Slashdot Mirror
TSA Internally Blocking Websites With 'Controversial Opinions'
sterlingda writes "The Transportation Security Administration 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 new rules came into force on July 1, and prevent TSA employees from accessing such content, though what is deemed 'controversial opinion' is not explained."
The TSA can filter websites from their work computers, just like every other organization in the world with office drones of their own. The fact that they include "controversial" material (as well as gaming and chat sites) doesn't preclude the employees from going home and reading it on their own time on their own computers.
We must not have any disloyalty in the TSA!
Palm trees and 8
A bureaucrat? A czar?
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
Why are you and Cheney keeping Obama (PBUH) from being inaugurated? Oh, how long must we wait??
These people are being restricted from visiting certain websites from their job. These websites are not being stifled. This is something worthy of debate, sure.
But, this concerns me less than what was implied via the headline. Was it intentionally sensational? I know there's a character limit on headlines, but i refuse to believe that "employee access to" would be all that hard to fit.
Nothing really to see.
what is deemed 'controversial opinion' is not explained.
- I'll tell you what it is.
It is ANYTHING at all that somehow differs from the official party (government+big business including military industrial complex) line.
Any of you are following the outcomes of Michael Hastings story about Afghanistan, the story name is The Runaway General and it features opinions of people like Gen. Stanley McChrystal? You know, just the biggest Afghanistan story in US in the past 10 years? The story that questions everything, all of the assumptions the public holds in US and other places about what is happening in Afghanistan? Even a bigger story on the role of military in US politics and who really is in charge?
THAT is a 'controversial opinion', though it is not really an opinion, it is a story based on a bunch of facts. A story, which is written by a rare breed of journalist in USA of today - a real journalist, not a bullshit stenographer. Do you understand why the good general provided all of that information to a reporter? It's NOT because he is not media-savvy, after all in 2003 McChrystal was was selected to deliver nationally televised Pentagon briefings about military operations in Iraq, he IS media savvy.
One thing he learned about media is that when the military says: JUMP, the media JUMPS.
He was totally caught off-guard by an actual reporter, a journalist, who is really doing his job - watching the fuckers and reporting to the public - THAT is their job, not the propaganda bullshit that is fed to the public through the media by politicians, huge businesses and military day to day.
Almost all reporting outlets criticized Haysting for doing what they should have been doing - their fucking job.
So now we see this, TSA is blocking 'controversial opinions'. The President will have his bill and law and methods that will allow him to cut off pieces of the Internet. I fully expect /. to be blocked by TSA there, not that they would read this site anyway.
Land of the FREE, didn't you know? Now Freer than ever.
You can't handle the truth.
So somebody's free speech is being violated because a government agency doesn't want people reading Slashdot when they're supposed to be working? Are you utterly against workplaces trying to get their employees to not browse the web? Or just the government?
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Chem Trails!!!!
We use it where I work and it has those same categories.
The annoying thing is that it blocks on-line betting sites as "gaming" in the same category as "zero punctuation".
to stop the TSA officers watching, but to prevent TSA officers from posting anything "controversial". An unguarded post in a racially charged forum would be damaging.
Nullius in verba
Shame on TSA for leaving "controversial opinion" up to the imagination, but the move itself - especially the rest of it - is not controversial at all. I say "bravo" to taxpayer dollars not paying for somebody at the TSA to surf porn or gamble online all day. Look at it this way: If the TSA did not enforce an acceptable use policy, we would in short order be reading sensationalized stories about gross negligence and waste of taxpayer money. People would be outraged about that, too, and justifiably so.
Attention media outlets regarding your cake: 1. Have it. 2. Eat it. - Choose only one.
...surf anything you want on your own time on your own computer.
TSA agents can read?
I can attest to some of the attitudes by the TSA. I got the dreaded 'SSSS' on my boarding pass once and I had to fly - if I were a terrorist, i would have just walked out, but I guess that never occurred to the TSA or I'm goddamned brilliant and the President should make me the head of the HMS. Anyway, TSA agent orders me into this clear plastic 3 sided booth. What I was in there for I don't know. Now, said booth acts like a big ear. Meaning, every noise in the airport was amplified by that damn thing so I had a hard time hearing and I'm freaking out as to why I'm in this booth. Said TSA agent says something to me and I don't move and make a gesture that I can't hear. She then throws a huge hissy fit and starts screaming at me.
Second thing. In the video, the TSA says that "only" 110,000 people complained about the backscatter x-ray out of the millions that fly. I immediately thought of Catbert in the Dilbert cartoons.
I'm sure any complaints were either ignored and other people are just too scared to complain for fear of retribution from the TSA.
The TSA says there isn't any of that sort of thing, but their credibility isn't all that great..
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
The TSA just implemented some off-the-shelf web filtering proxy product, presumably to try to claw back some productivity from their ill-trained, ill-motivated, and generally unimpressive staff.
That list of bland, boilerplate categories just screams "generic-filterware". I'm not 100% positive which; but it sounds a lot like websense.
Don't get me wrong, the TSA is a boil on the ass of the body politic; but the fact that their cube drones are now being subjected to the same online annoyances as cube drones in thousands of other corporate, educational, and government setups strikes me as a matter of absolutely no relevance to my rights(except in that, if the TSA employees are forced to do less porn surfing, they might get some work done, and their work would probably damage my rights somehow).
The 1st amendment isn't there to protect your right to reading web pages while you're supposed to be working. I'd rather see my tax dollars spent on work, rather than browsing slashdot. You can do that on your own time...
If it's not work-related, they don't need to be going there, same as at my non-governmental job. Lame.
Can still be viewed from home, at the public library, via the hotspot from a 7 dollar-a-coffee shop and so on.
The people in charge of monitoring transportation have better things to do than cruise Free Republic or HuffPo on the tax-payer dime, anyhow.
So somebody's free speech is being violated because a government agency doesn't want people reading Slashdot when they're supposed to be working? Are you utterly against workplaces trying to get their employees to not browse the web? Or just the government?
I'm against a government bureaucrat or czar or whomever subjectively mandating what is 'controversial opinion.'
And why isn't the person (or persons) responsible for this explicitly identified, along with the criteria?
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
No one is preventing people from speaking as they please and publishing their opinions. They're blocking their employees from wasting time at work reading bullshit websites. As TSA employees are Government employees, and are therefor working on your dime, don't you at least want to get your money's worth out of them? Sure, it would probably be better if we didn't have them on the payroll anyway and just did away with the department as it's mostly political eyewash designed to make people feel safer rather than be safer, but that's another story all together. But hey, it's more fun to shout about fascist nazi communist censors, isn't it?
But I bet "work" is where TSA agents access the web the most, if not exclusively. This could seriously create a selective education within the TSA, allowing the agents to believe the exact opposite of what the rest of the population believes. About what? I don't know, but I'm sure we'll find out in 2011-2012.
Asking whether McChrystal was an ineffective military leader in Afghanistan is no different than judging Marshall Sergei Sokolov when he commanded Russian forces there in the 80s. It completely misses the real question: why does anyone think military aggression in the middle east will reduce terrorism?
Michael's site perfectly encapsulates the sheer irony of the war. One needs only a little imagination to extract the following sentiment: "God bless you and our troops in the war against those islamic fascists!" As if a few billion dollars a month worth of destruction in order to force our way of life on the Afghan people isn't fascism...
But I bet "work" is where TSA agents access the web the most, if not exclusively.
What basis do you have for assuming that TSA agents don't have internet at home or smart phones? That seems like an absolutely bizarre assumption.
It's either false dichotomies, or the terrorists win, you decide.
418 Controversial content
The characteristics of the content have been determined to be too controversial.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Is Bruce Scheiner's blog on the blocked list?
This is something worthy of debate, sure.
But, this concerns me less than what was implied via the headline.
Huh? What's implied by the headline "TSA Internally Blocking Websites With 'Controversial Opinions'"? Looking through the discussion, it seems you're essentially manufacturing this confusion, since nobody is actually confused by the headline.
AccountKiller
I'd argue that much of what the TSA does is rather controversial. Are they blocking their own websites?
For example in my country we don't so much have Freedom of Speech but we have Freedom of Information.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
They are blocking them from certain websites and the question is who is making the distinction and based on what?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The point is not about controlling access to controversial opinions, it's about controlling access to things that people tend to waste a lot of time on.
The categories being blocked are:
Chat/Messaging
Controversial opinion
Criminal activity
Extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content
Gaming
I'll take a Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious for $500, Alex.
(The answer is, "They're busy playing around on the web at work.")
That would be "Why hasn't the TSA caught many bad guys," Alex.
As to why CBS felt it needed to focus on the 'controversial opinion' point, it's probably because they thought they'd get more attention going with the censorship slant rather than the wasting-billions-of-dollars-playing-games slant. But once it's in context, the responses probably fall into the 'you mean they haven't yet?' and 'well, DUH!' categories. And as far as 'obtaining an internal email' there's a whole lot of TSABroadcast publically available on the web. It's almost certainly the channel of choice for 'All Employees' traffic such as TFA.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
A 2006 investigation by the Discover America Partnership found that tourism to America had sunk due to “a climate of fear and frustration that is turning away foreign business and leisure travelers from visiting the United States and damaging America’s image abroad.” No less than a third of tourists vowed never to return to America after experiencing the treatment of Homeland Security officials at ports of entry.
Indeed, it's bad enough as a citizen; I can't begin to imagine how it is as a foreigner. On returning from vacation from Montreal (flew as I live in the midwest), I couldn't believe the amount of grief the woman at border patrol was giving me. I'm an American citizen, I'm innocent until proven guilty and I certainly can't be compelled to incriminate myself, so stop treating me like a criminal. Of course, if I were to mention any of that, I'd immediately be further probed, so I was polite and answered her questions. Some beacon-of-freedom country this is, and electing the so-called man and party of change to power hasn't seemed to help.
Anyway, it was bad for me, as an American citizen. I completely understand when friends abroad hesitate to come to the US.
The list in the memo sounds a lot like (although not exactly the same as) Websense categories. My guess is the folks at TSA aren't deciding what "controversial opinion" is, but are delegating that to some company they've contracted their web-filtering to. And my guess is that it would be the category which contains things like websites associated with KKK, Aryan Nation, ALF, and other groups with extreme positions. I could be wrong, of course, but I doubt it's much different than what nearly any major corporation is doing that has signed up for some web-filtering service.
Of course, the credibility of the summary is GREATLY diminished by referencing Alex Jones's conspiracy-mongering website.
Who really cares? Are you rallying against every corporate entity that decides what their employees can view on their work computers? Or is it a different standard because it's a government job?
They're fully within their rights to pick and choose what you can view on their computers.
What basis do you have for assuming that TSA agents don't have internet at home or smart phones?
I assume they are poor, stupid, and they have more free time to surf at work than at home.
So somebody's free speech is being violated because a government agency doesn't want people reading Slashdot when they're supposed to be working? Are you utterly against workplaces trying to get their employees to not browse the web? Or just the government?
As long as they get their job done, who cares what they read, what radio station they listen to, podcasts, whatever. As long as it doesn't interfere with their job. People also have and need breaks. As an employer myself I only block sites that are illegal or can be construed as workplace harassment - like porn, and only tell my employees they can't click through EULAs or pretend to represent the company. Otherwise I recognize they are human beings who exist in a social context, and that context is to a large extent mediated by the net. If you treat people like mindless drones, surprise - that's what you get. Treat your employees like shit and you'll be hiring from the bottom of the talent pool. Of course, the TSA practically wrote the book on that...
Hey TSA ... I got your "controversial opinion" right here!
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
FUCK THE TSA!
I wouldn't fuck 'em with yours.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The editors should've done their job and at least looked at who the article was sourcing,
I had someone pass me a link to an article claiming that President Obama has ties to terrorist organizations. I backtracked the link and found the article came from a white supremacist site (serious loonies ... let's just say that the sky is not blue in their world.) I pointed that out to the person who sent it: they were shocked, and promised to be more vigilant in the future. It does pay to check your sources.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Do sword fights break out over differing opinions at the water cooler or what?
You have to admit it would be pretty cool if they did. The TSA would gain some much needed respect if they publicized that.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
So, you're a total prick?
And let's just say you're right, and everyone who works for TSA is stupid and poor. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but internet access is cheap and easy to get, so cheap and easy that even the poor and stupid are well-represented on the internet. Just check out some YouTube comments and you'll see what I mean.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Don't employees have the right to surf the internet for a couple of minutes per working day? they are human, you know. Not robots. They can't work each minute for 8 hours a day.
Yes, wasting time is part of the work day. Is it so unethical?
In the same light, why companies don't block talking to colleagues and going to the bathroom? it should be that whoever goes to the bathroom more than two times per day should be fired. And whoever takes launch for more than 10 minutes should also be fired.
Would you like that? I don't think so. We are humans, not robot work slaves.
If an employee is proven not to be productive in the long run, then something must be done about him. But banning each and every bit of time wasting? inhuman!!!
I am very much against workplaces trying to get their employees not to browse the web. Just as I am against things such as drug testing. If an employee is being unproductive, it should be pretty damn obvious to their manager and something should/would be done about it; if not, then there should be no problem. How is this not obvious?
When communicating with their servants the government has to be very careful to declare certain political viewpoints controversial.
Before you know you could have a whole department having a particular political leaning, like in the old Soviet block you had to be a member of the party to get on.
Not exactly democratic!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
"and they have more free time to surf at work than at home." The third part carries more weight than the first two. I still know people who won't buy internet access "because I get it free at work". I'm sure the private sector is cracking down on non-productive employees, but government work is government work.
I somehow doubt that was ever actually allowed.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it