BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?

Subject: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 01:06 PM

"TSA to Block "Controversial Opinion" on the Web

(Credit: CBS News)

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is blocking certain websites from the federal agency's computers, including halting access by staffers to any Internet pages that contain a "controversial opinion," according to an internal email obtained by CBS News.


The email was sent to all TSA employees from the Office of Information Technology on Friday afternoon.

It states that as of July 1, TSA employees will no longer be allowed to access five categories of websites that have been deemed "inappropriate for government access."

The categories include:


• Chat/Messaging

• Controversial opinion

• Criminal activity

• Extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content

• Gaming


The email does not specify how the TSA will determine if a website expresses a "controversial opinion."

There is also no explanation as to why controversial opinions are being blocked, although the email stated that some of the restricted websites violate the Employee Responsibilities and Conduct policy.

The TSA did not return calls seeking comment by publication time. "

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 01:24 PM

Interestin'

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Arkie
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 01:30 PM

Right and Think. Isn't that an oxymoron?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 02:02 PM

There's no way to tell what the hell they are talkin' about with such a skimpy description. Ugh...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Wesley S
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 02:31 PM

It sounds like the TSA wants their workers to work - not surf the web. If the TSA owns the computers they have the right to determine how they are used. Nothing wrong with that. TSA employees can always check out those websites on their own time.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 03:19 PM

Interestingly, US based computers and services are being used to send frequent death threats to some of the scientists involved in the "Climategate" scandal, and the US powers are doing everything they can to obstruct UK attempts to prevent such threats - citing "freedom of speech". It would be nice if the US came more into line with civilisation on content.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 04:15 PM

OK, I've been informed the thread title should be

"double-plus-ungood-think"


I stand corrected- it has been a few decades since I last read 1984.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 04:19 PM

I am curious as to why you needed to say "Obama's" in the title. Anything to connect any vaguely awkward sounding story to Obama directly, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 04:37 PM

His administration.

I remember when there were comments here about "Bush's TSA" doing things.

So you are trying to set a different set of standards for Obama than you applied to Bush?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: artbrooks
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 04:43 PM

I'm surprised that the list doesn't include porn and social networking.   As WesleyS said, an employer's computers are for doing the employer's business, and that is true if the employer is the Federal government or Taco Bell. The same rules were in effect during the Bush administration, and as far back as the internet has existed...at least in the agency for which I worked (DVA).

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 05:13 PM

I would hope that porn sites are already blocked on those computers. They were on the computers at the office I used to work at. At least thats what the boss said.

So Bruce - are you saying that employees on the job should have access to any websites they wish? Without limitations? What controls should be placed on office computers? Are you trying to say that these limits have something to do with Freedom Of Speech? What ARE you trying to say?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 05:15 PM

I don't recall anyone here complaining about the Bush administration blocking federal employees from dilly-dallying around serfing the web when they were supposed to be, ahhhhh, working??? Might of fact, Bush, as any employer, has the right to keep it's workers from playing around on company time...

Hooray for Obama if it means that our federal emplyees will be doing their jobs rather than playin' on the computer...

But here is the rub... I firmly believe that the Bush administration hired internet shills to act as PR agents for his policies... I mean, to this very day I have my suspisions about a couple folks here as possible Bush plants... Teribus being the most suspect in my book...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 05:19 PM

GUEST,Wesley, he's trying to say that anything that might be seen as wrong or awkward or scandalous is a deep grievous fault of Obama.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 05:26 PM

Some weeks back I was practicing on the guitar and my D string suddenly snapped.

Well within the Obama administration, so can I blame that on Obama? Huh? Can I!??

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 05:38 PM

I'm sorry to hear you D string snapped, Don. I hope you weren't badly hurt. Not playing guitar, I assume that it was elastic and gave you a nasty snap. I remember that back in my grade school days some elastic bands could raise a pretty good sized welt.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 05:42 PM

BB has a real tough time distinguishing between the substantive and the frivolous.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 05:43 PM

The G string is more dangerous.

Met a young woman that way at Cambridge fest in let me see was it 72 or 73?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 06:03 PM

Actually, for non-guitar players, when the G string snaps it's annoying but not dangerous as it is a wound string so there isn't this wild string tryin to do harm...

But back to the thread...

Yes, Don, it was Obama's fault...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 07:33 PM

"So you are trying to set a different set of standards for Obama than you applied to Bush? "

Same tired argument form, hmmm Bruce? You really MUST get beyond 'double standard' as an issue. I asked **YOU** why **YOU** needed to put Obama's name up there.
Anytime *I* refer to Bush's administration, it is to point out specific characteristics which *I* feel indicate problems which exist because they are directly related to Bush's practices.

It seems all you are doing is saying that you 'think' you remember someone making a remark about Bush's TSA, and that therefore YOU are entitled to use that forever as an excuse to use guilt by association to cast aspersions on Obama.

I don't suppose, even after my pointing out this habit for about the umpteenth time, that you even begin to see why it is flawed reasoning.

If you think that **Obama** has any direct connection to this email/memo thing, (whatever it may be about), please explain why and discuss it as such without recourse to vague claims that "the other side" may have, at some point, done 'something' that you think may have been ...ummm... 'unfair'?

IF you saw this egregious transgression at the time, did you point it out to whomever was responsible?

Now....I still have no idea why or whether the memo in TSA was really an issue....

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 07:49 PM

BillD,

If others here had the right "to use guilt by association to cast aspersions on " Bush, with NO comment from you indicating a flawed logic, I fail to see how your comments to me are anything but obvious bigotry against a viewpoint you disagree with.

Pleaase enlighten me how your predjudice is supposed to be fair.


I' waiting....

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 07:51 PM

Employee Internet access on government-owned computers is always a problem. I gather that most private employers don't mind some some employee Internet use for personal purposes, but the
Taxpayers are often far more demanding than private employers - U.S. Government employees are liable to receive complaints from every citizen of the United States, and from some who are not citizens. If you work for the government, you have the feeling that everybody is looking over your shoulder - so, sometimes you have to protect yourself, to ridiculous extremes. As much as possible, I used my own computer for government work, to make it harder for people to accuse me of misusing government computers.
And then managers make up rules to protect themselves, and it gets worse.
But Bruce, I'm betting those rules didn't come from the Obama Administration. They came from some bureaucratic manager trying to second-guess the Obama Administration, so the Administration wouldn't get on his/her case.

Little did he/she expect that beardedbruce would end up hot on the trail....


-Joe-


Richard Bridge complained about "US based computers and services are being used to send frequent death threats" - true, but I'm sure the computers are not owned by the U.S. Government, which has downright Victorian prudishness about employee use of computers.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 07:58 PM

I didn't SAY anyone else had any 'right' to be unfair! If I didn't even SEE the post(s) you refer to, how could I have responded... one way or another?... YOU asserted they did so...tell me where.

And you STILL miss the point that, whether they did or not, it is irrelevant to the issue at hand of TSA, and to why **YOU** felt it necessary to use the same tactics you seem to condemn.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Wesley S
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 07:58 PM

Bruce - In case you missed my questions earlier:

"So Bruce - are you saying that employees on the job should have access to any websites they wish? Without limitations? What controls should be placed on office computers? Are you trying to say that these limits have something to do with Freedom Of Speech? What ARE you trying to say? "

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 08:07 PM

"What ARE you trying to say? " ... *grin*, he's trying to say that he wants very badly to find anything that makes any institution nominally controlled by Democrats look bad.........

(yes, yes, Bruce... I once said something critical of a couple of Republican institutions...thus I have no room to speak.. ☺)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 08:12 PM

I'm at something of a loss to know exactly what the TSA memo means by "controversial opinions" but I can certainly understand their "groping" for a term to express an objectionable misuse of "company computers."

Generally, if an employee wastes time at a porn site, only that employee is wasting time.

When one or two people within an organization frequent "slanted opinion" sites, where the opinions are controversial among a significant portion of those and other workers, the "debates" that inevitably follow are a disturbance to the entire office, and can be much more disruptive than other "diversions."

If those who visit a site don't choose to preach and argue about it in the office then it's NOT a controversial site, if we - the uninformed - a permitted to guess.

My suspicion is that there's been too much "politicking" - and/or "preaching" in (some?) TSA offices, and this reference is just an overly polite(?) way of saying get the debates out to the barroom on your own time.

There are times when one needs to be a bit obscure in order to avoid being brutally blunt. Being too explicit offends (and often identifies) the people whose "attitudes" need "adjusting," neither of which is a particularly productive management effect.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 09:27 PM

During the late 1980s, I worked as a technical writer for a firm under contract to the Bonneville Power Administration (residential weatherization project for energy saving). Twenty-four people in the office, all equipped with company-supplied computers. This was somewhat before the internet, and none of the computers were hooked up or networked.

Some people would load computer games on their (really the company's) computers and spent time screwing around when not being carefully watched. So—

A firm edict was issued from the office manager that "Das ist verboten," as in "Thou shalt NOT!"

Diagram:   A = grindstone. B = nose. Apply B to A and get crackin'! That's what your being paid for!

Sounds to me like a similar situation.

Incidentally, the Bonneville Power Administration is under the Department of Energy, which is a government bureau. And this occurred during the Reagan administration.

Draw your own conclusions (he said, ominously)!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 04:00 PM

Everything that happened under Reagan was bad, particularly the 1986 Amnesty Law.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 04:49 PM

A part played by a bearded bruce character in The Holy Grail:

"See the violence inherent in the system?! HEWLP HELP They're oppressing me!"


IF you were able to see the origins of this TSA memo you would undoubtedly find a mid management beaurocrat who is probably a political appointee hold over who had a sad brainstorm one day and decided to inflict it upon people in the name of security. You know, someone like bearded bruce.

These mid level beaurocrats do such things as advise federal employees against having a small portrait of Obama in any cubicle office because it would be an inflammatory act that would upset the workplace. Meanwhile this guy had pictures of Bush in his office for 8 years. (true story)


Every single time I hear the cry that big goverment is killing American freedom I see corporate powered interests behind it all. In this case it is the net neutrality struggle in which big Corporations hope to give all the big internet arteries to themselves and the little private interloper on the web gets the semi blocked capillaries.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 04:55 PM

"you would undoubtedly find a mid management beaurocrat who is probably a political appointee hold over who had a sad brainstorm one day and decided to inflict it upon people in the name of security. You know, someone like bearded bruce.
"


Call me management and I will have to chastise you severely.

I work for a living.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 04:57 PM

John, indeed we are all at a loss to define what controversial subjects means but you can bet it means the same thing as what family values meant when right wingers insisted that any research conducted by the NIH regarding reproduction must be according to family values.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Wesley S
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 09:29 PM

Bruce - any chance you're going to answer my questions? Or was all of this just an exersize in trolling?

Let me know if you're willing to discuss the issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 02:19 AM

"Or was all of this just an exersize in trolling?


Wesley my friend, I love you like a brother but your last post is confusing to me which is not generally the case with your posts. I am hoping that you actually DO recognize that the ONLY thing BB does is troll. Please tell me you knew that.

Then again, perhaps it is I who is fouled up here. Perhaps if you could recall a thread that was NOT a troll then I would better understand his significant actual contributions here.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 07:24 AM

Spaw - People can change. And I'm hoping that Bruce can overcome his fear of discussing the issues and do something other than cut and paste articles. Maybe I'm too optimistic?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 09:45 AM

Issue: THIS administration has agencies that are producing vague, open ended rules, and many here seem to think that is OK.

I keep seeing the Obama administratiion acting in exactly the same way that the Bush administration did, and yet it seeems that ONLY the Bush administration was worthy of any criticsm for it's actions.

If I didn't know better, I would think that a Black admimnistration was being given special dispensation, since the critics apppear to think that they are less responsible for their actions than Bush was.
But I know that can't be true. Right?




A pity that the bigots here couldn't give Bush the same courtesy.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 10:17 AM

Sorry Wesley.......He's already started a new one and as you can see he's going nowhere on this one except to Whinesville.........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 11:09 AM

I'm hoping that Bruce can overcome his fear of discussing the issues...

Jesus, talk about The Power Of Faith.

And I'm hoping for Universal World Peace, that global warming and the oil slick in the Gulf will magically disappear, and that I wil the hundred-million dollar lottery, all of which, individually and collectively, are a deal more likely.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 11:12 AM

Issue- people here that attack the poster rather than debate the points of the posting.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 12:40 PM

Issue... certain posters create straw men out of any material, then accuse everyone else of not making similar attacks.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: artbrooks
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 12:51 PM

"debate the points of the posting"

What point did the posting have other than (apparently) to claim that an employer's effort to keep the employer's property from being used for private purposes was somehow related to the ethnic background and skin color of the employer's several-times-removed supervisor? That was debunked in about the first two hours after it was originally made.

It would, as almost always, be interesting if the OP would indicate if he agreed or disagreed with the opinions expressed by whatever third party he is quoting. It would also be interesting if the usual suspects could address the issues rather than restrict their comments to ad hominum attacks.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 12:56 PM

I'd love to see Bruce talk about the issues. But he doesn't seem to willing or able to do so.

Maybe he can cut and paste another article that explains how he feels.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 01:18 PM

Jesus, Maria, y Giuseppe!!!

If Barack Obama could heal the sick, raise the dead, and walk on water, BB would complain that Obama is putting doctors out of work, doing the same with morticians and unduly increasing the world's population by interfering with natural attrition, and polluting the world's oceans with his Birkenstocks!

Or if a minor Federal Government civil servant in an obscure office in Mossy Rock, Washington surreptitiously "cuts the cheese," he'd jump all over Obama for allowing government officials in his administration to pollute the atmosphere.

(While, in other threads, he denies that air and water pollution is any kind of problem.)

Piss and moan, piss and moan. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 01:22 PM

"(While, in other threads, he denies that air and water pollution is any kind of problem.)"


Outright lie.


Care to say SOMETHING true?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 01:37 PM

That should be:

"heal the sick, raise the dead, and make the little girls talk outa their heads, I'm the one, I'm the one, the one they call the seventh son...."

( music thread ??? )

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 01:44 PM

Bruce - care to answer any of the questions I've posed several times in this thread or are you just plain scared to attempt it?

Put up or shut up.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 01:56 PM

He has to go get more straw............

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 02:52 PM

Wesley,

"So Bruce - are you saying that employees on the job should have access to any websites they wish? "

NO


"Without limitations?"

NO



" What controls should be placed on office computers? "

Any that the owners wish.




"Are you trying to say that these limits have something to do with Freedom Of Speech? "

NO




"What ARE you trying to say? "

That those here that attack the poster ( rather than the posted points) for posting something are bigots, and have not been fair in treating the posts they agree with the way they attack the posts they do not want to believe.

Obviously, I have shown my point to be true.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 02:56 PM

You have asked for that treatment Bruce. No mistake about that. So enjoy your "point".

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: olddude
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 03:14 PM

Corporations, Schools, and a host of Non Profit organizations block internet sites of all kinds .. At my biggest client you cannot go to an ebay or facebook or twitter and certainly don't try smut surfing ... why ... cause they own the machine and it is for "work" not play ... many also block email such as gmail or yahoo mail.. again it is within their rights and completely legal .. If you want to do that stuff ... do it at home not at work ...

In addition all the big corps that I work with maintain history records of every website their employee's visited .. they do that for legal reasons and for work reason ... right or wrong they also can read any email that comes into their machine ... again that is legal ..

moral ... watch what you do on your work computer

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 03:16 PM

"You have asked for that treatment Bruce. No mistake about that. So enjoy your "point". "

So, when I treat you as YOU have asked to be treated, you will enjoy it??


Let me get that lube ready...

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 03:59 PM

Bruce - If you'll re-read my posts you'll see that all I've asked you to do was explain yourself and discuss the issues. Which you finally got around to - thanks. So your talk about lube is out of line and it doesn't strengthen your position at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama's TSA : Double minus Right-think?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 04:00 PM

"'(While, in other threads, he denies that air and water pollution is any kind of problem.)

"'Outright lie.'"

Sorry, BB. Perhaps I'm confusing you with some other arch-conservative.

But your incessant multi-thread sniping at Obama is tending to beat the hum-drum.

Don Firth