NASA Employee Suspended For Blogging At Work

BobJacobsen writes "FCW has an article about a NASA employee that was suspended for blogging on government time. Seems the unnamed employee's 'politically partisan' blog entries were a violation of the Hatch Act. The article ends with a chilling quote from the government's Special Counsel in the case: 'Today, modern office technology multiplies the opportunities for employees to abuse their positions and — as in this serious case — to be penalized, even removed from their job, with just a few clicks of a mouse.'" Thing is, he was soliciting campaign donations and writing partisan stuff.

Comments

Hatch Act

[Lxy]

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".

Re:Hatch Act

[canUbeleiveIT]

Remind me, while Bush is campaigning and fundraising for McCain, who is paying him to do that?

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.