Federal Judges Take a Stance Against Workplace Monitoring

parvati writes: "The NYTimes is reporting that federal judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (the largest of the 12 regional circuit courts) disabled software on their office computers that monitored downloading of music, streaming video, and pornography--software that had been installed by the Washington-based Administrative Office of the Courts after a survey showed that 3-7% of the judicial computer traffic included streaming video and the like. The judges say that they are concerned about "the propriety and even the legality of monitoring Internet usage." The AOC is not pleased."

Comments

Helloooo!!

[4of12]

My workplace monitors IP traffic left, right and sideways.

My thoughts on the matter...?

Well, lessee, <tap>,<tap> ...areyou listening, OK!

"My employer is in full compliance with all regulations, procedures and the full letter of the law in every regard. All employees are fully educated in management's policies to respect rules governing our corporation. No corporate computer may be used for anything besides corporate business, during corporate business hours, that we all respect constantly. As a matter of fact, my co-workers and I came in 3 hours early this morning because we love our jobs so much and the compensation packages approved by upper management are, well, just darn so good. After work I'll volunteer at a local homeless shelter as long as I'm wearing my corporate logo T-shirt..."

Re:txt done dirt cheap

[sporkraper]

It is a sad world where you can not mirror the site without hiding behind the AC checkbox because you will be mercilessly assaulted as a karma whore.

Being monitored in the workplace..

[Bowie J. Poag]

Being monitored in the workplace isn't so bad..Just ask Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. :)

We needed these guys for the Microsoft trial...

[Curious__George]

Too bad we didn't get a judge with this degree of technical savvy to understand the arguements in the Microsoft anti-trust trial. If they knew enough to disable this software (and what it was really doing) they wouldn't have had much problem figuring out some of the "technical" issues that had to be explained in the case.

Understanding that the browser was NOT an intrinsic part of the operating system, for example would have taken all of 60 seconds.

Curious George

Re:Hurrah, But...

[chegosaurus]

> I can't imagine how some one could post a web page and not expect visitors.

You never worked for a dotcom startup then?

fun and games

[jbarnett]

It is all fun and games till a judge loses his p0rn.