WI Capitol Blocks Pro-Union Web Site

ISoldat53 writes "State government workers are unable to connect to a pro-union web site, defendwisconsin.org, from the wifi at the state capitol." Someone probably should let Hillary Clinton know.

Comments

If you are at work

[ColdWetDog]

You're supposed to be working. Not doing political stuff. While it's a dick move, I rather doubt it's a first amendment violation or the end of the world (as is suggested by TFA).

Re:If you are at work

[wjousts]

If it's your union, then it is part of your work.

Re:If you are at work

[Anonymous Coward]

You're supposed to be working. Not doing political stuff.

Strengthening of unions usually happens among people who... wait for it... are on the job together.

Re:If you are at work

[headhot]

Yea, why would legislators want to be able to access what ever information they want on the internet?

Re:If you are at work

[Trepidity]

Governments have somewhat more constraints on treating political viewpoints equally than private employers would, though. So the network admins can probably block all political sites, but if they go out of their way to only block sites of the opposing political party, that might not be permitted. They also can't discipline employees in a viewpoint-discriminatory way, e.g. firing employees who surf to wisdems.org but not wisgop.org, or vice versa.

Re:If you are at work

[RockGrumbler]

Isn't 'politicall stuff' the type of work that should be happening in a capitol building?

Re:If you are at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Selectively censoring a wifi connection paid for by the public and for the use of the public in the Capitol building for the purpose of preventing the public from being able to organize and petition the government isn't a first amendment violation? WTF?

Re:If you are at work

[mathmathrevolution]

He's censored the website because he finds it a political hazard; that's obviously a free speech issue. His behavior is evidently not about worker productivity since: 1) If the State Capitol wanted to increase worker productivity, they would block ESPN, not a pro-labor site. 2) It's perfectly acceptable to surf the web during one's OSHA mandated break. The only reason to block the site is a crude attempt to impede the pro-labor movement.

Re:If you are at work

[Ephemeriis]

You're supposed to be working. Not doing political stuff. While it's a dick move, I rather doubt it's a first amendment violation or the end of the world (as is suggested by TFA).

Unions aren't really "political stuff". Granted, right now they are... But if we were talking about Wal-Mart employees being blocked from viewing a pro-union web page nobody would mention politics.

And unions most certainly are work-related. They're responsible for contract negotiations and all sorts of fun stuff. I certainly hope the folks in HR (at any organization) are able to get to the web pages of whatever unions they have to deal with.

And since censorship is, by definition, suppression of communication by the government... And these are state employees, who therefor work for the government... And their communication was suppressed... It probably does fall under the definition of censorship (unlike all the times that somebody screams about Comcast or AT&T or Apple filtering something).

But, ultimately, it isn't much of a story. There was absolutely no malicious intent. It appears that they simply use a whitelist to filter traffic, and that site was not in the whitelist. It appears to have been added to the whitelist shortly after the problem was reported.

Re:If you are at work

[MrHanky]

"Insightful" doesn't mean "I agree".

Re:If you are at work

[Arccot]

If it's your union, then it is part of your work.

did you mean that if it's your union its your collective bargaining group built to screw employers out of more money than the employees are worth and healthcare purchase group? Cuz then I'd agree with you, BUT I don't see how any of that has anything to do with the mechanics of performing your job.

As opposed to the employers, who want to screw employees and pay them less than they're worth?

Re:If you are at work

[cptdondo]

Before you spout, do your homework. While government jobs are good for people in relatively low-skilled jobs, most government workers are paid less than equivalent civil sector workers. The divergence grows as you get more experience and seniority. Show me one job in the civil sector where you run a department or bureau with 500 employees and make less than $150K.

I'm not especially pro-union, but without unions government workers would be subject to the whim of every politician out there.

Lastly, union activity is typically specifically allowed on government networks provided it is outside of work hours. So it's legal on lunch breaks, before and after work, etc. Union organizers are allowed to use government networks to disseminate information essential to the union members.

Governments also have strict limits on curtailing speech.

So it's a dick move, that violates employer-employee trust, and most likely the first amendment and union agreements.

Re:If you are at work

[john82]

All web sites are blocked by the WI state government firewall the first time they are encountered until they've been cleared as non-offensive (i.e. pr0n). The block was temporary. It was not political. It was not First Amendment relevant. It was a rule in a firewall.

This is slashdot, not Digg, let's try to rational for a change.

Re:If you are at work

[Anonymous Coward]

"...whim of every politician." I can't remember the law but a politician can't fire someone in civil service just because they feel like it or that worker doesn't belong to the same political party. That was outlawed mid-20th century. (Note, though, that doesn't apply to political appointees.)

Also your first statement has to be qualified. A lot depends on where you live. I live in a rural area and govenrment jobs are some of the best paying jobs around especially with the job security that goes with them.

Re:If you are at work

[forand]

This is the State Capitol, a public building where average citizens of the state have business to do. Some of that business could very well be related to a pro-union agenda. If it is a resource only for the employees then it should be secured and rightly regulated. But regulating the websites based on political content by a State executive is basically EXACTLY what the first amendment was intended to prevent. You can fire them for not doing their job but you cannot limit their free speech.

Re:If you are at work

[TheoMurpse]

doubt it's a first amendment violation

If it's the only site they're blocking (or one of a small handful of sites they're blocking), then it is most definitely a First Amendment ("FA") violation. The federal or a state government can only block sites in certain ways.

First off, a pro-union website would be classified as "core political speech," which receives the highest FA protection. In order for this blocking to be upheld, the blocking would have to overcome strict scrutiny analysis. Strict scrutiny analysis is an extremely stringent analysis, and in order to survive such analysis, the policymaker would have to show (1) a compelling government interest; (2) the law is narrowly tailored to that specific interest; and (3) the policy is the least restrictive means for accomplishing that interest.

Given the Wisconsin governor's comments in the past about unions (he's trying to permanently remove collective bargaining rights from the teachers union, e.g.), I suspect there is no compelling government interest aside from a desire to shut unions up. Beyond that, almost no law/policy overcomes strict scrutiny in real life, so it's almost a given that this would be struck down.

Now I suppose this could be a TMP (time, manner, place) restriction, which would only need to withstand intermediate scrutiny. Such scrutiny requires the policymaker to show the policy is (1) content neutral; (2) narrowly tailored; (3) serves a significant governmental interest; and (4) leaves open ample alternative communication channels. This policy would assuredly fail based on its content non-neutrality.

Re:If you are at work

[atriusofbricia]

Before you spout, do your homework. While government jobs are good for people in relatively low-skilled jobs, most government workers are paid less than equivalent civil sector workers. The divergence grows as you get more experience and seniority. Show me one job in the civil sector where you run a department or bureau with 500 employees and make less than $150K.

I'm not especially pro-union, but without unions government workers would be subject to the whim of every politician out there.

Lastly, union activity is typically specifically allowed on government networks provided it is outside of work hours. So it's legal on lunch breaks, before and after work, etc. Union organizers are allowed to use government networks to disseminate information essential to the union members.

Governments also have strict limits on curtailing speech.

So it's a dick move, that violates employer-employee trust, and most likely the first amendment and union agreements.

If you're going to go off on a rant like that, you might want to know what you're talking about. Having worked with such people, on the other side of the civil/private line, I can most certainly say that civil employees are often paid far more than they're worth. Especially when factoring in total compensation packages and not merely "base pay".

Re:If you are at work

[Posting=!Working]

Read the article - the site was up for a while before being blocked. If your firewall has a whitelist that allows anything to be there for days before blocking it and asking if it should be allowed, you need a new firewall.

Re:If you are at work

[piripiri]

Mod parent insightful

Re:If you are at work

[Anonymous Coward]

The wifi connection is labeled "guest". It isn't for state workers. It is for the general public. This is a clear cut first amendment violation.

Re:If you are at work

[wygit]

yah, I saw where the administration aide said that too, and it didn't make any sense then either.
"The Department of Administration blocks all new websites shortly after they are created, until they go through a software approval program that unblocks them."
I call total BS on that one.
The admins must be kept REALLY busy if they're manually whitelisting every new site that comes up in a Google search. Do you have any idea how many "new sites" are created every day?

I don't either.

Re:If you are at work

[DRJlaw]

You're supposed to be working. Not doing political stuff. While it's a dick move, I rather doubt it's a first amendment violation or the end of the world (as is suggested by TFA).

"If you are in the Capitol attempting to access the internet from a free wifi connection labeled "guest," you cannot access the site defendwisconsin.org.Huffinton Post

What if you're not at work, but rather exercising your right to petition your government on your own time? Although the whitelisting issue has discussed in other comments, your assumption that this situation only involed people "at work" so that the blocking of "political stuff" was perfectly OK is deeply flawed. Guest internet access may not be a right, but censoring political content on a government sponsored guest network would still be a first amendment violation.

Re:If you are at work

[garcia]

The divergence grows as you get more experience and seniority. Show me one job in the civil sector where you run a department or bureau with 500 employees and make less than $150K.

How many levels of management/managers exist between a leader overseeing 500 people in the public sector vs that of the private sector?

I think you'd be surprised, especially at lower levels such as city and/or county government at just how many people make more than $100k/year to do a job which is handled by far fewer people in the private sector.

Re:If you are at work

[_0xd0ad]

If it's your union, then it is part of your work.

If you're an official union liaison, maybe.

Re:If you are at work

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

You're supposed to be working. Not doing political stuff.

All while the bosses spend their time surfing for porn?

Productivity-wise, the internet is a double edged sword. We know this to be true. But if the cost of a few minutes of work unrelated political browsing means someone can do a better job with the resources on the world wide web, then it's a good trade off.

Re:If you are at work

[cptdondo]

"most government workers are paid less than equivalent civil sector workers"

Bull. Shit.

Do your own homework. Why let facts get in the way of your lie?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf

Page 1. Look at the plots on page 1. Total comp from State & local is $10/hr more than private or Civilian.

If you actually read that report (ie went beyond the pictures):

Compensation cost levels in state and local government should not be directly compared with levels in
private industry. Differences between these sectors stem from factors such as variation in work
activities and occupational structures. Manufacturing and sales, for example, make up a large part of
private industry work activities but are rare in state and local government. Management, professional,
and administrative support occupations (including teachers) account for two-thirds of the state and local
government workforce, compared with two-fifths of private industry.

Second, according to a recent study at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, education level is higher among government workers than peer private sector, so your comment of "government jobs are good for people in relatively low-skilled jobs" makes me think you're either making everything up or worse, people in government are reaching for jobs not to their ability yet wanting to be paid like they are working to their ability.

Actually it's the opposite. A lot of government workers have education and experience beyond the level required for the job, and while using it aren't getting compensated for it. We get people with masters degrees applying for technician jobs that require an associates or 2 years experience.

Anyway, government jobs are cushy in a recession, and crap in boom times. If government jobs are so well paid and so great, go ahead and apply for one. In a year or so, there will be plenty of openings that no one will want because private sector will pay more.

Re:If you are at work

[Dcnjoe60]

You're supposed to be working. Not doing political stuff. While it's a dick move, I rather doubt it's a first amendment violation or the end of the world (as is suggested by TFA).

Just like people are supposed to be working instead of posting on slashdot about this or any other thing, too.

Re:If you are at work

[Dcnjoe60]

All web sites are blocked by the WI state government firewall the first time they are encountered until they've been cleared as non-offensive (i.e. pr0n). The block was temporary. It was not political. It was not First Amendment relevant. It was a rule in a firewall.

This is slashdot, not Digg, let's try to rational for a change.

Yes, that is what the Governor said, however, the site was up before this and accessed before this, so this blocking had nothing to do with the state's automatically blocking of new sites.

When Egypt took down the internet, wasn't that just a rule in a firewall, too? How a site is blocked does not keep it from being censorship or political or 1st amendment. If somebody wanted to censor political speech on the internet, how else other than a firewall would they do it? And in the case of Wisconsin, why would they redo it after the site was initially blocked and then approved (and then blocked again) if it weren't for censorship?

Re:If you are at work

[Entrope]

Private employers have a profit motive that often puts their interests -- at least as regards salary, working conditions, and the like -- in opposition to their employees' interests. What is the equivalent motive for government? Why does the state so badly want what is bad for its employees?

Re:If you are at work

[Yvanhoe]

But what if doing politics IS your job ?

Re:If you are at work

[corbettw]

It's not the union's website, it's a site favoring a political stance by the union. That's not part of anyone's job.

Re:If you are at work

[Talderas]

You really don't understand content filtering and website blocking.

When you use a whitelist system, every website that isn't whitelisted is blocked. You don't need to go look for a new website. No site is whitelisted until the "program" (personnel) receive the complaint that a website is blocked. It's then assessed and if found appropriate within the rules of the organization it is whitelisted. It's pretty much the basic concept for every content web filter. AT&T does the exact same thing. Every website is initially unclassed. When their content filter team gets a request for reclassification the assess the site and put it into one of the pre-made classifications. Organizations which use the AT&T content filter are allow to choose which classifications of sites that they allow and which ones aren't allowed.

Re:If you are at work

[Batmunk2000]

I can see both sides of this issue. On one hand I am disturbed that a government is blocking a web site but imagine if this was a skinhead rally... few would be debating the wisdom of blocking web access to them or whatever it is they want to use to spread their message. (Facebook, hate sites, etc.) The government can't pick and choose which groups get a protected soap box and which don't... The First Amendment guarantees your right to speak - but does not provide the tools to do the speaking nor the audience. (You have to acquire those yourself). You can write a book but that doesn't mean you have a "right" to a printing press.... you need to buy or make one yourself. Saying government employees can protest against the taxpayer using wi-fi provided by that same taxpayer isn't protected "free speech"... it is yet another entitlement and the root contention of the protest in the first place.

Re:If you are at work

[viking099]

Because the one thing that most people (especially fake people like corporations) have a greater amount of hate for than their love of money is taxes.

Government employees are paid mostly through taxes.

This is why they traditionally are paid lower than the private sector. The public sector traditionally appealed to employees for a variety of reasons, among them:

1) Stability. Your job isn't as prone to market upsets as the private sector.
2) Benefits. Because "the government" is a pretty big employer, they can get great returns on the economies of scale. Pensions and health care benefits are usually the result of this.

The "costs" to the employee are various, including:
1) Lower wages than the private sector. If you do a super job, you might get a pat on the back, but bonuses and/or raises are usually not going to happen.
2) Greater job stagnation. If you want more than the standard cost of living pay increases (which for some places hasn't happened in 5 years), you usually have to change jobs. If you want training, you're usually on your own.

Re:If you are at work

[commodore6502]

So let's see if I understand:

You think the government HAS to provide access to the entire web through its "guest" service, even playboy.com or goatsecx, just because of the first amendment? Really??? - Is government also required to hand-out copies of free newspapers or provide printing presses to everyone who visits? No.

If you read the actual law it says government (specifically the US Congress) shall not prohibit speech, or press, or religion. It says NOTHING about them giving you access to these things - you are responsible to get your Own speech, your own press/internet, and your own religion. By yourself.

Re:If you are at work

[Patch86]

The state has a "profit motive" too. If they can do what they want to do cheaply, they'll have more money to spend. Each department has a motive for paying their employees less, working them harder, skimping on office maintenance, etc.

RE:TFA; in my last job, every single external website was blocked by default EXCEPT for the union site. But as I've posted before, attitudes to union membership seems very different here in the UK to the impression I get of it from the US.

Re:If you are at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see. It is paid for by the public. And since I live in Wisconsin, it is paid for by me. Taxes aren't optional. As far as paying for another service, why should I since I'm paying for this already?

If Fox News wants to set up its own public wifi service and censor union websites, fine. But since the public owns and pays for this service, the government can't censor it. Period.

Re:If you are at work

[commodore6502]

>>>the govt is prohibiting the public's access to it.

No it isn't. The public can access playboy.com or goatsecx or this union site anytime they desire. At home. Or by cellular.

The government is merely Filtering its OWN personal service, because it it didn't, there'd be an uproar that the government allows access to nudity or obscenity over its "guest" service.

Re:If you are at work

[khallow]

Show me one job in the civil sector where you run a department or bureau with 500 employees and make less than $150K.

So what? What does that 500 employee bureau do? In the real world (that is, business world), that group would at the very least be running a business worth tens of millions of dollars and might even be billions of dollars. In the government world, that bureau could have negative value (that is, it destroys value in carrying out its role), in which case, the manager as well as all the employees should be paying rather than receiving money.

Re:If you are at work

[deapbluesea]

If it's the only site they're blocking (or one of a small handful of sites they're blocking), then it is most definitely a First Amendment ("FA") violation. The federal or a state government can only block sites in certain ways.

>

No, it's not a FA violation. The government is under no obligation to provide you access to news, other people's speech, porn, or whatever else you want to get to on the internet. They aren't blocking the protesters from using their cell phones, air cards, or whatever other access they can provide for themselves. You are arguing that the constitution requires the government to provide unfettered internet access to its citizens. That is simply wrong. The government can't restrict access by, say taking down a legal web site (something the current President seems to have no problem doing BTW), but they sure as hell can block access to whatever they want on their own networks. If you want to go surf porn, get your own damn connection.

Let's take another example. The DoD at one time mandated that all TVs in public waiting areas be playing CNN. Is that a violation of the FA? What about those people who want to watch MSNBC while waiting? Is that government censorship too? By your argument, it appears to be since the government is providing for information dissemination while disallowing other information sources.

Re:If you are at work

[GooberToo]

You think the government HAS to provide access to the entire web through its "guest" service

So the government censoring your content is okay just because its available to the public? So anything the government provides to you, as part of the public, should or can be censored? At what point to you expect uncensored information?

I'm not real sure on the legality but it sure seems to well past the line.

Re:If you are at work

[zeroshade]

Please explain how the government providing access to the internet but prohibiting accessing only these specific sites is not prohibiting speech.

Please also explain how prohibiting the public from accessing the speech is not the same as prohibiting the speech itself.

I think you can do this in less than a 500 word essay, I expect it by the end of the week. Good luck!

Re:If you are at work

[RussellSHarris]

That's not called "screwing employees", it's called "being profitable". If you're paying your employees more than they're producing, you won't be able to afford to keep them on payroll for long.

"Laid off" is code for "worth less than he was making". It's also a good indication that you should probably reconsider your "worth".

Re:If you are at work

[truk138]

17 dollars.. .oh wait

Re:If you are at work

[BitZtream]

As opposed to the employers, who want to screw employees and pay them less than they're worth?

Really? Thats not the way the free market works. They aren't worth what they think they are, thats the reality of it, and China has shown they are happy to provide manpower at a rate thats appropriate for the supply.

Its only in 'enlightened civilized' countries were workers suddenly start thinking the laws of economics don't apply to them.

Re:If you are at work

[TheoMurpse]

No, it's not a FA violation. The government is under no obligation to provide you access to news, other people's speech, porn, or whatever else you want to get to on the internet.

Yes, if they are blocking only certain sites that contain certain types of protected political speech, it is 100%, unequivocally, irrefutably a FA violation. Now, reading further down the page I discovered this was just a generic whitelist thing, so it's not a violation. But if the governor said to his IT guys "block this union's website on capitol grounds," then it is a FA violation, and no one who has even a rudimentary understanding of First Amendment jurisprudence would argue otherwise.
The government could block all websites, all websites unrelated to work, all websites that are obscene, etc., but they cannot block "all websites that are pro-union" or "this specific pro-union site." That would be a FA violation.

Re:If you are at work

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably the same person that bitches that people at the DMV are clueless and incompetent. You get what you pay for.

Re:If you are at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand what you are arguing?

You are saying that the government has a right to censor a service paid for by taxes.

This same logic would allow Democrat controlled states to censor Republican websites on taxpayer funded wifi services. It would also allow the government to censor books in libraries and schools since "You can get access to the 'speech' and the government doesn't care, but they aren't going to provide it too you."

Re:If you are at work

[BitZtream]

lot of government workers have education and experience beyond the level required for the job, and while using it aren't getting compensated for it. We get people with masters degrees applying for technician jobs that require an associates or 2 years experience.

No shit? So people who could get 'better jobs' are instead taking 'lower paying' jobs in the government ... sounds to me like they just have a better perspective of the benefits of a government job.

Re:If you are at work

[Americano]

Yes, that is what the Governor said, however, the site was up before this and accessed before this

Was it accessed before this on the capitol's guest network? Or was it accessed 'before this' via the local Starbuck's free wifi or similar, or somebody's MiFi?

Also worth noting is the tweet they posted earlier today: "Our site is down due to server migration. Will be back up shortly." Possible that somebody updated a DNS entry in the past day or two, resulting in the site being pushed off the whitelist? Perhaps.

I agree with the point that this site shouldn't have been blocked for political reasons, but the data we have so far falls far short of making the case that that's what actually happened. All we have is a screen shot of a Chrome error page, and a lot of rhetoric. And, the site was added to the whitelist and access restored quickly - if they were going to block it intentionally, I find it hard to believe they'd reverse the block so quickly at the first sign of an outcry. From the moment they decided to block it, they had to have expected it would cause a shit storm if people noticed, and the quick correction gains them nothing - they take the hit for being "censors," and they gain nothing from the block - it's a net-negative, politically speaking.

Re:If you are at work

[overlordofmu]

By employers, do you mean rich executives with multi-million dollar homes, vacation homes, more cars that I have digits and really big boats?

You are right! Those good old boys work damn hard for their exteme wealth. How dare we, the relatively weak, the relatively poor, organize to make sure the wealthy do not divide us and exploit us.

I mean it isn't like there is a history of employers abusing workers in the USA.

No one dies from workplace poisoning : http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Chips-Cause-Leukemia.htm
Consumers in the USA wouldn't buy a product from a company that assfucks the people that make their gadget: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/22/chinese-workers-apple-nhexane-poisoning
Big business in the USA is good to its employees: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/06/11/100060613/index.htm

Good god-damn, do not get me started about 19th and 20th century abuses world wide. The industrial revolution has been a violent battle ground for the poor trying to make a living in a world owned by a minority. The minorty holds the vast bulk of the wealth while the majority pays rent to them just to have a place to sleep without being arrested for loitering.

Remind me again why you are kissing the ass of the rich?

I remember. You think you will get a big pile of money by cheerleading capitalism. Here is a interesting idea; let me know what you think:
Insteading designing economic systems built on the idea of unending growth (despite the limited nature of Earth) where the money forms pools around corporations and big pools have leverage to control smaller pools, what if instead we designed economic systems that ecourage money to flow and spread to areas where it best supported society as a whole and not indivials. What if the natural tendency of money was to diffuse and not to coalesce? But you believe this is impossible don't you? You have been taught to attack this concept as naive, haven't you?


But, if I have you pegged right, you are the kind of guy that really wants a shiny car and a big house you can only use 1/4 of even when your whole family is home. Right and wrong don't matter because your are from the USA and everyone there knows unchecked capitalism is good for everyone. And you cannot get that sort of extreme wealth without someboy else doing shit work (assembling your iPhone) being paid next to nothing so your company (like Apple) can see the profit. See how that works? They work hard, and die for you. Fuck yes! That rocks for you. You pay them shit and all the profit is yours. You don't get rich paying workers a living wage, now do you? Fuck the little guy! You need a BIG car, and a BIG house. And as the poor guy in on the other side of the planet you don't even need to see the poverty that helps to fill your wallet because he is in China. WIN-WIN!

Now tell me: Do you own an iPhone?

Re:If you are at work

[npsimons]

All web sites are blocked by the WI state government firewall the first time they are encountered until they've been cleared as non-offensive (i.e. pr0n). The block was temporary. It was not political. It was not First Amendment relevant. It was a rule in a firewall.

Just for reference, when they put the firewall in place for NMCI (a DoD IT contractor) a few years back, they were blocking slashdot. And yes, I'm posting this from work; I was one of many who told them slashdot is work related (because it is) and got it unblocked. Don't attribute to malice what can easily be explained by CYA tactics.

Re:If you are at work

[mvdwege]

How about next time you actually read before jerking your knee? Grandparent addressed that in his last paragraph.

Idiot.

Mart

Re:If you are at work

[BitZtream]

Thats as stupid of an argument as saying its a first amendment violation because they won't let you walk in the door and call 900 numbers for porn on their phones, but they would let you call a local number for a cab.

Your entire post is deeply flawed. The government has no responsibility to provide equal access to the Internet for you, you have the responsibility to get it on your own if you want it, somewhere else.

Re:If you are at work

[Hutz]

It's a site set-up to support protesters. It is illegal to use government resources for organizing - so no it is not part of your work.

But on a realism note, unrated sites are blocked by content filters - then you program them to allow the traffic when someone asks or the site gets rated.

AND -- the first amendment does not include a right to Free wi-fi. They didn't censor the site - they just didn't give free access to it.

Re:If you are at work

[MozeeToby]

In this particular case the union has agreed to an effective pay cut of 9%, they've also (unofficially) agreed to suspend collective bargaining for 2 years to give local governments a chance to get their budgets straightened out. In return for those concessions, governor Walker has given back... nothing. Not one thing. He trumpets the same old lines over and over again regardless of how much the pro-union groups give in and has shown no willingness to compromise. Saturday there were 70,000 people at the capitol in Madison, that's 1.2% of the population of the entire state. People are pissed, and the republicans are committing political suicide if they don't start to move towards an agreement that actually makes sense, rather than an agreement which neuters the unions, which so far seems to be the only real goal to this piece of legislation.

Re:If you are at work

[Hydian]

Other than the same people arguing in favor of this, who would be arguing in favor of the government blocking a website related to a skinhead rally? Freedom of speech is freedom of speech and must be protected, especially when it is speech that you don't like.

And this isn't a question of having a right to the tools. They have the tools and have already used them. The government, for their part, has used their tools to actively curtail said speech. That is what is guaranteed...that the government will not attempt to curtail your freedom of speech.

Your claim that the protests are not free speech is laughable. Agree or don't, but they have the right to protest what they feel is unfair treatment in having their bargaining rights taken away. They aren't using the government's wi-fi to do it. Taxpayers are using the wi-fi to reach the internet and finding that it is censored for (presumably) political reasons.

Re:If you are at work

[tsm_sf]

The government is merely Filtering its OWN personal service

Not entirely clear on the concept of our government, are you?

Re:If you are at work

[ubrgeek]

Actually, at least for federal employees, there's a "limited-personal use" allowance for surfing the Web. The limitations are no gambling sites, no porn and no so sites that are for running your own business (so technically you can go to eBay to check on an auction on which you're bidding but not one where you're selling something) and doing so during your break. That said, I haven't seen the WI employee handbook to know if that's the same for them. My question is, and I'm sure I'm misunderstanding something, but why is this a First Amendment right? They're free to say what they want, so they're 1st Amendment right isn't being curtailed. They're allowance to see someone else (or another group) exercise _their_ 1st Amendment is the issue.

Re:If you are at work

[FatAlb3rt]

It's perfectly acceptable to surf the web during one's OSHA mandated break.

The government can set up acceptable terms of use of government equipment. Censoring websites gets into a bit grayer area, but using government resources for your personal entertainment purposes (read: surfing) falls outside the scope of acceptable use much easier.

Re:If you are at work

[dwillden]

So the Governor is personally handling IT management at the capitol? Or is it merely a case of standard whitelisting policies as implemented by a software firewall ap?

There are many sites that I cannot get to at work that make no sense, Often they are not intentionally blocked, just caught and blocked by not being on the webfilter's whitelist.

Re:If you are at work

[Talderas]

A completely reasonable assumption given that the domain was only registered on February 14th. That says nothing of when a website was up and running, which the only confirmation we have of that is that it was running on February 21st when it was reported blocked.

Re:If you are at work

[Toth]

Our company (In Canada) uses Websense for web filtering
Content blocked by your organization
Reason:
This Websense category is filtered: Advocacy Groups.
URL:
http://www.defendwisconsin.org/

A lot of folks use third party web filtering services like websense. Websense also places www.rightwingnews.com in the same category.

If one of our users "Needed" to access that site they would open a call with support who would unblock it.

Cisco, Trend, Symantec and others would operate similarly.

Re:If you are at work

[Solandri]

did you mean that if it's your union its your collective bargaining group built to screw employers out of more money than the employees are worth and healthcare purchase group? Cuz then I'd agree with you, BUT I don't see how any of that has anything to do with the mechanics of performing your job.

As opposed to the employers, who want to screw employees and pay them less than they're worth?

Every employee is paid less than they think they're worth.
Every employer pays more than they think their employees are worth.

Where the two meet in the middle is called the fair market price. The problem with being fair is that neither the employer nor employee is happy about it. In other words, when one side is happy with an agreement, that's a pretty good indication that it's unfair in their favor. So unions and employers squabbling is not news. It's when they're not squabbling that there's probably something fishy or underhanded is going on.

Re:If you are at work

[Dcnjoe60]

Yes, that is what the Governor said, however, the site was up before this and accessed before this

Was it accessed before this on the capitol's guest network? Or was it accessed 'before this' via the local Starbuck's free wifi or similar, or somebody's MiFi?

Also worth noting is the tweet they posted earlier today: "Our site is down due to server migration. Will be back up shortly." Possible that somebody updated a DNS entry in the past day or two, resulting in the site being pushed off the whitelist? Perhaps.

I agree with the point that this site shouldn't have been blocked for political reasons, but the data we have so far falls far short of making the case that that's what actually happened. All we have is a screen shot of a Chrome error page, and a lot of rhetoric. And, the site was added to the whitelist and access restored quickly - if they were going to block it intentionally, I find it hard to believe they'd reverse the block so quickly at the first sign of an outcry. From the moment they decided to block it, they had to have expected it would cause a shit storm if people noticed, and the quick correction gains them nothing - they take the hit for being "censors," and they gain nothing from the block - it's a net-negative, politically speaking.

Per their own IT staff, as reported elsewhere, the site was already up and accessed in the Capitol complex, before it was taken down for the second time. Said staff member, speaking anonymously, would not comment on why it was taken down the second time. He did state that it went through the normal blocking/release of any website caught by their firewall system.

The implication is that the site was originally found not to violate the State's acceptable use policy and was allowed through the firewall. However, after the firestorm regarding the unions erupted, a decision was made to block the site. Then when there was a public outcry, the explanation was given that it was automatically done as is all sites. But, their own records show otherwise.

Re:If you are at work

[Unkyjar]

So do you think that what happened to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was dumb people who thought the laws of economics didn't apply to them?

Re:If you are at work

[blue trane]

Their work is doing political stuff.

Re:If you are at work

[blue trane]

Govt is ppl. If we don't like what they're doing, they change. We don't like that they're filtering political web sites!

Re:If you are at work

[bjk002]

If the laws of economics are not in line with the "enlightened civilized" workers, then I would suggest that perhaps it is THOSE laws that require an adjustment.

Otherwise what? We revert to serfdom? No thanks. Been there, done that, and I for one am never going back.

Re:If you are at work

[bjk002]

I wonder by what entity/mechanism the laws you refer to that protect the workers from these abuses were able to come about? Hmmm... perhaps there exists a point in here somewhere?

Re:If you are at work

[Moryath]

They work in the state capital.

By definition, the work they do is "political stuff."

This is an attempt at union suppression, the same as if that dickfaced Koch-brother stooge Scott Walker tried to ban state employees from discussing union issues in the hallway.

Re:If you are at work

[Malc]

Interesting topical article over at The Economist that's basically saying the public sector workers earn less when they have a degree (e.g. District Attorney vs. corp. lawyer). Workers without degrees earn more (e.g. janitor at the District Attorney's office earns more than a janitor at a private law firm, unless the city has outsourced the work).

They've also been running articles for a while now explaining that people with public pensions are screwed. The States have been allowed to get away with bad accounting or rather far too lenient forecasting and so there's a huge pension liability So maybe public worker's lower wages won't be compensated for by better pensions.

Re:If you are at work

[blue trane]

The laws of economics are purely psychological, because money doesn't exist in nature. Economics is not a science; predictions of doom and gloom because of the debt have been consistently disproven since Alexander Hamilton's doctrine of assumption assumed the states' war debts at the very founding of the country.

Re:If you are at work

[blue trane]

Yeah, because if you have to vote on laws you shouldn't see what all sides have to say.

Re:If you are at work

[Batmunk2000]

I never claimed the protests are not free speech. By themselves they are. But saying the protest has a right to make use of a taxpayer wi-fi system as part of the protest is the area of contention. The system exists because of the efforts of people who believe both sides of the issue I'm sure. It is unfair to block it to the protesters as much as it is unfair to force the other side to fund their access. I think the government is wrong in blocking the site but I think it is also wrong to force ALL WI taxpayers to aid in the protest in any way. The wi-fi either needs to be open for everything or shut down completely. There needs to be a steadfast policy here for all users. There is no fair way to "regulate" the speech it gives access to. There will always be an oppressed minority... no matter what the issue.

Re:If you are at work

[228e2]

I dont care to cite websites, as people have told you to look at the very own you mentioned, but i'll add this.

As an employee of a TLA in the DC area, I can assure you that I make about 20k less than if I worked for a contractor. My roommate who works for SAIC, who is 2 years younger, with 3 years less experience and no masters confirms this with his paycheck. His benefits suck compared to mine, and I get a lot more leave and flexibility, but there is a reason I am renting a room in a 25 year old's condo. They make the money, govies dont.

Re:If you are at work

[BlackSnake112]

The access was restored after 30 minutes or so. It says so in the article. It also says this was a new website. The system there is set to block all new websites until they are checked out. It doesn't matter what the web site is. A government system that is trying to be somewhat responsible is wrong? If government web service was wide open to all sites, people would be complaining that the government web access allows kids to get porn or other things parents do not want their kids to see.

Re:If you are at work

[wjousts]

Exactly this^

Walker has tried to frame this as a budget issue, but the union have agreed to give him absolutely everything he wants in terms of pay and benefit cuts. Cutting off the union's right to collective bargaining doesn't save 1 cent. It's just a cynical attempt to undermine the workers.

Re:If you are at work

[cmiller173]

Did you really just say that? You understand that in this context "laws" is used like natural laws like the law of gravity? Not laws as in something decided on by a group of people. "Laws" of economics are observations about the world and how it works not laws like those passed by a government. If you try to make "laws" that meddle with economic "laws" then what generally happens is resources get allocated MORE inefficiently rather than less. See also the "law" of unintended consequences.

Re:If you are at work

[commodore6502]

>>>The purpose of forbidding access to a political website to the public

They are not forbidding access to "the public". They are forbidding access *inside the government building*. Jeez.

Re:If you are at work

[blue trane]

What economic laws are operating in Japan, which holds some $900 billion of US foreign debt (second only to China by a small percentage), which came up with hybrids during their so-called "lost decade", and which has a 200% debt-to-gdp ratio?

The problem is that externalities are far more important than economists admit. Like dark energy and dark matter make up some 96% of the universe...

In conclusion, when "the laws of economics" are used to justify causing needless suffering, take it with a grain of salt.

Re:If you are at work

[Americano]

However, after the firestorm regarding the unions erupted, a decision was made to block the site.

This is what makes me skeptical of the entire thing: no politician smart enough to get elected (admittedly a low bar) is that stupid. "We're in the middle of a political firestorm, let's break out the gasoline." If it was an attempt to "silence critics," there are other sites that would likely be blocked as well.

Given that the site was launched last Friday, and their own tweet overnight about moving to a new server causing an overnight outage... I'm inclined to believe this is a case of a normal technical glitch being inflamed by rhetoric and paranoia on both sides.

As I said, I absolutely agree that the governor is in the wrong if he did intentionally block this, and I'm sure he'll already have to deal with a lawsuit or two as a result of it - he can defend himself against charges of violating first amendment rights there, and I'm sure he will need to. But I'm just not seeing the hand of some nefarious censorship effort in this.

Re:If you are at work

[toriver]

That would make sense as an argument if they had a filter that blocked any non-work-related site, e.g. YouTube or whatever, and this happened to be one more of them.

If it is just this site then it is very close to censorship.

Re:If you are at work

[trollertron3000]

Man I tried to rational but I ended up divided.

Re:If you are at work

[TheSync]

"When Egypt took down the internet, wasn't that just a rule in a firewall, too?"

No, it was the Egyptian ISPs withdrawing their BGP routes under threats from the Mubarak government.

Re:If you are at work

[Schadrach]

So you are saying that the government is entitled to ban any books they desire from public libraries at a whim? After all, if they aren't barring the book from being sold whatsoever, then reader can supply their own access to the book in question, right?

Re:If you are at work

[gerddie]

I suggest you read this.

Rather than base itself on a study of reality and the generalization of theory based on the data gathered, economics has almost always been based on generating theories rooted on whatever assumptions were required to make the theory work. Empirical confirmation, if it happens at all, is usually done decades later and if the facts contradict the economics, so much the worse for the facts.

And they prove it.

Re:If you are at work

[SETIGuy]

I certainly hope the Wisconsin government isn't stupid enough to let their employees use an unsecured network with the SSID "public" for state business. It does, however, sound like a great opportunity for identity thieves if they do.

Of course they don't. This is just another example of a government preventing access to political speech that they don't agree with. If some state capitol, say California, blocked access to tea party and libertarian sites on the Capitol public wifi, you'd be OK with that?

Re:If you are at work

[spun]

But "We, the people" ARE the government. If the government sets up a public service, that service needs to adhere to stated policies. The service should not be a plaything of public officials. Not providing access to playboy.com because there is a policy not to show porn is one thing, and certainly not real censorship, but the government should never block specific sites for political reasons, unless those reasons are stated in policy, for instance, most people would accept blocking access to sites promoting terrorism or showing people how to produce ricin or anthrax.

But this public Internet service is not the government's plaything to do as they please, we are their employers and their customers, and anything they do, they do for us, with our consent. A least, that is how government SHOULD work. Public servant does not mean public master.

It seems as though you are letting ideology cloud your views. You do not like unions, and you are probably a republican, or libertarian, or tea party member or hold some other right wing affiliation and I'm sure if I bothered to look, your comment history would bear this out. That is fine. What is not fine, is accepting this sort of behavior because you want a certain outcome. This is a democracy, and your favorites will not be in power forever. Do you want this as a precedent when Democrats control things?

Because, based on your logic, it would be perfectly fair for a democratic governor to limit access to, say, Fox News. You would not be able to argue coherently against that, without making yourself appear to be an utter hypocrite.

Re:If you are at work

[SETIGuy]

If it were the official state government network connection that was being censored, that would be far worse! The people who work in and around the capitol are not representatives of the state government, they are representatives of the people that elected them. As such, they should have the right to access anything that they need to do their jobs. And since they regulate pornography, that might even require access to pornography. Maybe even illegal pornography. Few people need uncensored access to the internet more than elected representatives do.

You've been yelling so loud about infringement on your freedoms that you've forgotten what freedom is and what is necessary to protect it.

Re:If you are at work

[SETIGuy]

And if the federal government prohibited access to right wing sites inside all federal buildings, you'd be fine with that. Let's do it.

Re:If you are at work

[khallow]

In return for those concessions, governor Walker has given back... nothing. Not one thing.

Why should he? Public unions are a big part of the reason the state (as many others) has problems. Reducing the power of public unions won't necessarily solve the current budget problems, but it will help reduce the occurrence of future budget problems.

Re:If you are at work

[dcollins]

TFA doesn't say anything about state government workers. The Wisconsin Capitol houses the State Legislature and the State Supreme Court. Of course their job is inherently political, and moreover, deserves full access to information.

Re:If you are at work

[SETIGuy]

Government employees are paid mostly through taxes.

This is why they traditionally are paid lower than the private sector.

Say WHAT!?!? Paid *lower*!?!?

You'd better check your facts. On average, government workers...particularly those in public sector unions...are paid far, far better and get far, far better benefits than those doing equivalent work in the private sector.

His facts are right. Your facts are not facts. For equivalent education and experience, and including benefits, public sector workers receive significantly less compensation (5 percent at the low end of the salary scale to 20 percent or more at the high end) than their private sector counterparts.

The way the Fox News folks get their "public sector workers make more" number is by ignoring education and experience, and by comparing the average government worker (a school teacher) with the average private sector worker (somewhere between a waiter/waitress/bartender and a janitor). The comparison goes even farther Fox's way when they throw in the unemployed as "private sector workers".

Re:If you are at work

[dcollins]

Total bullshit. I don't believe that for a second. (a) The site was up prior to be blocked. (b) Per governor's spokesman Cullen Werwie: ""The Department of Administration blocks all new websites shortly after they are created, until they go through a software approval program that unblocks them." Really? Does that sound even remotely technically feasible?

Re:If you are at work

[number11]

The access was restored after 30 minutes or so. It says so in the article. It also says this was a new website. The system there is set to block all new websites until they are checked out. It doesn't matter what the web site is.

Yes, access was enabled, right after the shit hit the fan in national media. But I'm sure that was merely a coincidence.

You're saying that every single website that hasn't already been checked, has to be "checked out" by a government employee before granting access? For all the gazillions of constantly changing websites on the web, all around the world? If that is the case, they must have a large department of "checkers" who spend their long days doing nothing but vetting websites.

And the Governor wants to lay off workers who aren't necessary? Wow, there's the ones to start with.

Re:If you are at work

[khallow]

but the union have agreed to give him absolutely everything he wants in terms of pay and benefit cuts.

The unions have yet to agree to reduce their power to negotiate. So they haven't given him "absolutely everything" he wants in terms of pay and benefit cuts. He's not just looking for budget cuts this fiscal year, but the long term fiscal health of Wisconsin as well. Public unions are incompatible with that.

The main problem is regulatory capture. The government officials who supposedly negotiate terms with the public union can instead become owned by them. In return, public unions can funnel considerable sums of money to the politicians they own. For example, the mayor of Madison, Wisconsin has abandoned any pretense of representing the people of Madison.

âoeWe are marching together in unity,â Cieslewicz said. âoeThis shows what can happen when the executive and the legislative branches of government work together with both union and non-union employees to protect their rights and benefits. This is the tradition of collective bargaining in Wisconsin.â

Where did the tradition of representative government go?

As long as public unions can maintain this cozy relationship with public officials, you'll have a dynamic to increase the flow of public funds to public unions and their members at the expense of the public. In the private world, this is balanced by the different interests of the business owners and the fact that the business goes bankrupt if the union demands too much.

I have yet to hear of an alternative aside from removing public unions from being able to negotiate terms of employment, that can permanently break this dynamic.

Re:If you are at work

[sp0tter]

Looks like you don't understand the article. According to Posting=!Working's post, the site WAS white listed.

Re:If you are at work

[SETIGuy]

The "laws" of economics are stories about human behaviour and not so much laws as generalities, imprinted on the brains of humans. They are subject to change as the psychology of the general populace changes. Enough change, and they will collapse. Unfortunately, some people have enshrined past understanding of economics into law and continue to do so. Maybe that's good, because our current economic systems probably couldn't exist if too many people understood what money is. Maybe it's bad, because misunderstanding the economy can cause really serious problems.

Re:If you are at work

[Bowling Moses]

To add onto this point state workers in Wisconsin have had two years of furloughs already, amounting to a 3% pay cut. This is after the state government reneged on a 3% pay raise, the first such raise in years, and state workers before these cuts received on average 4% less in total compensation than those privately employed according to the Economic Policy Institute. Now despite everything, the unions are agreeing to the proposed pay cuts. Governor Walker doesn't have a leg to stand on. Worse for him is that people are paying attention to his actions now and this will hurt his planned fire-sale of state-owned properties in no-bid contracts as described in the Budget Repair Bill.

Re:If you are at work

[moortak]

You really don't think politicians are that stupid? Really?

Re:If you are at work

[moortak]

They don't have a requirement to provide a platform, but they have a clear requirement not to restrict platforms they offer based on viewpoints.

Re:If you are at work

[sthomas]

The Democrats have crudely blocked the legislative process. The protesters have crudely blocked the Capitol's facilities. Although I don't believe this was an intentional attempt by the Republicans to block access to information, if it was I wouldn't be all that upset given the actions by the opposition. I find it interesting how selective people can be when it comes to what's fair in a conflict.

Re:If you are at work

[Americano]

I think the self-preservation instinct is very strong in politicians. I think anybody with 2 brain cells can see that "selectively blocking a single site that happens to be supportive of your opponents" is going to just throw gasoline on the fire.

What I said, "No politician smart enough to get elected (admittedly a low bar) is that stupid," is not exactly a resounding endorsement of the intelligence of politicians.

Re:If you are at work

[kheldan]

Sure, and if their bastard governor hadn't threatened them all with the National Guard if they went on strike, it might have gone unnoticed and uncommented-on.

Re:If you are at work

[SETIGuy]

The story of the Wisconsin pension system....

Many years teachers ago contibuted 6% of salary to the pension system and the state contributed another 6%. The state said, we can't afford to give you a raise this year, but we'll reduce your pension contribution to 4% and we'll pay 8%. A couple years later the state said we can't afford to give you a raise this year, but we'll reduce your pension contribution to 2% and we'll pay 10%. A couple years later the state said we can't afford to give you a raise this year, but we'll reduce your pension contribution to 0% and we'll pay 12%. A couple years later the state lost a lot of pension money through bad and fraudulent investments, but nobody was fired and nobody was jailed. A couple years later the state said "Look at those greedy teachers, they don't contribute anything to their pension, but they think they're entitled to one." And then the state said "we need to bust the teachers union so we don't have to give them that pension they didn't contribute towards and we lost."

The moral of the story is "Never take pension contributions in lieu of pay raises, since the state can take those away from you."

Re:If you are at work

[yotto]

Many companies allow the entire Internet, and then blacklist sites that seem to be taking an inordinate amount of productive time from their employees.

This could simply be the MIS guy doing his job, by keeping the employees doing theirs.

Re:If you are at work

[Ossifer]

Nope -- by selectively blocking this site specifically, it IS a first amendment issue. Had they blocked *all* political sites, or all sites outside the capitol intranet, etc. then it wouldn't have been a violation of the 1st amendment...

Re:If you are at work

[commodore6502]

Sure block foxnews.com or alexjones.com across the "guest" WiFi connection --- I don't care. I'll just use my cellphone instead to listen to these radio programs. Or dialup through the phone line (like I'm doing right now since my private employer blocks radio).

Re:If you are at work

[corbettw]

No one's stopping you from doing that kind of research at home or even the public library. But when you're at work, you should be working, not wasting time on Slashdot...er, union websites.

Re:If you are at work

[DrDitto]

On bullshit. Tell me how you can possibly whitelist the Internet with manual intervention. You would have an unusable slow mess. What will your border gateway router do? Intercept every DNS lookup by deep packet inspection and whitelist it? What if I use 8.8.8.8 as my DNS server?

Not to mention the site was accessible in the days prior.

Re:If you are at work

[jbengt]

I probably shouldn't be responding in this article, since the consensus seems to be that there was no attempt to censor, just a whitelist. But your argument seems to just be a parroting of the spin-of-the-day, which I would like to revise:

As far as the pro-corporation movement goes, I tend to think corporations are fine for enterprises in the private sector that need them. But corporations for enterprises that get paid by taxpayers? That makes no sense at all. The people they "bargain" with have no incentive for efficiency, so very little pressure to negotiate vigorously for the side they represent (the taxpayers). The public corporation are often "bargaining" with people whose campaigns they funnel money into, so there's also a conflict of interest. This inevitably leads to public corporations becoming a faction organized against the public good, the very thing James Madison warned against. So government workers can't view a website aimed against the public interest using government PCs: boo hoo.

Also, the website may be viewed as in favor of the public interest by many, it should not be up to the government to decide.

Re:If you are at work

[Teun]

It's up to the individual employee to associate with a union that's essentially screwing his employer and thus the future of his job.

It's up to the employer to stand tall and resist any silly requests from such a union and instead make a good contract with a responsible union.

In general employers have a great deal more buying power in the legal arena and it's only just that employees can unionise to level the playing field.

In this respect contacting your union is part of your job and should not be frustrated by the employer.

Re:If you are at work

[BlueStrat]

The way the Fox News folks get their "public sector workers make more" number...

What has Fox News got to do with anything? I never mentioned Fox. I don't get my facts from Fox. Or MSNBC. Or from CNN. ABC, CBS, or NBC.

Here are a couple articles discussing the problem. The problem being, at it's root, that there is no compelling reason for government to restrain public sector union wages & compensation. Just the opposite, in fact. Politically, it builds an "unholy alliance" between politicians and public sector unions.

USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2009-04-09-compensation_N.htm

The pay gap between government workers and lower-compensated private employees is growing as public employees enjoy sizable benefit growth even in a distressed economy, federal figures show.

Public employees earned benefits worth an average of $13.38 an hour in December 2008, the latest available data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says. Private-sector workers got $7.98 an hour.

Overall, total compensation for state and local workers was $39.25 an hour â" $11.90 more than in private business. In 2007, the gap in wages and benefits was $11.31.

The gap has been expanding because of the increasing value of public employee benefits. Last year, government benefits rose three times more than those in the private sector: up 69 cents an hour for civil servants, 23 cents for private workers.

Labor costs account for about half of state and local spending, according to BLS and Census data. Benefits consume a growing share of that, now 34%.

LA Business Journal: http://www.labusinessjournal.com/news/2010/dec/20/unions-push-public-pay-out-scale/

There is little question that the compensation, benefits and pensions of public sector employees exceed those of many private sector workers. Whatever the standard, compensation that is commonplace for hundreds of thousands of public sector workers in California is almost unheard of in the private sector.

Consider, for example, the city of Los Angeles. Its memoranda of understanding with public employee bargaining units are posted on the cityâ(TM)s website. There are more than 80 types of clerical positions. The pay range for these is, on average, $43,600 to $53,200 per year. In general, after five years employment, a secretary will earn $53,200, well above what the private sector generally pays.

The salaries of clerical workers are commensurate with those of other city workers. Child care associates, golf starters and salaried recreation workers all typically receive more than $40,000 a year to start and all other full-time, salaried city recreation positions receive more than $50,000 a year to start.

You were saying?

Strat

Re:If you are at work

[commodore6502]

>>>You are saying that the government has a right to censor a service paid for by taxes.

INSIDE GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS.

You and other keeps skipping that part. When I worked for the FAA I certainly didn't expect to be able to get to playboy.com or SI_swimsuit.com or facebook.com via the LAN or the WiFi. (Even guests were not permitted to do that.)

But on my cellphone? Heck I could access any site, even at my desk.

The government is an employer and just like any employer they filter *inside the building* what may be accessed. Hell you can't even hang a bikini calendar on the wall (that's sexual harassment), even though that wall belongs to the People/taxpayers. I don't find that restriction on free speech unreasonable.

Re:If you are at work

[Teun]

The example you give is not (just) painting a bad union but especially an employer that has wilfully entered into an unsustainable contract.

Re:If you are at work

[Thaelon]

Yes, because working is more important than asserting your rights as a human being.

Wait, no it fucking isn't.

It only feels that way because without a job you're fucked. Which is precisely how the corporate plutarchs like it.

Re:If you are at work

[Mashiki]

I dunno. But I find management that makes 3 times as much as the 'rank and file' because they're management rather distasteful.

Re:If you are at work

[SlowMovingTarget]

If I understand your intent, I believe you've mixed up the use of the word "public" in your rewrite. My use of the word "public" meant "governmental". A taxpayer enterprise, would still mean the government, and yes, quasi-corporations run by the government are also bogus; see Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were originally created as way to get government-held (public) debt off the budget reports.

One of your other possible meanings was simply to say publicly traded corporations are bad. That's both silly and a non-sequitur. Alternatively, you meant to say that governments paying private corporations for goods and services is bad. Again, that's fairly difficult to support.

If on the other hand, you were attempting to make some comment on the power of for-profit corporations when they lobby government officials, I'd probably agree that it can be bad thing. Unfortunately, your rewrite didn't clearly convey any of these messages, and again, had it done so, it would have been unrelated.

As you point out, this was a much simpler story: a whitelist issue on a guest network.

Re:If you are at work

[AK Marc]

I believe the government can't take direct actions to quell the right to peaceably assemble. And they are doing so here through censorship of a public service for political reasons.

Re:If you are at work

[AK Marc]

That the public is in a government building doesn't make them any less "the public." Jeez.

Re:If you are at work

[AK Marc]

The government building is not your home. The government is specifically banned from blocking speech just because it doesn't like it. If you don't like that, then change the Constitution or stay in your home and never come out.

Re:If you are at work

[AK Marc]

So you say that they don't block it in the building, since you got it on your phone. You are saying they block it over the public guest service, picking which sites the government deems appropriate for people to be accessing and blocking others. That's censorship.

I don't find that restriction on free speech unreasonable.

Yes, we get it. You have the personal opinion that it is a restriction on free speech, but that it isn't "unreasonable." Anyone that disagrees with you isn't because they have the personal opinion that it is a restriction on free speech but is "unreasonable," but that they are morons who, if you talk down to them enough, will learn you are God and agree with your unsubstantiated opinion presented as fact.

However, your personal opinion is not fact, and in this case (like most cases) not even correct. An no amount of your use of bold or caps or such will make them change their personal opinion, just as you have obviously never changed a personal opinion, even when I've seen your personal opinion proven false many times in this forum. But you have no empathy, no self awareness, and no ability to ever see anything from the other side, so you rant like a lunatic and assert false personal opinions as fact. It'd be funny, if it didn't indicate such a severe mental illness.

Re:If you are at work

[tompaulco]

I'm pretty sure that they ARE blocking access to playboy.
And if they are blocking playboy, but not this site, then that is also censorship. And if they allow playboy, but not kiddie porn, that is also censorship. However, they are well within their right to just not provide any public wifi at all, which is probably where this will end up leading.

Re:If you are at work

[spun]

If this was a new website, and all new websites are blocked, how come this website was accessible until last Friday? State IT workers have also said this was a deliberate block, not anything automatic.

Re:If you are at work

[baegucb]

I happen to work for the Wisconsin department (aka DET). I can confirm in our department, we are allowed to use the internet on our breaks or before/after work. Sites deemed inappropriate for work are blocked (and not the way TFA showed in the screenshot, but maybe that was due to using Chrome). Other departments have their own policies. Other than that I really can't comment. timothy (/. editor) likely knows as much or more about what's going on, since he lives in Madison.

Re:If you are at work

[baegucb]

replying to myself to add a relevant link http://www.doa.state.wi.us/docs_view2.asp?docid=521

Re:If you are at work

[Anonymous Coward]

You're both wrong. The situation is unclear.

Public employees make considerably more than equivalent positions in the private sector. This much we know... it's been done to death. The part about public employees being more valuable, however, is unclear. It could be that they're worth the difference... but that's hard to measure. There are some largely inconclusive studies that support both claims.

The net result is, plainly, debatable, and neither of your blanket statements of "fact" (without providing any) is a fair representation of the issue.

Re:If you are at work

[c0lo]

Man I tried to rational but I ended up divided.

Wait until you deal with complex issues, see what happens then.

Re:If you are at work

[Fjandr]

Paycheck isn't everything. If it is, why are you working where you are? If it's not, is there a point to this other than the simple fact that the dollar value of your paycheck, compared to someone in the private sector, is less, without taking into account the value of the other job benefits that have kept you from looking for private sector employment?

It has always seemed suspect to me that, even with lower absolute value on paycheck alone, there isn't an exodus from government jobs when there are private sector openings (it's obvious any job is better than none when there aren't private sector openings) and yet there is such a big deal made about the comparison of paycheck dollars. Any attempt to compare anything other than paycheck dollars is typically met with enormous resistance. If the public sector is so bad, why do so many people take jobs there and then complain about the pay? Especially given that the education level is, on average, higher in the public sector. With that much education and experience, can one assume they could relatively easily get a comparable private sector job? In bad economic times, any job is good, and few can legitimize increased spending (public or private). In good economic times, that education and experience should get a person their pick of positions. So what gives? Why do you, with more education and experience, choose the job you are at, even at lower pay? Do you think you got a good deal or a raw deal? Are there things you expected that didn't turn out to be as good, and do you still think your choice is worth what you receive in comparison to comparable private sector work? Is your statement meant to imply more than it says, or is it intended to convey exactly what it says: You make less in direct pay but make up for it (in your opinion) in benefits not available to your roommate.

Re:If you are at work

[Fjandr]

The error message screenshot posted in the article was of an attempt to make a direct IP connection on a highly-numbered non-standard port.

The network is officially designed to be whitelist-only, which means any site not requested for approval will not be approved. There are a few simple things they could have done to prove that's not the case, but the only things they did were those that, on a reasonably secured network, would be guaranteed to be blocked almost without exception.

There may be an issue here, but this organization didn't make any common-sense efforts to actually prove it. They just muddied the waters and provided a lot of doubt as to the veracity of their claim of censorship.

Re:If you are at work

[Rakarra]

The access was restored after 30 minutes or so. It says so in the article. It also says this was a new website. The system there is set to block all new websites until they are checked out. It doesn't matter what the web site is.

That sounds like a network connection that's useless for doing any sort of research not found on CNN or Wikipedia.

Re:If you are at work

[Fjandr]

Public libraries probably aren't a good example, since they can "ban" books by simply not purchasing copies of them.

Many libraries have committees that are not bound by requests to purchase by patrons.

Re:If you are at work

[Rakarra]

Around where I live, during the housing boom the landlords increased the rent by 50% and then during the bust the rents went down by 10-15%. That's not exactly balance, and the unions taking a small cut after getting huge increases in their pensions won't fix the problem either. What the unions have agreed to is tiny compared to the horrific pension system hemorrhaging money. I don't believe in destroying collective bargaining, but I don't think the unions have given enough concessions either.

Re:If you are at work

[demigod]

Show me one job in the civil sector where you run a department or bureau with 500 employees and make less than $150K.

It looks like the most you can make in Kansas is just over $100K. I worked for the State of Kansas long ago, I left because the pay was so low. I doubled my pay when I left.

Re:If you are at work

[waerloga01]

Answer me this then. What if I wanted to watch pictures of people of adequate age that are completely inadequately clothed for the climate? Or send out millions of email marketing messages? Both are speech...so why can't I?

That said, I don't think this blockage was deliberate, looks like it was a technical hicup on the website's part where they changed servers and a re-whitelisting process for the firewall.

So the question you might want to ask is if a filtering package is legit for a government to have on their networks. If so where do you draw the line?

Re:If you are at work

[rtfa-troll]

"Laid off" is code for "worth less than he was making". It's also a good indication that you should probably reconsider your "worth".

Bullshit. Almost always laid off is a code for "Jake in HR doesn't like his face" or "refused to help us to steal from the shareholders". It's very rare that actual incompetents get fired.

Re:If you are at work

[Jedi Alec]

So your argument is that because an organization could potentially influence corrupt politicians that organization should not be allowed to exist? Because if that's the case you got a heap of work ahead of you...

The very concept of legislation that prevents people from banding together and negotiating as a group is a fucking abomination. That anyone, let alone the citizens of a nation that prides itself on its liberties, would even contemplate this to be a good idea shows just how deep the indoctrination wrt unions runs.

Solve the root cause, not the symptoms. If corrupt politicians are getting bought then:

A) toss their asses in jail, and
B) stop electing the corrupt jackasses for a change

Re:If you are at work

[228e2]

I dont care to enter this discussion, I just offered some "insider" information. GP made a ridiculous statement about pay, and pay alone, so I gave a story saying otherwise. GP said nothing outside of pay.

Re:If you are at work

[Fjandr]

Fair enough. Pay and compensation are too frequently conflated when they are not necessarily the same thing, so it's good to have an explicit statement of what was meant.

Re:If you are at work

[SanityInAnarchy]

When you use a whitelist system, every website that isn't whitelisted is blocked.

Then why would it be "shortly after" and not "immediately after"? And how does that explain this part:

"Well, that doesn't explain why the website was fully accessible for the entire time it was up, up until they started blocking it on Friday," Tate countered.

Re:If you are at work

[SETIGuy]

I was saying you can use averages for dissimilar work to make the claim that the public sector is better paid, or you can pick and choose positions to use as case studies. Both are misleading. One compares apples to oranges. The other makes the case that the outlying exception is a rule. Neither proves your point. And counter points based on better data are easy to come by. For example this and this.

Re:If you are at work

[commodore6502]

>>>isn't a first amendment violation?

No it isn't - just as it's not a violation when any other employer blocks access to workers for youtube.com or blog.com or playboy.com. --- The government workers (and guests) can still access the blocked sites from their home, or private cellphones within the building.

Re:If you are at work

[khallow]

So your argument is that because an organization could potentially influence corrupt politicians that organization should not be allowed to exist?

You don't get it. That's the destiny of public unions even when they aren't intended to be vehicles by which corrupt politicians siphon wealth from the public.

Solve the root cause, not the symptoms. If corrupt politicians are getting bought then:

A) toss their asses in jail, and
B) stop electing the corrupt jackasses for a change

Except that the corrupt politicians are in charge of that. We could do that, and it does occasionally work.

Or we can deal with the root causes, broad avenues by which public funds are siphoned by corrupt politicians, such as public unions, and reducing the overall scope and power of government so that it doesn't do that much and doesn't have much resources under its control.

Re:If you are at work

[BlueStrat]

I was saying you can use averages for dissimilar work to make the claim that the public sector is better paid, or you can pick and choose positions to use as case studies. Both are misleading. One compares apples to oranges. The other makes the case that the outlying exception is a rule. Neither proves your point. And counter points based on better data are easy to come by. For example this and this.

*Those* are your cites?

Take a look at the people on the board of directors here: http://www.epi.org/pages/board/

I pretty much dismissed it after seeing all the union people on the board like this one:

Anna Burger
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Change-to-Win

Anna Burger is both a top ranking officer at SEIU, the nation's largest and fastest growing union, and chair of the Change-to-Win Labor federation.

Yeah, that's a non-biased source. /sarc

And the study cited in the Times-Union article you linked? Looked at who the people are behind that?

http://www.nirsonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=42

Another stellar source of non agenda-driven information. /sarc

The least you could do is cite something that isn't completely discredited with only a single Google search and one or two mouse-clicks. What you cited is an intellectual insult to anyone that bothers to check.

C'mon. Ya gotta at least make taking apart your arguments take more effort than a half-dozen mouse clicks. I feel like you're not really trying. Long week, perhaps?

Ah well. I'm wasting my time. Your mind is obviously not open. I wish it were. For your own sake, not mine. Things are going to be awfully tough for you in the near future.

Good luck.

Strat

Re:If you are at work

[wjousts]

The unions have yet to agree to reduce their power to negotiate. So they haven't given him "absolutely everything" he wants in terms of pay and benefit cuts. He's not just looking for budget cuts this fiscal year, but the long term fiscal health of Wisconsin as well. Public unions are incompatible with that.

Bullshit. He want to completely remove (not reduce) their power to negotiate so that when the economy recovers (which it will) he doesn't have to give them back what he's taken away. He's not asking for a temporary sacrifice in this difficult time, his looking to tear away everything they have for good.

On the bright-side, this is a wake up call for complacent union members.

Re:If you are at work

[Thing 1]

There would be no uproar.

Re:If you are at work

[deapbluesea]

"The Department of Administration blocks all new websites shortly after they are created, until they go through a software approval program that unblocks them," Werwie said. "Within 30 minutes of being notified this website was blocked, DOA circumvented the software and immediately made the website accessible."

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-02-22/us/wisconsin.budget_1_website-unions-access?_s=PM:US

"Libraries, however, do not acquire Internet terminals in order to "create a public forum for Web publishers to express themselves, any more than it collects books in order to provide a public forum for the authors of books to speak." The Court explained that the Internet is simply "another method for making information available in a school or library . . . [and is] no more than a technological extension of the book stack."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._American_Library_Association

The principle that a library has no obligation to provide universal coverage of all constitutionally protected speech applies to Internet access just as it does to the printed word in books, periodicals, and other material physically collected and made available to patrons. “The Internet is simply another method for making information available in a . . . library’” and “is ‘no more than a technological extension of the book stack.’” A.L.A., 539 U.S. at 207 (quoting S. Rep. No. 106-141, at 7 (1999)). Just as it is entitled to exercise its acknowledged discretion in amassing a collection of printed materials physically placed on the shelves in order to carry out its mission, it is entitled to exercise discretion when it comes to Internet access involving its facilities and equipment. The discretion that public libraries enjoy in selecting materials for their collections is not merely a function of what a library can afford in terms of costs and space . . . . [R]egardless of its resources a library need not place pornographic materials on its shelves, although such materials are constitutionally protected. It need not place children’s comic books on its shelves, although these, too, are constitutionally protected. As another example, if a private collector offered a library a collection of books at an attractive set price for the entire collection and the library purchased the collection, it would not have to include all of the books in its own collection and would not have to make them all available to its patrons.

http://www.wasupremecourtblog.com/2010/05/articles/opinions/librarys-internet-filter-does-not-violate-washington-constitution/

I stand by my statement that this is not a FA issue, and the free Wifi at the government building is not obligated to provide full access to its users. The only exception to this rule would be if the state government blocked specific sites based solely on content. In other words, if the state narrowly targets a single website they disagree with, then it would be a violation, but since none of the facts in this case support that claim, and the state is blocking all new sites until they are reviewed, then this is legal.

Re:If you are at work

[khallow]

He want to completely remove (not reduce) their power to negotiate so that when the economy recovers (which it will) he doesn't have to give them back what he's taken away.

Precisely. That helps the long term fiscal health of Wisconsin. This is not complicated.

Re:If you are at work

[ReedYoung]

Man I tried to rational but I ended up divided.

Wait until you deal with complex issues, see what happens then.

Yeah, for reals, right?

Re:If you are at work

[ReedYoung]

Toth's explanation, using Websense, would have been feasible had the half-wit aide not specified that "The Department of Administration blocks all new websites." That statement is very distinct from, and contrary to, the premise that a packaged IT solution does such automatically.

Re:If you are at work

[SETIGuy]

Let's see, one of the studies was done at the Center for State & Local Government Excellence, which looks like conservative organization to me, with Ken Blackwell on the board, a republican who did a great job of rigging elections for Bush in Ohio, along with the Mayor of SLC and a few other repubs. The other, the Economic Policy Institute, an organization devoted to the concerns of low income workers, yeah that's going to be liberal, because there's no such thing as a conservative organization devoted to the concerns of low income workers.

But somehow those organizations used the same data to reach the same conclusions. Maybe I even chose them because of their different political leanings. Perhaps you are the one who needs to be a little more open minded, and lay off the drugs that Fox and right wing radio are poisoning you with.

Re:If you are at work

[wjousts]

It's nothing to do with long-term fiscal health. There was nothing wrong with their contracts before the bust and they'll be nothing wrong with them after the recovery. It's just screwing public workers.

Re:If you are at work

[khallow]

It's nothing to do with long-term fiscal health. There was nothing wrong with their contracts before the bust and they'll be nothing wrong with them after the recovery. It's just screwing public workers.

I find that nonsensical. The public unions and their relationships with local government are a big part of the reason Wisconsin is in its current hole.

Also, I'm a bit puzzled. What's wrong with screwing public union workers? It's reasonable karma for what they've been doing for a few decades. Personally, I'd rather privatize the whole educational system from kindergarten through to college and just provide fixed subsidies to students. Then it wouldn't matter to me in the least whether teachers were unionized or not.

Re:If you are at work

[wjousts]

I find that nonsensical. The public unions and their relationships with local government are a big part of the reason Wisconsin is in its current hole.

That is out and out bullshit. Did you miss the collapse of the banks? That is the reason everybody is in a hole, not the unions. But did the GOP want to do anything to regulate the banks? The one's that caused the problem in the first place? No! They'd rather take the opportunity for union busting. If you listen to Walker on the Koch prank call he makes no bones about it, it's about union busting, not Wisconsin's finances (which, on the whole, aren't that bad).

Re:If you are at work

[khallow]

If you listen to Walker on the Koch prank call he makes no bones about it, it's about union busting, not Wisconsin's finances (which, on the whole, aren't that bad).

Don't get me wrong, public union busting is a good idea in its own right. But I googled Wisconsin's finances for the past few years. There's been a significant increase in deficits since the 90s. Apparently, in the 2013 budget, they are expecting a shortfall of 25-30% of the overall budget.

Did you miss the collapse of the banks?

Nope. Nor did I miss the subsequent destruction of US enterprise and jobs by the administration and 2009-2010 Congress which wasn't GOP dominated. Wisconsin, needless to say, was not prepared. Such revenue-dropping events will happen again and again. Public union busting is an obvious tool for helping make future downturns less harmful to Wisconsin.

Re:If you are at work

[mathmathrevolution]

Yes the government could propose such "acceptable terms of use" that would eliminate surfing, but in fact they did not. Even if hypothetically they did, the state government would need to apply rules without regard to ideology. Setting up "terms of service" does not allow the executive to promote access to certain ideologies while quashing access to others using government resources.

Re:If you are at work

[TheoMurpse]

This entire discussion is pursuant to the hypothetical where the governor actually ordered this site blocked, as opposed to what we've since discovered is the actual case of just a whitelist problem blown out of proportion.

1. The ALA case you're citing is inapplicable to the current issue. The issue in the ALA case was not core, political speech, so it did not receive strict scrutiny (much to the dismay of Souter as per his dissent). It received intermediate scrutiny as I discussed in my first command (see "TMP restrictions"). However, as discussed above, since in our hypothetical, the governor is only blocking pro-union websites, it is not content neutral. Hell, it's not even viewpoint neutral. So it would fail to survive intermediate scrutiny. To elaborate on viewpoint neutrality, a violation of viewpoint neutrality (i.e., viewpoint discrimination) is considered particularly bad and regulations/laws that result in such discrimination are considered facially unconstitutional. IN other words, they're basically smacked down right away.

In the ALA case, the libraries were instructed to block websites "harmful to minors," which is a content neutral, presumptively constitutional TMP restriction. Very much like how the FCC can ban the use of the word "cunt" on broadcast TV or radio at 4pm (again, a TMP restriction). Or can ban you from protesting the War in Iraq at 2pm across the street from a high school in session. Again, a TMP restriction.

I don't really care to delve any deeper into why your reasoning here is wrong (e.g., that one factor weighing in favor of the restrictions in the ALA case was that a library is not traditionally considered a public forum, but of course the capitol building would be considered a public forum) because it's sufficient to show that the case is distinguishable (as I have done) and move on.

2. Pretending for a moment that we're talking about Washington instead of Wisconsin here (because you're linking to WA discussion for some reason):

I don't care what someone thinks about the Washington Constitution and whether an Internet filter passes WA-constitutional muster in this case. Thanks to the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment has been "incorporated" and applies not just to the Federal government, but to state governments as well. As such, regardless of whether the governor in our hypothetical is doing something OK under the WA constitution, my analysis still holds true for the US Constitution. And since it's the law of the land, the argument stops there. There is no need to even inquire as to whether it's WA-constitutional, because it's already US-unconstitutional, and the US Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

3. I don't think anyone in Wisconsin gives a rats ass what Washington law is.

I stand by my statement that this is not a FA issue

You can stand by it all you want; you'll remain wrong.

I highly suggest you buy this book and read it: http://www.amazon.com/First-Amendment-Third-Cass-Sunstein/dp/0735569290/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1298593504&sr=8-3 It's the textbook we used in my Free Speech class in law school. It also covers the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses, but my class was strictly about free speech and not about freedom of religion, to petition, or of association. It's very good, and you'll get a lot of background about things like the Lemon Test, TMP restrictions, various levels of constitutional scrutiny, viewpoint/content discrimination, public forums, prior restraint, etc., by reading the very cases that have shaped FA jurisprudence.

Re:If you are at work

[sznupi]

I would find it much more interesting, even intriguing, if they weren't selective...

Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions?

[Rooked_One]

Unions take care of their own business.

Is Wisconsin now in Libya?

[scumfuker]

...or any part of the Middle East?

Re:Is Wisconsin now in Libya?

[BitZtream]

Right, because this is totally the same as whats happening in Libya and you've got no problem with your sense of perspective either, we really do live in a vile hell hole formally known as America where we get beaten regularly and starved as a matter of practice. Hows that hut your living in?

Obligatory

[mcspoo]

In Communist Wisconsin, government censors YOU!

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[wjousts]

I think the, admittedly non-sequitur, comment was about internet censorship and not suggesting Clinton had any involvement with the unions. Clinton was complaining about shutting off the internet in Egypt, et al.

Yawn

[paintballer1087]

It's not as bad as it seems if you RTFA. The WiFi at the Capitol is just using a whitelist. It wasn't accessable, but it was added to the whitelist within 30 minutes of being notified that it was blocked.
FTA

"The Department of Administration blocks all new websites shortly after they are created, until they go through a software approval program that unblocks them. Within 30 minutes of being notified this website was blocked, DOA circumvented the software and immediately made the website accessible,"

Re:Yawn

[scumfuker]

Who wants to RTFA?

Re:Yawn

[Danny Rathjens]

And the reason it hadn't been accessed before: it was created a few days ago.

whois defendwisconsin.org ... Domain Name:DEFENDWISCONSIN.ORG Created On:14-Feb-2011 02:47:57 UTC

Re:Yawn

[jeff4747]

That would make sense if it was never accessible. The complaints are that it was accessible until yesterday.

Re:Yawn

[Gadget_Guy]

It's not as bad as it seems if you RTFA. The WiFi at the Capitol is just using a whitelist. It wasn't accessable, but it was added to the whitelist within 30 minutes of being notified that it was blocked.

Well sure, we know that now. But that is only because it has been over 30 minutes since the story was posted on Slashdot! We can finally read it now.

Let's face it. The best chance you have of being modded "+5 Informative" is to post early before you have had a chance to RTFA and become informed. I suggest we should introduce the moderation of "+5 Good Guess". Your post being the exception, naturally! ;-)

Re:Yawn

[rgviza]

If they block websites shortly after they are created, they aren't using a white list.

Re:Yawn

[_0xd0ad]

That "blocks all new websites shortly after they are created" kinda implies they have a list of all known websites.

They do. Once an employee visits the site, they know about it. They have logs.

Apparently their firewall rule allows visits to unknown websites on the first visit. Then, presumably after the first visit or a predefined length of time after it, the site is blacklisted. So that LOLcat link you got in your e-mail works once, cause apparently their IT department doesn't want to seem like a complete bunch of killjoys, but you won't be spending hours there, because you're at work. And if a site gets blacklisted that you actually need for work purposes, well, they're sure they'll hear about it pretty soon and they can move it from the blacklist to the whitelist.

Re:Yawn

[deapbluesea]

That actually makes sense. If I think I need access to a site, but can't tell until I go there, it would be nice to allow it once so I can make sure that's what I actually need before going through the process of requesting that it be whitelisted.

Re:Yawn

[khallow]

So it goes down for a day? This doesn't sound like much of a story. And oh look:

However, Department of Administration officials said computer software blocked the site, just like it does for any new website. It took several days for the software to update itself and when it did it blocked the site, a DOA spokeswoman said. She said there was no malicious effort to block the website.

There we go.

Re:Yawn

[Rayonic]

Are we sure those complaints are accurate? This person(s) could have been connected to some guy's personal wifi hotspot. Or just be tech illiterate.

I guess I'm asking for proof that people used the capitol's wifi to connect to that site before Friday.

It'd be also nice to know what whitelist package they use. Heck, for all we know it's not a whitelist at all. It could just auto-blacklist anything above X hits an hour, until said site is explicitly exempted.

Re:Yawn

[khallow]

Or they're using both. A site doesn't get blacklisted until it gets accessed a certain number of times in the logs (in other words, they automate the process of blacklisting high bandwidth sites). Then if someone requests, they put it on a white list so that it doesn't get blacklisted again.

Re:Yawn

[BitZtream]

Uhm, so you want them to say a 'Whitelist that has a first use exemption'?

Its a whitelist. Without the first use exemption in consideration, all sites are blocked unless they get approved. Thats a whitelist.

Re:Yawn

[Hydian]

But that's not how a whitelist would work.

Re:Yawn

[dwillden]

This was all over the news yesterday. CNN was running the story first but I saw it on Yahoo and a local news site as well. The only time I've ever seen CNN slashdotted was on 9/11.

Re:Yawn

[khallow]

My opinion is that they have automated filters that check for high bandwidth sites. These get blacklisted. Then when someone complains, the site is added to a white list.

Re:Yawn

[DavidTC]

Um, no. To do what they say they do, they must have a list of sites that were accessed previously and now can't be, (As opposed to have never been accessed) and that is by definition a blacklist.

They just add visited sites to it automatically, on a timer. (Which seems stupid, but whatever.)

They also, obviously, have a whitelist to stop that from happening, but plenty of things have blacklists and whitelists at the same time.

Re:Yawn

[dcollins]

That's the single biggest bullshit-alarm in the article. Does that sound remotely technically feasible?

Re:Yawn

[DrDitto]

Trying to whitelist the Internet via manual intervention is not really feasible. So I call bullshit.

Re:Yawn

[shadowrat]

There are numerous scenarios where users think they have accessed a site from one network, but really it was another.

They were connected to ethernet and not subject to the same rules.
They were connected to a cell network, not the wifi.
They were connected to the coffee shop wifi across the street from the capital.
They were looking at the page they were looking at at home and never actually made a request through that network

. without tracert output or router logs, or even testimony under oath it's hard to know exactly what happened.

Slashdot. Delivery yesterday's lies last

[peragrin]

The Capitol building wifi network blocks all outside access requests unless it is on a whitelist.

Once theblock was notice it took them 30 minutes to adjust settings to allow it. I don't agree with thatmethod but it is better for important networks.

Re:Slashdot. Delivery yesterday's lies last

[DrDitto]

So you are telling me that the Capitol WiFi border routers use DNS whitelisting. Ya, why don't you think about that for a little bit.

Talk about narrative...

[Rayonic]

With how much this story is getting passed around, you'd almost think this site was temporarily blocked as a publicity stunt.

But that's almost as crazy as the theory from the article: that this particular pro-union site, out of god knows how many, was purposefully blocked because they thought that'd make everyone go home. That it wouldn't just give the protesters another talking point.

Not a story

[Sprouticus]

This is not really a story.

Apparently they auto-block websites, using whitelists only. So this new website comes online and its blocked. If they unblock it per their normal procedure, I see no issue.

(and i say this as someone who is against the limitations on the collective bargaining process)

Re:Not a story

[jedidiah]

Sure. It's all OK because they don't just block Union websites but they block pretty much anything.

Yeah. THAT makes it all better...

Re:Not a story

[IICV]

If what you said were true, it would be a non-story.

Let's see what happens when we RTFA, shall we?

University of Wisconsin-Madison Teacher Assistants created the website to share information with protesters and let them know where volunteers were needed. Democratic party officials claimed that it was available at the Capitol until at least last Friday.

So if they auto-block and then unblock websites, that's a bit restrictive but I guess it's okay. However, this website was not auto-blocked! It was available until last Friday, at which point it was blocked. For your claim to be true, their auto-blocking software would have had to magically decide that this website should be blocked on Friday, when it had previously been cleared. That doesn't seem very likely to me, especially since the stuff that was going on in Wisconsin started getting more national attention near the end of last week.

Re:Not a story

[BitZtream]

You should lookup the word 'practical'

Re:Not a story

[Captain Centropyge]

Exactly. Block everything until you can verify that it's safe. That doesn't make sense to you? The last thing you want is malware on more government computers causing data theft or other damage. It happens often enough as it is. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're trolling.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[maxume]

Hey, they fixed the italics bug.

(I was going to make a snarky comment about how he must have used emphasis, because italics are broken, but no, it appears that he actually used i tags)

Re:800 lb. Gorilla in the room.

[headhot]

"Maybe they should start looking at all the wasted funds that are sent to the Federals each and every day"

States dont send money to the federal government, they receive an inordanant amount from the federal government. Budget bill passed in the house, if it goes through, which it will not, will devastate State budgets.

One more good reason to turn on SSL

[paulproteus]

The website in question should enable SSL so that sysadmins in the middle can't monkey around with blocking sites based on their content.

Re:One more good reason to turn on SSL

[nedlohs]

Nothing was blocked based on content, so that seems a tad pointless.

Re:One more good reason to turn on SSL

[Bacon Bits]

OK, so the content filter now just terminates sessions that have an SSL certificate that does not match the whitelist. SSL content filtering is not that complicated. Most content filtering appliances already do this.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[Black Parrot]

Clinton was complaining about shutting off the internet in Egypt, et al.

et al. isn't a smart-sounding synonym for etc.

Actually it works here, since it's just Latin for "and others". It mere convention that we tend to use it almost exclusively for group authorship in English.

The only substantial difference with etc. is that the latter denotes that you know who or what the others are.

Re:Not A First Amendment Issue, But...

[tophermeyer]

But surely you have defined and appropriate channels for contacting a Union rep that don't rely on using someone else's internet access.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[Anonymous Coward]

The State Department (led by H. Clinton) is sponsoring "World Press Freedom Day". The official press release at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm says the following:

New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.

The real question is, is H. Clinton concerned about the determination of US politicians "to censor and silence individuals"?

And They Call It Democracy - Bruce Cockburn

[tomhudson]

video

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament --
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
Idolatry of ideology

North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt.....

Re:And They Call It Democracy - Bruce Cockburn

[Black Parrot]

And they call it democracy

Actually they call it "Disaster Capitalism". It has merely come home from the Third World.

People don't seem to realize that there's no intrinsic connection between democracy and capitalism.

Re:And They Call It Democracy - Bruce Cockburn

[rgviza]

It's not democracy, it's bureaucracy.

Re:And They Call It Democracy - Bruce Cockburn

[Archangel Michael]

I find the "Democracy" cries from the left (and often from the right as well) a tad hollow. What they seem to cry is "Democracy when we're in power". We just had elections, and the Conservative Right won power, democratically, under the promise of doing exactly this thing. So Democracy is working just fine. You may not like it, but that is besides the point. Losers usually don't like losing.

And wasn't it the (D) party that blamed the shutdown of the government on the (R) party for doing the exact same thing they are doing now; weren't they the ones crying how evil the (R)s were for causing a shut down of the government? Let me get this right ... if (R) shut down the government it is because they are evil, and if the (D) shut down the government it is because the (R) are evil. Is that how it works?

Mind you, I'm not either (D) or (R) and I clearly see the hypocrisy on both sides. However the (D) are acting like little babies here, and taking the ball and running home because they don't like how the game is being played. Grow up.

Re:And They Call It Democracy - Bruce Cockburn

[Duradin]

The (D)s did learn from the best on how to take your ball and go home.

Re:And They Call It Democracy - Bruce Cockburn

[artor3]

We just had elections, and the Conservative Right won power, democratically, under the promise of doing exactly this thing. So Democracy is working just fine.

Wrong. The Republicans in WI won power partially under the promise of making the unions pay for their benefits. They're doing that, and the unions agreed to it. That's democracy in action. However, the GOP is also trying to make a permanent end to collective bargaining, effectively crippling public sector unions forever. There was not a hint that they would do that before the election, but now that they're in power, they're trying to cram it through. Oh, except for those unions which supported them. Those get a free pass. That's not democracy, that's corruption and cronyism. I applaud the Democrats for effectively filibustering this bill - slowing it down so that people can see it and react to it.

There have been two major polls of Wisconsin voters in the past few days, both showing growing support for the unions and diminishing support for Walker. I won't give the exact numbers here, since they were commissioned by partisan groups and therefore probably skew the results by a few points in their favor. But in both cases the unions have a 20-point favorability lead over Walker. If you take out the bias, it's probably around 12 points, which is still very significant.

Re:And They Call It Democracy - Bruce Cockburn

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Well we have a republic form of government with democratically elected officials.

The distinction being that as a republic, we do not have mob rule. There are rules in place that protect the minority party from being railroaded by the party in power. The democrats in Wisconsin are taking advantage of a quorum rule, written in the Wisconsin constitution, to prevent a bill from quickly passing and going to the governor's desk for signing. They are allowing time for public debate.

Republicans know this since they are skilled at using legislative procedures, filibustering, and in 2009 used the same tactic to deny a quorum in New York State Senate.

you can call me Al

[ikkebra]

They should call Al Gore. After all, he invented the thing.

Re:STATE workers

[RKThoadan]

Never trust the /. summary. This was the capitol's public wi-fi, not just for workers.

Re:STATE workers

[DRJlaw]

a

STATE workers are suppose to be WORKING, not surfing. Now, would the liberals complain, if the state blocked the websites of Rush, Palin, Beck, Fox News

"If you are in the Capitol attempting to access the internet from a free wifi connection labeled "guest," you cannot access the site defendwisconsin.org.Huffington Post

STATE workers aren't using wireless "guest" APs to conduct their business. Although the whitelisting issue has discussed in other comments, your assumption that this situation only involed state workers so that the blocking was perfectly OK is deeply flawed. Guest internet access may not be a right, but censoring political content on a government sponsored guest network would still be a first amendment violation.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[Rooked_One]

Way to turn my thread into an english lesson ;)

Re:slashdot lies again

[headhot]

So the sites were not blocked?

What else did they block?

[HalAtWork]

You're supposed to be working.

Did they block all non-work-related sites, or is this just discrimination?

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[FuckingNickName]

You're displaying the common geek rush-to-arms that a potential etymology defines acceptable meaning. English is defined, if at all, by how she is commonly used and understood.

et al. is usually used to mean et alii (in the sense "and the other men/people") or et aliae (in the sense "and the other women"). Though you'll even find dictionaries suggesting that et alia could be the full form, used to refer to groups of both genders, this is nonsense - such a group is considered masculine. Poster was looking for et cetera, meaning "and the other things" (countries, Clinton's complaints, whatever - the ambiguity illustrates why it's not just lazy to have a list of only one item).

I guess he could retort that he was abbreviating et alibi, but the "place" is that sense is not commonly understood to be geographical.

Blocking One Site and Allowing Others Violates 1st

[ideonexus]

It is a first amendment issue because they weren't blocking all political sites, only the one they disagreed with. I work for the government, where we have pretty heavy internet filtering. One day I couldn't access the left-leaning HuffingtonPost, but the right-leaning Drudge Report was still accessible. I reported this and access was immediately granted to the Huffingtonpost again. Our internet usage is monitored, and, while we are allowed to take short breaks to surf the net, if we abuse that it gets recorded and we get in trouble.

So yes, blocking a Pro-Union website while still allowing employees to access RushLimbaugh.com is a pretty significant violation of first amendment rights. Especially when it's being done with taxpayer money on government property.

Re:Not A First Amendment Issue, But...

[BitZtream]

The site also has nothing to do with the union itself and would provide no useful way to contact the rep.

Its for political bitching about whats going on, its not something useful. Its slashdot for union workers.

The first amendment, but last priority

[h00manist]

A jillion things take "priority" over freedom of expression. A list and analysis of every single case would make a nice book.

Re:The first amendment, but last priority

[JustOK]

it would, by necessity, have to be banned.

Re:The first amendment, but last priority

[spun]

So what? The question isn't "is it ever okay to limit freedom of expression." The question is "Is it okay in this instance that the government block access to a pro-union website from a public hotspot, during a large public protest, for the express purpose of stifling political debate and participation?"

Re:The first amendment, but last priority

[jthill]

Maybe looking up the status accorded to political speech would help? If that's tl;dr for you, here's a hint: nothing gets more ironclad 1st-amendment protection than political speech.

Erasing political opponents from the Internet as presented by the state government. Where have we seen this before? Maybe it's a new phenomenon. We'll call this the first brick in the GOP's Great Firewall Of The Future.

Re:The first amendment, but last priority

[spun]

Yes, it is what happened. Try understanding what you read, it might help. I assume you refer to this:

In a statement Tuesday, Walker's spokesman, Cullen Werwie, called the claim a "lie."

"The Department of Administration blocks all new websites shortly after they are created, until they go through a software approval program that unblocks them. Within 30 minutes of being notified this website was blocked, DOA circumvented the software and immediately made the website accessible," the statement said.

"Well, that doesn't explain why the website was fully accessible for the entire time it was up, up until they started blocking it on Friday," Tate countered.

Former Capitol tech worker Sachen Chheda examined a screen image of the error said that the that blockage appeared to be intentional.

Eagerly awaiting your rebuttal!

Where does the line get drawn?

[burnit999]

My question is where do you draw the line for what is or is not acceptable for them to block? The fact that the union is a union for workers that work for the state means that it is a political issue. Would it be ok for the ruling party to block access to their opposing parties' websites? What if instead of blocking them they redirected to their own versions of the page? This is a, I hate to say it, slippery slope. The government should not be in the business of censoring the internet like this even on 'their' public wifi.

Who Cares If It Was Blocked?

[Slashdot Parent]

Who even cares if one particular employer blocks one particular website? They're not your damn ISP.

It's not like the entire state of Wisconsin was blocked from accessing it. Load it up on your phone and quit'cher bitchin'.

Re:Who Cares If It Was Blocked?

[DavidTC]

They're not your damn ISP.

No, they're the fucking state government, which gives them less of a right to block sites.

Who even cares if one particular employer blocks one particular website?

If they were blocking it for employees, that would be one thing. They were blocking the site on the guest network for the capitol, which is intended for public use.

Re:Who Cares If It Was Blocked?

[DavidTC]

Yeah, if you don't like your political party not being allowed to protest in a free public park, you can ask for your money back.

Fuck off, troll.

Re:Who Cares If It Was Blocked?

[Slashdot Parent]

Yeah, if you don't like your political party not being allowed to protest in a free public park, you can ask for your money back.

You're joking, right?

Americans have a right to protest based on our Constitutional rights to freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and freedom of speech. Public WiFi is always provided on a "No Warranty, No Guarantee, No Commitment, Use At Your Own Risk" basis.

You simply can't compare the two. You have no Constitutional right to robust, unfiltered, free wireless Internet access.

Re:Who Cares If It Was Blocked?

[DavidTC]

Americans have a right to publish and received published information over wifi based on our Constitutional rights to freedom of press. Public parks are always provided on a "No Warranty, No Guarantee, No Commitment, Use At Your Own Risk" basis.

Oh, wait. I think I misquoted you there.

No one has a fucking right to government provided public parks, you moron, just like no one has fucking right to government provided internet connection.

What they do have is a right that if such a thing is provided, it will be provided indiscriminately of their viewpoint.

The government does not have to provide a public park, but if it provides a public park, it cannot keep people from using it to say stuff the government does not like.

The government does not have to provide a public wifi, but if it provides a public wifi, it cannot keep people from using it to say stuff the government does not like.

Re:Who Cares If It Was Blocked?

[ReedYoung]

If they were blocking it for employees, that would be one thing. They were blocking the site on the guest network for the capitol, which is intended for public use.

Absolutely. And I think that because of that, they have stepped in some deep legal liability.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[Hatta]

The real question is, is H. Clinton concerned about the determination of US politicians "to censor and silence individuals"?

Absolutely not.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[Hatta]

The real question is, is H. Clinton concerned about the determination of US politicians "to censor and silence individuals"?

Absolutely not.

Re:Um....

[clonan]

That really defeats the purpose of a strike....

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[Hatta]

Ah wtf, I thought /. ate my first post. I guess it's just slow?

Send the Governor's an Email

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

govgeneral@wisconsin.gov

I just sent him a quick note suggesting that he is mis-behaving badly, especially with public funds. It is a good thing to send him a note with your thoughts. Be civil, and logical and rational of course as Slashdotters always are.

Paraphrasing

[m0s3m8n]

Paraphrasing (several) our supreme leader's sayings - You lost the election, now shut up and get in the backseat!

Re:Paraphrasing

[T.E.D.]

Paraphrasing, of course, because his actual words aren't something a person could reasonably get ticked off about.

Oh...and because he never actually said anything like that anyway (it was Congressional Dem leaders).

Oh...and of course because when its a Dem POTUS the office is referred to as something sarcastic like "Supreme Leader" rather than the alternative Republican tile of "Our President, who all true Americans should support in this time of (insert adverb here)"

Surprised they haven't just shut off "guest" acces

[techdavis]

Not a First Amendment violation, there is nothing that states the government must give ANY WiFi access whatsoever. They ought to just shut off or secure the access and not offer free WiFi to the protesters. Right or wrong, with that many people camping on the capitol lawn I am surprised their APs can handle the traffic, and they would be perfectly justified in temporarily suspending the guest access to ensure their own internet access. I know as a wireless administrator I sure would.

For those of you who think this is a First Amendment violation, think about your own network. Do YOU allow everybody free access to it?

The Truth

[_newwave_]

Don't let silly things such as facts and truth get in the way of the story you want to spin!

http://twitter.com/DefendWisconsin/status/40283131852365824
(the downtime was due to server migration, unless the governor also hacked their twitter account).

Re:The Truth

[DrDitto]

Hey, don't let this screenshot affect your distorted viewpoint either:

http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=32400

They started migrating because their serving was being DoSed yesterday.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[alexo]

Egypt is not a person.

I respectfully disagree.

Websense Uncategorized

[sloth10k]

They're probably running Websense, with the Uncategorized category blocked, which is not necessarily a bad idea because sites that are not in the master database could be anything - porn, games, etc. We encounter this all the time with smaller and/or newer sites.

maybe, maybe not

[fireylord]

But shouldn't you do your political research on your own time, not your employers'?

Re:maybe, maybe not

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Unless you are a legislative aide or representative trying to do research before voting on a bill

I'm surprised at you!

[fireylord]

I mean c'mon, rational?

You clearly aren't new here!

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[Black Parrot]

You're displaying the common geek rush-to-arms that a potential etymology defines acceptable meaning. English is defined, if at all, by how she is commonly used and understood.

I wholeheartedly endorse that view. (Notice my comment on convention in my original post.)

I think our difference here is on whether to interpret the phrase as a loan word, or as some actual Latin embedded in our English prose.

Loan words usually give themselves away via (oops!) dropped inflections, shifted stress, reduction of unstressed vowels, and sometimes reduction of the number of syllables, although for some reason we keep a latinesque stress pattern on Latin loan words. So "civilization" lacks the Latin inflection, has -tio- reduced to a single syllable, has the second and third "i"s reduced to an "uh" sound, as well as the "io", but keeps the primary stress on a syllable that would have worked for Latin (at least in the nominative singular), rather than moving it to the front. The pronunciation of "c" as /s/ rather than /k/ and "v" as /v/ rather than /w/ may also be part of the adoption, though perhaps they occurred in Medieval/Liturgical Latin before it was borrowed. (It probably came through French anyway.)

But "et al." is ambiguous in all those regards, so it's not clear to me whether it' s a loaner or a Latinism.

FWIW, the insistence on treating "data" as a plural in formal writing is one of my favorite peeves. If you listen to how people actually use it, it has clearly been adopted as a non-count noun, so IMO writing "these data" is an etymological sciolism.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[wjousts]

No idea what you're talking about. No idea how it's even remotely relevant.

someone should

[nimbius]

reference the article posted yesterday on the state of internet censorship in the middle east, and update the chart to include the america report now.

Public sector unions not allowed in all states

[TheSync]

It should be noted that public sector union bargaining is not universal in the US.

For teachers, 35 states have mandatory collective bargaining rights, 11 states permit collective bargaining (neither mandating or prohibiting), and 5 states specifically prohibit collective bargaining of teachers.

Some states have no public sector union bargaining at all.

Virginia Code 40.1-57.2 "Prohibition against collective bargaining" says: "No state, county, municipal, or like governmental officer, agent or governing body is vested with or possesses any authority to recognize any labor union or other employee association as a bargaining agent of any public officers or employees, or to collectively bargain or enter into any collective bargaining contract with any such union or association or its agents with respect to any matter relating to them or their employment or service."

Texas has government code 617.002. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING BY PUBLIC EMPLOYEES PROHIBITED. "(a) An official of the state or of a political subdivision of the state may not enter into a collective bargaining contract with a labor organization regarding wages, hours, or conditions of employment of public employees. (b) A contract entered into in violation of Subsection (a) is void. (c) An official of the state or of a political subdivision of the state may not recognize a labor organization as the bargaining agent for a group of public employees."

Re:Public sector unions not allowed in all states

[DrDitto]

And those 5 states have combined SAT/ACT averages of 44 (Virginia), 47 (Texas), 48 (Georgia), 49 (North Carolina), and 50 (South Carolina). Wisconsin is ranked #2.

Re:Public sector unions not allowed in all states

[dmadzak]

This has already been debunked. The data was cherry picked (i.e. not the most recent year) and the year it was picked from included a year where less than 10% took the test i WI vs other states where a greater majority of students took the test. Therefore in WI the best and brightest were compared against the average student in other states. And we know how smart the average student is.

At least be a little honest here with the data.

Re:Public sector unions not allowed in all states

[guruevi]

For non-USians (we're not dead yet) - is that good or bad, better or worse. And what does it represent. Is it 50/100 on tests? A grade average in school?

Re:Public sector unions not allowed in all states

[DrDitto]

That is rank out of the 50 states. South Carolina is the worst in the 50 States of America.

Re:Public sector unions not allowed in all states

[DrDitto]

Then look at high school graduates rates. Texas, Georgia, North Caroline, and South Carolina occupy 4 of the bottom 7 spots.

Re:Public sector unions not allowed in all states

[TheSync]

According to this list, 2006 Virginia SAT was 512/513/500 (R/M/W) and ACT was 21.1.

US Average is 503/518/497 and 21.1. So Virginia doesn't look particularly different than the US average, a little worse at math and better at reading and writing.

SAT and ACT test results are of course highly self-selective because not every student takes them. I think more important metrics include actual drop-out rates. Virginia's graduation rate is 74%, which is near the median. Plenty of states with mandatory teacher union bargaining have lower graduation rates.

I will concur that Texas has both low SAT/ACT scores and a low graduation rate (67%)...although Newsweek's best public high school 2010 is Talented and Gifted, Dallas, TX, and #4 is Science/Engineering Magnet, Dallas, TX.

H-B Woodlawn, Arlington, VA is Newsweek's #28 top high school, and George Mason, Falls Church , VA is #45.

Wisconsin has a high graduation rate (85%) - if you are not black (Wisconsin black graduation rate is 40%, compared to 64% in Virginia and 59% in Texas).

Governor wants to destroy Democratic Party

[spun]

"The state" does not want this. Public service workers unions almost always support Democrats. Republicans no longer want to simply win, they want to utterly and permanently cripple or destroy the Democratic party. By destroying unions, they deny their opponents an important source of funding.

Re:Governor wants to destroy Democratic Party

[Entrope]

Kind of giving away the game on a few fronts, aren't you?

The usual liberal theory is that collective bargaining is required in order to help employees get a fair outcome from an employer whose interests are tilted strongly against the employees' interests. If the state doesn't have that kind of goal, why do employees need collective bargaining agents to represent them?

Part and parcel of government recognition for unions is that the employer (in this case the government) has to automatically deduct union dues from every employee (except for those who go to the trouble to opt out and stay out against considerable pressure to join; they get to exclude some irrelevantly and dishonestly small part that is theoretically what the union spends on political advocacy). This means that government is taking tax dollars and sending them directly to unions, who send some of it back to their political favorites as campaign contributions. That sounds like a recipe for corruption, or the appearance of corruption, to me.

Re:Governor wants to destroy Democratic Party

[spun]

The state under Republican management is strongly tilted against the employee's interests, as visibly demonstrated. Opting out of the union is not "considerable trouble." The unions have the same rights as any other entity, to support politicians that favor their members interests. The Supreme Court, in Citizens United, said that corporations (and unions are a type of corporation) have the same rights to political expression (i.e. donations) as anyone else. Why do you consider it unfair that an organization dedicated to protecting worker's rights might have a say in who gets elected? Do you consider it unfair when, say, Target gives donations to Republicans? To me, large corporations giving money to Republican politicians and getting sweet deals in return is corruption. Average workers standing up collectively for their rights is not.

Again, how is it "corruption" for workers to attempt to get representation in government, but it is not corruption when the wealthy do it? I'm all for taking money completely out of politics, but until then, we have billionaires "donating" obscene amounts of money to have their point of view represented in government. Why shouldn't groups of average citizens band together to get their interests represented? That is not corruption, that is how democracy works when huge sums of money are involved.

Perhaps you don't think that the average person is as important as a billionaire, or as deserving of a say in how they are governed?

Re:Governor wants to destroy Democratic Party

[Entrope]

"As visibly demonstrated"? That's really begging the question.

I did not say I thought it was unfair that unions get to spend their money on elections. I said the short money cycle of government->union->politicians leads to the appearance of impropriety or corruption. As Ben Franklin said, "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." Heck, even FDR opposed unions for government employees because of the unique impact and priorities that apply.

When other corporations can push government to give them more money in exchange for campaign contributions, I consider that corrupt also. Some of the banks that got TARP money probably fall into that category. Most companies, though, are not in a situation where they can cripple government by refusing to do what the government pays them to do. Public-service unions are.

Let me tell you a story about Phil, my wife's godfather. Phil works in the refrigerated section of a grocery store, and has for decades. He gloats about the things he can get away with as a union member -- things like collecting dead rodents from traps and sliding them under the door of a conference room where his coworkers are being trained. That is the kind of repulsive behavior that unions enable. Do a web search for "rubber rooms" for teachers to find public-service equivalents. Perhaps you think that teachers who have molested their students or who simply cannot teach deserve to draw a paycheck for years?

Re:Governor wants to destroy Democratic Party

[spun]

How is that raising the question? The governor has visibly demonstrated a desire to destroy unions and punish those unions that sided against him. You may have missed it but a prankster recently called the governor pretending to be a billionaire Koch brother. They made large donations to Mr. Walker, in return, Republicans just changed the law making it legal to sell off public utilities without any bids, so they can basically give away all infrastructure to the Koch brothers. Wisconsin has single party consent recording, so the prankster recorded his conversation with the governor. It was very educational. The governor is not only intent on crushing unions, he believes himself to be part of a group of people who were elected specifically to do that very thing.

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/politics&id=7975464

Let me tell you about my friend Dean, who works in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, and has for decades. He complained to management about this fellow "Phil" who had been doing some pretty disgusting stuff, but Phil was the manager's nephew. Well, Dean reported him to the union and the union got that bastard fired. Unions do not act as your fantasy anecdote suggests, sorry to burst your bubble, but we have far more problems with cronyism than with unions protecting undeserving workers. I've yet to see a single documented case of a union protecting someone who was undeserving of protection. I am guessing you will not present such evidence, just as I'm guessing your friend "Phil" isn't real.

Looking up "rubber rooms" as you suggest shows they are not so nefarious, but serve a vital purpose. Teachers accused of wrongdoing should be removed from classrooms, but not fired until such wrongdoing can be proved. That is what these "rubber rooms" are for. However, the policy was always a matter decided on by each state board of education, and is being phased out in most places: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/education/29rubber.html , yeah that is from last year.

In closing, may I suggest that if you are not being paid to spread propaganda for the ultra-wealthy, you should look into it. I hear they have hired tens of thousands of bloggers and writers to parrot the opinions of the ultra-wealthy to the public, making it seem as though there is grass roots support for said opinions. I hear it is quite lucrative, and if you already hold those same opinions, you wouldn't even be compromising any beliefs.

wrong wrong wrong... all the way wrong

[bjk002]

Try re-reading GP. GP actually tries to compress the "worth" and societal laws governing economics along with what you refer to as the natural laws of economics. GP states that "They aren't worth what they think they are". This is nonsensical as it is society, and their collective decisions regarding the intrinsic value of an individual that governs the so called "worth" of the individual.

Additionally, GP states that "China has shown they are happy to provide manpower at a rate thats appropriate for the supply". This further serves my point as the emergence of world markets, and global economic systems have NOT kept pace with enforcing a standardized subset of worker/individual rights. Its not a fair game, and is contributing to much of the current economic issues being experienced across the globe.

Economics is NOT a naturally occurring phenomenon. The observations regarding economic function as opposed to the laws governing the execution of an economic model ARE different, but nonetheless related. Laws governing economic models are easily influenced. Worker rights, and the rights of individuals can be and often are in so called ""enlightened civilized" society considered and enforced on any economic model, forcing conformity among membership.

In fact, it is this very principle of influencing economic systems via enforcement of said rights that allows for a stronger, more robust economic model, with more persistent periods of growth[PDF].

Worshipers of so called "free market principles" without acknowledgment or consideration of a baseline subset of the rights for the individuals making up the society in which an economic model is employed is actually backward thinking. It is only when a consistent, managed economic model with a full consideration and equitable distribution of basic rights is employed that one can truly expect to witness sustained growth and prolonged prosperity.

Not My comment

[ISoldat53]

I did not put in that last line about Hillary Clinton! If you are going to change my submission make sure you indicate what is mine and what is yours. Never mind. That is the last submission I'll make.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[ISoldat53]

Please see my comment. I didn't put anything in my submission about Hillary Clinton. That was added afterwords.

Has anyone seen "Waiting for Superman"??

[Jane Q. Public]

Whether taxpayer-funded employees are allowed to collectively bargain has little bearing on the generally-recognized right of common citizens to collectively bargain. Keep in mind that the purpose of unions is to protect workers from abusive employers. What that means is that if you are a taxpayer, public employees' unions are designed to protect those workers from YOU! Not that you are abusive... but YOU are the employer. Never forget that.

Just ask yourselves: as citizen employers, are you abusive? I won't pretend to speak for most of you but where I live government employees, both state and local, tend to be overpaid and underworked... and enjoy benefit packages that are truly lavish when compared to similar jobs in the private sector. And that is Not A Good Thing.

I strongly urge anybody who feels strongly about this issue to watch the recent documentary "Waiting for Superman". It is available on DVD at most movie rental outlets. It documents the good and the bad of New York's educational system. And it shows -- beyond any reasonable doubt -- that the single biggest PROBLEM with education in New York is the teacher's union. Seriously. If you are not already familiar with their system, I guarantee that you will be appalled when you watch this documentary.

This is not a "labor vs. employer" situation. This is a "taxpayer-funded labor vs. the citizens" situation. If you aren't looking at it in that light, you might very easily get it wrong.

Hmmm... can you say Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone see the irony?

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[corbettw]

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/fmr-fbi-analyst-ray-mcgovern-i-was-beaten-at-hillary-clinton-speech

A former CIA analyst and retired Army officer (the article mistakenly calls him a former FBI analyst) stood silently in protest at the very speech you referenced, and was beaten by security guards for his insolence. It's highly relevant.

It should be noted that this same individual engaged Donald Rumsfeld in a debate at a Town Hall meeting in 2006, and Rumsfeld gave him more time to talk and defended his right to free speech. Yes, Hillary Clinton is less of a civil libertarian than Donald Rumsfeld. Welcome to Bizarro World, enjoy your stay.

Abrogation of ACID?

[jvonk]

I have noticed this as well. I chalked it up to a possible abandonment by Slashdot of ACID principles over to the antithesis, namely BASE "(Basically Available, Soft state, Eventual consistency)".

"Eventually consistent"... "I Can't Believe it's not Butter!" (no one can tell the difference!). Personally, I am a strong advocate of ACID and dislike NoSQL. I would really have to be painted into a corner in terms of scalability to relax ACID in favor of a BASE approach to anything remotely important or significant.

Note: I have no citation or evidence that Slashdot has pursued this strategy besides observations like these, so this essentially pointless speculation on my part. Why did I bother to share it with the world then?

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[Fjandr]

It is context-specific, because it can denote any of 4 separate phrases. Only two of those phrases specifically refer to people. It usually means other people, but is perfectly acceptable in other lists.

The only reason it would matter...

[thetoadwarrior]

The only reason this would matter is if they're only blocking pro-union and other left leaning sites. SO long as they're blocking politically motivated sites for both sides then who cares? You should be doing your work anyway. But if it is only left leaning sites then either unblock them or block right leaning political sites too.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[wjousts]

How is that relevant? It's not. It has nothing to do with the topic and you are simply trolling.

Re:Since when is H. Clinton the speaker for unions

[corbettw]

WTF? It was the same speech that was referenced by both Taco and yourself. It's an aside to demonstrate Clinton's hypocrisy on that issue.

True, it's not relevant to the discussion of unions. But you're the one who mentioned her speech, I was just following up from that.

Settled law is full of clear precedents for both

[ReedYoung]

Answer me this then. What if I wanted to watch pictures of people of adequate age that are completely inadequately clothed for the climate? Or send out millions of email marketing messages? Both are speech...so why can't I?

Not that your point is without merit, but the Supreme Court has ruled on both issues. And while "I can't define it but I know it when I see it" is not an adequately rigorous definition for governing behavior in my opinion it is the standing precedent for obscenity. Likewise, commerce is subject to more restrictive regulations than non-violent, non-inciteful (sic) political speech, and this is perfectly appropriate.

Commerce requires start-up costs. If communication technology is one of those costs -- if communication infrastructure is not 100% provided by the public sector for some commercial applications -- that is not necessarily a violation of anybody's rights. But political speech is a right. Selectively providing public services according to political motivations is a violation of free political speech, the most broadly and strongly protected class of speech in the United States.

I have just one simple yes/no question about this.

[ReedYoung]

Does the Patriot Act still classify interference with commerce as terrorism?