Sen. Blumenthal Demands Lifting of IT 'Gag' Order (computerworld.com)

dcblogs writes: U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the layoff and replacement of IT workers by foreign workers at a state energy utility. But he is also demanding that the utility, Eversource Energy, drop a particularly restrictive non-disparagement clause that laid off employees had to sign to receive their severance. This clause bars discussion "that would tend to disparage or discredit" the utility. [emphasis added] He wants the employees, who had to train foreign replacements, to be able to state "honestly what happened to them."

Comments

Re:can't the state do something about this?

[Feyshtey]

Exactly right. The arguments are :
1) I wasn't qualified enough to know that this information was classified, and didn't treat it with it's appropriate care.
2) I knew but didn't care enough to treat the classified information appropriately.
3) I knew but felt that I was special and didnt have to treat it appropriately.

None of the above gives a glowing recommendation to be POTUS.

Re:can't the state do something about this?

[KGIII]

Hmm... Yeah, sounds mostly spot-on. Additionally, some information is considered classified, even without having been marked as such specifically, because of where it came from. I've no idea if any of the content was on that level but an example is that unedited photos from certain satellites is classified by default. She had an obligation (a lawful mandate, as I recall) to stop and classify that material herself, if authorized to do so, or to hand it back if not - then filling out the spillage forms just in case.

However, I'd like to remind folks that she did so because the internal email system was difficult to work with. She was not the only person to do this. Others did the same, or similar, things as it was a bitch to deal with the email system that they had.

Why point that out? Well, she was wearing the boss' hat. As such, she had the obligation to have that system repaired. She had the duty to delegate authority to have it fixed and the obligation to work within the system and follow-up to ensure those tasked with the repairs did their job properly. That's what bosses do. Presidents don't fix email systems themselves. They tell someone else to fix it and make sure it gets fixed. Or, more accurately, someone else does that at their behest but the boss is still accountable as they're the one that picked the person to do that job.

That, even as much as the content itself, is significant. Instead of fixing a known broken system, she worked outside of the system (and was not alone in doing so), and allowed the poor system to remain in place which led to this even being a conversation in the first place. Rather than argue about the classification level of the data, how about we acknowledge that the lady has clearly demonstrated that she is incapable of being a leader? That's not even something that any reasonable person would try to debate.

Ah well... I'm still pissed about the OPM attack. Why the hell they had my data on a live, networked, system some 15+ years after its use is beyond me. However, in all fairness, that's not her fault and only tangentially related. I do not recall all of the training on handling classified data, it has been a long time, but I'm pretty sure that I'd be in a heap of trouble for having just risked data spillage. More importantly, I'd have been in all sorts of trouble (multiple times in multiple ways) for failing to be a responsible leader. There are repercussions for doing poorly while you're supposed to be delegating authority and making decisions. At least there have always been repercussions in my life.

However, I don't think I'll post this as an AC. Fuck it... I said it. I own it. I might even make a mistake sometimes. I own those too and I'm not the boss of anything important. It's accountability, though trivial, and a good thing. She's demonstrated she doesn't want to be accountable and is not an acceptable leader. Leaders make choices and delegate authority, not work outside the system while the system languishes. Leaders make choices and then accept responsibility for them. Leaders don't have to know everything, they have to know that they're not smart enough to know everything and to be willing to ask for, and accept, advice. Hillary is not an acceptable leader and her race, gender, or even her political philosophy have not one damned thing to do with that.