled mobile and land line and now will keep a record of the places you visit and the number of times you exit and return from the UK. It seems that prospective and present employers are looking on social networking sites as well to see what sort of person you are. Who, what, has such a power crazed wish to completely control as to want to inflict this on their fellow humans? Perhaps we should just remove the thinking part of most of our brains and make the general population drones.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 05:22 AM

I can see the point in businesses monitoring internet usage - my own employer does that, but then as a part of the government, my employer is answerable to the taxpayer about how their taxes are spent. If they were to reveal that in any given week, non-business related sites were visited during working hours, to the tune of a whole person's time, then there would be a public outcry.

It may only be 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there, but if you added them all up, it could be the equivalent of 3 people doing nothing but surf the 'web for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, when they are being paid to provide a service.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 05:33 AM

Maybe that si what is happening LTS.

Government employees play, whilst the UK rots. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 11:17 AM

So signing in as 'LTS pretending to work' could be your undoing.
Be carefull you know they are watching.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 12:09 PM

Since when has the (any) government really been worried about how taxes are spent? I mean a real deep rooting to uncover and honestly expose the way public funds are used? Mp's won't even declare how they spend my money on their expence acccounts, so some chance of that Liz. "then there would be a public outcry." That is why these things are kept hidden. If we really new how much was wasted, mispent etc. What could we do about it? Nothing? The ballot box? Waste of time, generally replace one bad lot with another. Sad eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 07:25 AM

Just found this site, it is amazing what is on there about all of us, it is a public search engine.

http://www.123people.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 10:35 AM

The problem that's developed over the past few decades is two-fold, imo.

1) The misunderstanding about work computers. They belong to the employers, not the employees. Much like company vehicles whereon are signs saying, 'if you see me speeding please call 555-1212' or 'if you see me using a cell phone while operating this vehicle please call...', and employers have the right to do that. The machines are owned by the companies and therefore a misuse of them--or any unauthorized use--can result in consequences.

2) The other is "policy". It has led to a growing lack of common sense amongst employers and those who wish to climb the corporate ladder.

###################################################

True stories (or things your grandmother never told you about).

a) Young teacher new to teaching. Prescribed a medication that exacerbates the effects of alcohol. She was unaware of that at the time. She had a few beers after work at a bar in a small town. Ended up lap dancing with a guy. She was called up before the school board and asked for her resignation. He union did a little digging. The legal rep was with her at the meeting. She refused to resign. The board was going to force her resignation. The union rep pointed out that the person she was dancing with was the 'PTA' chairman and wouldn't this be a lovely story for the newspapers. That was the end of it.

b) Teachers have to follow both the law of the land and also education law. 16-year-old boy tells a teacher to go fuck herself. The teacher slaps him across the face. In court, the union lawyer asks the kid's mother what she would have done had her son said that to her. She said 'I'd have smacked him'. The union lawyer turned to the judge and said, 'under section such and such my client was acting in loco parentis and only did what the parent would have done.' Case was dismissed. (The law states that the teacher must act in a manner such that s/he will do what a reasonable parent would do. The parent had been asked if she was a reasonable parent and had stated she was.)


Policy: that lovely term which translates to "I don't have to think." We see it more and more, and more and more we see it has aspects of stupidity in its construction. I know of a school that had a no-hats policy. I didn't care about that policy, so I asked my students not to wear hats in the class not because of the policy but because it was rude. My students accepted that. The school wasn't really pleased. I'd argued against prescriptive classroom signs that had teachers have to put lists of rules on their walls. Dang. Many read like the Code of Hammurabi or the Ten Commandments. I got the authorities POed when I hung a list of two:

1) Please be polite
2) Don't snore

##########################################

I grew up in a time when we we taught to mind our own business. In a district where if you didn't mind your own business you got a few reminders from folks about yer place in the grand scheme of things, and later in life it was clear that sticking yer face where it didn't belong could gain you a vertical trip down the river. For some reason, government feels it has a right to demand information from me. In some instances it does. In others, it doesn't.

Years ago I was one of the one-in-ten (20?) people chosen to fill out the loooooooooog census form. No problem. EXCEPT, as the census takers were handing me the package I received a brief lecture that went: If you don't answer every question you face possible fines and or incarceration. I handed the package back and said: Please return this to the originators with my best wishes for them to have a nice day and my further wish that they put this package where the sun don't shine. Then I closed the door. Next day the district supervisor knocked. He was polite. "There was a problem yesterday, Mr XXX." "No problem, but if you intend to read me the riot act, spare yourself. I was told I had to fill out this form or I'd be fined or sent to some prison somewhere. First, I'm broke, so fine me all you want. Second, in prison I'd get three meals a day which is more than I'm getting now with the added benefit that someone else would do the cooking."

He smiled and did something the first census takers shout have done. He said, "Mr XXX, would you please fill out this government census form." I replied, "That a threat?" He said no. Whereupon I accepted the forms and did, leaving out answers to three questions, one of them being about religion. I put NBB instead with an asterix where I noted I felt that was nobody's business.

Anyway, some of this is off topic. There are some things that are nobody's business, and just because someone under the guise of authority says it's their business dosen't make it their business unless you allow them to. I hold that truth to be self evident.

IMO

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: open mike
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 01:10 PM

I heard a news report about the local university spying on students via the internet and facebook.

I should think that ther ewould be a difference whether you accessed a computer at your home or at your work..and that even if you were on a coffee break (for instance)you would be able to use the computer at work--the same as if you were at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 01:53 PM

Nope, nope and nope, OM. Just the way it is--and rightfully so. However, if the employer gives the employee permission to do so, then there's no problem.

Spying may be the wrong term to use. Do you recall the kaflooha when kids were given lap tops by their school. The kids could take them home, and many did. Seems the school had arranged for the machines' viewing thingy to remain active. Then some idiot at the school (teacher I think) was watching some kid in his bedroom doing what--we were left to imagine--ya got one guess. Anyway, that was brought up with the kid who raised shit about it, rightfully so. The case seemed to disappear from the media so I never did find out what happened. I will guess it was settled out of court and a sum of money changed hands and the idiot staff member was given one helluva reprimand, all rightfully so. That was spying.

Reading what people write on the internet is just that: reading what people write on the internet. You may own your computer, but you don't own the sites you visit. You own material you write, but often have NO control over the use that materials is put to. imo, ymmv

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 06:26 PM

An employee is always a representative of his company. Bad behavior on the part of an employee, on or off the job, reflects on the company image and and should be disciplined.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 06:32 PM

Complete bollocks. An employee works for his company (and may or may not represent it) when at work. When not at work he or she is free.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 06:45 PM

Not in the teaching profession, Richard.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 06:48 PM

SOme organizations carry the burden of representation into "off time". Boy Scout leaders don't get to keep their jobs for example, if found in gay bars during their own time, for obvious reasons, rightly or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 07:24 PM

Bonnie - you NEED a vacation

Even an "little" one-day vacation - a puddle-jump over the lily-pad in the East Atlantic. Here-and-back all in one day.

Make sure you select a "Window-Seat." Gaze, wonder and be baffeled - as your spy-glass peers into backyards of 20,000,000 peers.

Ummm...what Do YOU wish "they knew" about "them" ... or fear about "You?"

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

circa 1965 ... EAST German citizens with "rotary-dial-phones" would dial a digit and then place a rubber pencil eraser to stop the connection....(BECAUSE - "Bit Brother is Watching You.)

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 07:44 PM

Certain types of schools have certain types of "moral" strictures that carry into one's life, on or off the job. In essence, teachers have no off time. That's for real, btw.

Let a teacher be busted for possession of grass on summer break for example, and that is the end of the teacher's career, period. In a Catholic school system, let a teacher be 'found out' as being homosexual, that's the end of the teacher's career with that system, despite there being no 'rule' against it in Catholicism (for those about to object, the admonition is against acting on that homosexuality, not being homosexual). Let a teacher be found out to be living in sin (read shacked up) and that is the end of the teacher's career with that school system. My purpose is not to argue the rights or wrongs here. It is simply to point out the realpolitik of the situation as it has been and continues to be unto this day.

A school I know about stopped the practice of working at bingo events to raise money because it was felt that less fortunate people were the ones who attended bingo evenings as players and were the ones who could least afford it, and therefore the school(s) would be two-faced to gain from their losses. At the same time, a well-known association (Moose, Elk, Lions, Rotary, KoC, etc) was using money raised by working at casinos to raise money for its pet projects.

Yes, Big Brother IS watching you. My best advice is to watch back, keep a record of it, and when necessary use that information without remorse and without mercy. We have become a society of followers and 'fearers'. It doesn't HAVE to be that way, but read enough slanted news, watch enough vapid TV and--well, look at what we are becoming.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 08:10 PM

I wonder if some of the people who post here have ever held a job with a company or a government.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Sep 11 - 08:18 PM

Ya' ever wonder why seems that everything bad that happens, from the Oklahoma City bombing to the plane going down in the river, there is some camera somewhere catching it???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 03:37 AM

Read my lips - the fact that some (indeed a growing number of) employers improperly invade their employees' private lives does not make the argument from Q any less irrational.

They don't want people, just productive little drones or robots.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: StephenX
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 08:26 AM

Common sense dictates that what Richard states about free time vs company time would be a rational, foregone conclusion.
However, in the real world I was fired from a Fortune 50 top corporation for dating girls who worked at the hotel I was staying. The company says since they were paying for the Hotel, they could determine what was appropriate behavior on my part, on my time.
Sad but true.

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 01:12 PM

The employers who treat people like the6y would like to be treated have higher productivity levels without the need to snoop... It's the exploiters who know they are exploiting that set up a scenario where the employees are not motivated and will produce less... That's just human nature...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 04:06 PM

An employee is not free to damage the reputation of the company or government he/she works for. Reprimand and/or dismissal should be the result.