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Apparently you did nothing more than look at the domain. For if you actually LOOKED at the link, you'd see links to the OSC that state she violated the Hatch act. But no, you'd rather shoot the messenger than accept the message. I guess CNN and MSNBC are the only accepted sources for you, though, so keep that mind shut!

What election are they 'interfering' with, exactly, given that it was long over in February? It's incredibly weak to say that any random comment is "election interference." Can you tell me how they were 'on duty' during CPAC? Maybe you can point me to this FCC uniform? Was CPAC held in a government car? You might have to do a little more than just throw out random quotes, especially when you say he's a less restricted employee and then quote a section on the more restricted employees? You do know that there's a FAQ on this stuff at osc.gov, right?

Here's what the Congressional Research Service wrote about the act, too.

Did you confuse the FCC with the FEC or something?

I don't see the part that says to report wrongdoing to journalists. Specifically, this: "However, disclosures of information specifically prohibited by law or required by Executive Order to be kept secret are protected
only when made to an OIG, OSC, or Congress."

It's called the Office of Special Counsel. The Office of Special Counsel provides "a safe conduit for the receipt and evaluation of whistleblower disclosures from federal employees, former employees, and applicants for federal employment."

Copying and pasting from Wikipedia does not all of the sudden make it OK for anyone to just decide that something should not be classified and release it publicly.

there is no official procedure for exposing crimes committed by the government.

Wrong, please refer to the Office of Special Counsel.

If Manning had specific evidence that the US government was suppressing evidence of American soldiers slaughtering civilians, there are proper channels for reporting that information. The Office of Special Counsel provides "a safe conduit for the receipt and evaluation of whistleblower disclosures from federal employees, former employees, and applicants for federal employment." If he gets no resolution from there he could if he wanted to (at great risk to himself) go public with that information. ALL the information must be related to the SPECIFIC issue at hand. Any classified information NOT RELATED to the alleged activity is NOT subject to whistleblower protection.

Unless ALL 100K diplomatic cables were related specifically to the US government suppressing evidence of American soldiers slaughtering civilians, Manning is toast. Manning has no more authority than you do or I do, to just decide something should be declassified, regardless how we feel about it.

Copying and pasting from Wikipedia does not all of the sudden make it OK for anyone to just decide that something should not be classified and release it publicly.

there is no official procedure for exposing crimes committed by the government.

Wrong, please refer to the Office of Special Counsel.

If Manning had specific evidence that the US government was suppressing evidence of American soldiers slaughtering civilians, there are proper channels for reporting that information. The Office of Special Counsel provides "a safe conduit for the receipt and evaluation of whistleblower disclosures from federal employees, former employees, and applicants for federal employment." If he gets no resolution from there he could if he wanted to (at great risk to himself) go public with that information. ALL the information must be related to the SPECIFIC issue at hand. Any classified information NOT RELATED to the alleged activity is NOT subject to whistleblower protection.

Unless ALL 100K diplomatic cables were related specifically to the US government suppressing evidence of American soldiers slaughtering civilians, Manning is toast. Manning has no more authority than you do or I do, to just decide something should be declassified, regardless how we feel about it.

This is yet more evidence that the Hatch Act should be extended to cover government contractors like Lockheed and Boeing.

A quick Google search turned up a number of avenues for filing complaints about how you're treated by the TSA--both official and unofficial.

On the official side, here's the necessary forms for filing a complaint as well as the applicable procedural information.

On the unofficial side, This site looks like they're collecting complaints to create an aggregate report which they will present to the TSA.

So perhaps protesting on the spot isn't the best option. Just take the names and possibly ID numbers of the screeners/manager that you deal with and lodge an official complaint. That way, you're not holding up other travelers and you give the TSA to handle the complaint reasonably. If the screener was being over-zealous or otherwise failing to follow TSA policy, it gives the TSA a chance to discipline and possibly dismiss the screener. It also gives the TSA the chance to change the policy based on feedback from travelers or offer a detailed explanation of exactly why the policy is what it is.

That said, however, if they give either give you an unsatisfactory explanation for the policy or are unresponsive to your complaint, then it is time to protest. The old saying about never attributing to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence is an apt one. We've seen no shortage of instances where our government has acted incompetently, so I see no reason to assume that all this TSA stuff is any different. It seems to me that we should make every effort to cooperatively improve the process since it's likely that the creating and implementing that policy don't really fully understand the problems they're trying to solve and, only when we've determined that the policy is malicious/pernicious, resort to more forceful protests.

Besides, ad-hoc protests on the spot are probably not the most effective. If all you do is protest, by yourself, at the time that you're first effected by the policy, it's easy enough to be completely ignored. Other travelers will be routed through other checkpoints and, despite agreeing with you, probably decide that their travel plans are more important than a show of solidarity.

But if you expend the effort to verify that there is an existing TSA policy that they're unwilling to change that you believe is unreasonable, you can find others that are willing to participate in the protest, buy cheaper tickets which you know you'll never use and coordinate your protests so that everyone gets stopped by the TSA at the same time. If your protest can effectively shut down most of the security checkpoints at a major airport, you will get news coverage and actually have a chance of making a difference.

The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 does list it among the criteria (it is in fact in the very first of the 12 prohibited personnel practices):

Twelve prohibited personnel practices, including reprisal for whistleblowing, are defined by law at  2302(b) of title 5 of the United States Code (U.S.C.). A personnel action (such as an appointment, promotion, reassignment, or suspension) may need to be involved for a prohibited personnel practice to occur. Generally stated,  2302(b) provides that a federal employee authorized to take, direct others to take, recommend or approve any personnel action may not:

(1) discriminate against an employee or applicant based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicapping condition, marital status, or political affiliation;

This is a regulation of HOUSE MEMBERS usage of the Internet - not the general public. Look at the linked letter: http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Capuano_letter.PDF

The AS ASS above thinks that the Dems are manipulating the general public's right to free political speech, he is dead wrong.

The limits are to be placed upon Members of Congress and their staff and merely require that the material is vetted (I approved this ....) and that limitation of the staff's right to engage in political speech is included, too (it already is restricted - See, the Hatch Act, http://www.osc.gov/hatchact.htm ). RTFA.

If this employee was classified as someone who may not engage in partisan political activity,

They weren't. The people on that list are mainly judges, law enforcement, prosecutors, intelligence services and various fairness in government posts ( FEC, civil service overview, etc.).

And even they may "express opinions about candidates and issues". Others, like the NASA employee, can actively "campaign for or against candidates in partisan elections". Both can actively campaign for or against specific laws, be part of political organizations, etc.

That was true until 1993. This site cites amendments. It is now legal for federal civilian employees to engage in political activity as long as it is on their own time (and their own equipment). We are NOT allowed to use government resources, including our time while being paid by the government.

For example, as a civilian DoD employee, I can engage in partisan political activity, protest current administration policies, and speak out on issues dear to my heart as long as I do so on my own time and make it abundantly clear that I do so as a private citizen and not as a representative of my employer.

I may not run in a partisan election.

I may organize a fundraiser but may not personally solicit for political contributions (unless the contributions are for my own, non-partisan candidacy).

I can have whatever bumper stickers I want, even though I park my car on a military base, and I can talk about politics with my co-workers.

The Hatch Act is not as wide a blanket prohibition as it used to be. The Hatch Act reference URL given does not list NASA specifically as an agency On The List.

The closest I could see was...
    Senior Executive Service (career positions described at 5 U.S.C. ? 3132(a)(4))

    Is that the particular inhibition you were thinking of?

    Were you subject to it under the older, wider coverage? Or is NASA simply hidden in plain sight somewhere in that list?

Certainly he should have waited until he got home to write his political blog. But the Hatch Act says that Federal employees may not solicit or receive political contributions, period. Not at work, not at home, not at a rally, not on a street corner, not on a boat, not with a goat, not on a train, not in the rain.

I think the headline here on Slashdot is grossly overstating the "Suspended for Blogging at Work" point to attract eyeballs, and this is causing a lot of people unfamiliar with federal ethics rules to jump on that point. Blogging about your cats while on duty is possibly a breach of your department's IT code of conduct. Your IT department might ask your manager to have a word with you you about it, but it's not an illegal activity that will bring the wrath of the Special Counsel's office down upon you.

The two points that make this a special, punishable offense under the Hatch Act are: (a) engaging in POLITICAL activity while on duty, and (b) soliciting POLITICAL contributions.

If you would have read the linked resource in the parent post that you responded to, you would have known why that isn't a violation of the Hatch Act. This is a list of who cannot participate in partisan activities. You will notice that the president does not fall into that heading. Not to mention that every US President that I can remember has politicked for members of his party, so I don't know why you are singling out ole George.

Since I didn't know about this Act, I searched and found:

This nice writeup. Bottom line is, this guy's a federal employee soliciting funds and pushing a political agenda on work time.

This of course has nothing to do with blogging, as you could replace "blogging" with "making phone calls" or "mailing letters" or "stalking people at the coffee maker".

Don't you remember Alberto Gonzalez and Karl Rove getting into a lot of trouble for this? It isn't just politically embarrassing, it's quite illegal.

It violates 5 USC 2302(b), which applies to all employers, government or not, which the EEOC paraphrases as:

1. discriminate against an employee or applicant based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicapping condition, marital status, or political affiliation;
2. solicit or consider employment recommendations based on factors other than personal knowledge or records of job-related abilities or characteristics;
3. coerce the political activity of any person;
4. deceive or willfully obstruct anyone from competing for employment;
5. influence anyone to withdraw from competition for any position so as to improve or injure the employment prospects of any other person;
6. give an unauthorized preference or advantage to anyone so as to improve or injure the employment prospects of any particular employee or applicant;
7. engage in nepotism (i.e., hire, promote, or advocate the hiring or promotion of relatives);
8. engage in reprisal for whistleblowing...
9. take, fail to take, or threaten to take or fail to take a personnel action against an employee or applicant for exercising an appeal, complaint, or grievance right; testifying for or assisting another in exercising such a right; cooperating with or disclosing information to the Special Counsel or to an Inspector General; or refusing to obey an order that would require the individual to violate a law;
10. discriminate based on personal conduct which is not adverse to the on-the-job performance of an employee, applicant, or others; or
11. take or fail to take, recommend, or approve a personnel action if taking or failing to take such an action would violate a veterans' preference requirement; and
12. take or fail to take a personnel action, if taking or failing to take action would violate any law, rule or regulation implementing or directly concerning merit system principles at 5 U.S.C. 2301.

A U.S. official overseeing a probe of former Bush aide Karl Rove yesterday refused to give federal investigators copies of "personal files" he deleted from his office computer, after it was discovered he hired a private computer-help company to erase all the hard drives belonging to him and two deputies. Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch hired a firm to perform a DoD-wipe, guaranteeing the files could never be restored. Bloch said he suspected his computer was infected by a virus - an unorthodox remedy. The receipt for the work performed makes no mention of a virus. Bloch refuses to turn over other files saved online and claims no documents relevant to any investigation have been purged. "We don't do a seven-level wipe for a virus," said a manager of Geeks on Call - the firm that was hired.

For anyone working for the Federal Government and find themselves in a similar situation, report it to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, Disclosure Unit. This office "...serves as a safe conduit for the receipt and evaluation of whistleblower disclosures from federal employees, former employees and applicants for federal employment."

Ignore all the advice to quit. That may be a viable option for run-of-the-mill civilian jobs, but in federal service there is only one employer. Move to another position, yes, but don't give up a federal career over something so insignificant as this. And no, you are not expected to fall on your sword. You are expected to disclose fraud, waste, and abuse.

"I can say that historically the White House didn't give enough guidance to staff on how to avoid violating the Hatch Act while following the Records Act. We didn't do a good enough job."

Like hell. Anonymity can be a powerful liberator for people to state the truth. Witness such things as the US whistleblower laws. Believing a person involves trying to understand their motives, benefits and liabilities. A statement from an AC may be a better source in some cases, because it may remove benefits and liabilities in an obvious way.

Man, I can't believe I'm reading such drivel from otherwise intelligent people. Maybe you missed it -- it's a government office, not a company/business subject to competition and market forces that will kill it in due time if it's too wasteful!

It's government here -- you know, that thing that produces nothing yet can perpetuate itself by just spending enough to get another 20x-too-big budget the next year, no matter how worthless 80% of the employees are?

Proper channels should have been followed. If his employer was unwilling to take action he should have left it alone.

Hey -- "his employer" is us! (If you live in the US, particularly Alabama.) So, if the (possibly also solitaire-playing usless leech) boss of the boss in question chooses to do nothing we should all just suck it up? What the fuck are you saying, that government isn't accountable to the people, and shouldn't be? No protection should be afforded to whistleblowers who expose the wholesale robbery of everyone?

Wow. Just wow.

To some degree, yes.