Great news: TSA to block “controversial opinion” websites to employees
posted at 5:00 pm on July 3, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
The Transportation Security Administration has taken a bold step forward in securing commercial air, sea, and ground transportation, thanks to a renewed focus on technology. Are they using state-of-the-art scanners? Perhaps, but that’s not their focus these days. Instead, they’re busy protecting their employees from, er, controversial opinions:
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is blocking certain websites from the federal agency’s computers, including halting access by staffers to any Internet pages that contain a “controversial opinion,” according to an internal email obtained by CBS News.
The email was sent to all TSA employees from the Office of Information Technology on Friday afternoon.
It states that as of July 1, TSA employees will no longer be allowed to access five categories of websites that have been deemed “inappropriate for government access.”
What will TSA block? A few of these make sense, but as for others, well …
- Chat/Messaging
- Controversial opinion
- Criminal activity
- Extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content
- Gaming
I’ve had to make decisions on Internet access and restrictions in the private sector, and I’ll grant that it isn’t easy. For some employees in a call center, the correct answer turned out to be no access at all; for others, Internet capability was necessary to do their job. Our company learned a lesson about gaming and chat early in our efforts, which was that granting access to it was a carte blanche to employees to stop working altogether. Even the application we used for intraoffice instant messaging became a problem at times. “Criminal activity” is a given, though, isn’t it?
However, the “controversial opinion” and “gruesome content” restrictions are just begging for arguments. Who decides what is “controversial” and what is “gruesome”? Do some opinion sites get through, while others get blocked, and on what basis will those decisions be made? Will Fox News get blocked but MSNBC approved, or vice versa? How about the HuffPo and Hot Air, or the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times? The Nation and National Review? “Controversial opinions” are, after all, the lifeblood of American politics and of free speech.
Or, given the track record of government agencies and Internet access, maybe the TSA would be better advised to cut off the Internet and tell people to pay attention to their jobs.
Blowback
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Epistemic closure.
lorien1973 on July 3, 2010 at 5:02 PM
FOX
katy on July 3, 2010 at 5:05 PM
As you know, in LibSpeak, ‘controversial’ is a well defined term. It means conservative or anything contrary to progressivist dogma.
petefrt on July 3, 2010 at 5:05 PM
I had my own blog blocked at work for a while, which was a bummer. On the other hand, I had no business blogging from work. So there’s that.
S. Weasel on July 3, 2010 at 5:06 PM
Yep. Here it comes.
petefrt on July 3, 2010 at 5:06 PM
I can’t see a reason for a TSA employee to be watching either MSNBC or Fox on company time.
In fact, I’d have an approved site table for each class of employee, and probably fine it down to each employee.
Should TSA employees be shopping at Target? Reading the New York Times? watching Hulu?
What should they be doing? (And that probably varies with job assignment.)
CrazyGene on July 3, 2010 at 5:08 PM
Translation: Any outlet that can possibly provide conservative views.
amerpundit on July 3, 2010 at 5:08 PM
Considering that other agency, MMS, I am surprised that “porn” didn’t make the list.
Theophile on July 3, 2010 at 5:10 PM
No “World of Warcraft” at the TSA? What will they do for fun between cavity searches?
Meric1837 on July 3, 2010 at 5:10 PM
So if a website says Obowma is incompetent, that’s blocked for sure?
The signs here are not pointing in the right direction.
I agree, blocking all is the best when on duty and from government computers. Take a bite out of porn.
tarpon on July 3, 2010 at 5:11 PM
Gee, ,maybe they should.
BetseyRoss on July 3, 2010 at 5:13 PM
Actually most Govt copmuters already do this. Every now and then Hotair will link to something my Govt computer dislikes (not that I spend all day posting on HotAir).
LincolntheHun on July 3, 2010 at 5:15 PM
just what we need. TSA screeners all pissed off cuz they can’t check tha facebook or somefin to see if that PYT over in baggage is goin’ to give them a shout later…
ted c on July 3, 2010 at 5:15 PM
And in other news, the Iranian President hailed Obama’s “Internet kill switch” victory noting that it was about time the US moved into the 21st century of government control over speech. Iran touted the legislation as Washington following the example set by Iran during the “Green Revolution”.
/sarc
crosspatch on July 3, 2010 at 5:16 PM
I notice that pron isn’t on the list. Government workers gotta have their pron!
rmgraha on July 3, 2010 at 5:16 PM
It’s a “jobs” program…
The question is not “what should they block”,
the question is “what sites should be permitted”.
A better idea would be to eliminate the program and replace it with some effective anti-terrorism activity.
CrazyGene on July 3, 2010 at 5:20 PM
There is no real way to cut out controversial opinions as a category. could be wrong but I suspect that if blog/political type verbiage are in the site name or description it would deny access.
Whitelists and blacklists are a royal pain to maintain because there is always a new page to add or delete.
There was a long period of time where some AF sites wouldn’t allow HA – now they do as well as huffingtonpost. Sometimes someone fatfingers something and presto the access is denied.
News sites and places like realclearpolitics, townhall, etc. don’t normally get blocked. If it were up to me I’d limit access to .com access to 10% of the users based on requirements to use it to accomplish their job. As it is now managers are expected to police the work area to make sure workers are working and not “just surfing”. Real headache for managers who expect maximum productivity.
Bradky on July 3, 2010 at 5:21 PM
There won’t be any TSA workers reading Hot Air, then.
Off Topic but Important: It’s day 75.
SlaveDog on July 3, 2010 at 5:22 PM
My school district blocks all blogs, facebook/myspace, and ebay as well as the usual suspect sites. If a teacher can give a reason for unblocking a site, it will be unblocked. For instance, I asked to have icanhascheezburger.com unblock because I use selected pictures with their captions in class.
The problem with the TSA rules is, as you note, that the adjectives “controversial” and “gruesome” are way too subjective and open to argument.
goddessoftheclassroom on July 3, 2010 at 5:22 PM
I think the block on pron goes without saying. Once the triple x domain is assigned it will make it easier to block all of those sites.
Bradky on July 3, 2010 at 5:23 PM
need to check facebook declared a right by public union of TSA workers in 3…2…1..
ted c on July 3, 2010 at 5:28 PM
Is this in response to that one TSA worker who was busted playing games while on the security queue?
carbon_footprint on July 3, 2010 at 5:30 PM
Unfortunately it was the Asst SecDef who declared that DoD must allow access to social networking sites. Union didn’t even have to break a sweat!
Bradky on July 3, 2010 at 5:31 PM
Obama’s opinion is not only controversial – it is radical – is the TSA blocking access to the White House web site?
Does the First Amendment mean anything to these socialists?
IntheNet on July 3, 2010 at 5:32 PM
I don’t know, Bradky – have you seen their Union contract?
eeyore on July 3, 2010 at 5:33 PM
This guy seems getting a bit closer to the target than most.
How about measuring “productivity”?
In good places to work, and you may not have ever worked in one. The secret of success is simple. They keep score.
Everyone knows: 1) what the game is
2) how the score is being kept
3) what kind of a score is required to win
(I’ve deliberately left these concepts “fuzzy” so they could be flexed to fit lots of enterprises.)
If you are making donuts, then most of the measures would be about making donuts. If you were selling donuts, you’d have other measures.
The closer the enterprise gets to clear, accurate and timely measurement, visible to all, the more successful it is and the happier the employees are.
Unfortunately, good management is such a rarity, that very few get to experience this.
We should fix that. Especially in “services”.
CrazyGene on July 3, 2010 at 5:33 PM
I’ve been in the computer security side of things with DoD for 15 years or so. Can’t speak for the TSA network which is a separate domain but for the DoD domain it is definitely banned. One thing to keep in mind is that if someone pulls up pron sites they are setting the agency up for harassment and EEO suits. that is why I doubt the TSA allows it either. Unions can’t get concessions that will cross into those areas.
Bradky on July 3, 2010 at 5:36 PM
Don’t you guys remember why the Department of Homeland Security was created?
It was created by Bush to allow government employees to be fired for non-performance. It is an end run around government work rules.
Of course, none of the career bureaucrats staffing the organization has had any interest in exercising that unique feature. But that was the deal, when the Dem’s tried to take that out of the bill, Bush threatened veto.
Come on, I can’t be the only one who remembers this.
CrazyGene on July 3, 2010 at 5:37 PM
Why would the majority of TSA ees require internet access at all?
Oleta on July 3, 2010 at 5:38 PM
Maybe they do need to block controversial opinion. You can see TSA employees roughly shoving passengers around, mumbling under their breath “That f’n Ed Morrissey, he f’n Burns! Me! Up!
eeyore on July 3, 2010 at 5:40 PM
In this case the unions smashed the effor. idea was to change regular civil service grades and steps to a performance based system with pay bands, performance bonuses (or non payout if rated below acceptable). It was called NSPS and Obama explicitly promised to end NSPS. DHS was stood up so quickly that it was the first agency to really use the NSPS widely.
End of this year we go back to the same old system as before.
Bradky on July 3, 2010 at 5:41 PM
Gaming, as in video games or gambling? If it’s video games, how dare they do that. For controversial opinion, I would start with Stormfront and make my way down.
Narutoboy on July 3, 2010 at 5:41 PM
Maybe TSA workers should be limited only to “gruesome” jihadi sites so that they can more effectively determine who poses a flight risk.
onlineanalyst on July 3, 2010 at 5:42 PM
Measuring productivity in call centers is crucial, especially in the 24/7/365 centers I ran. I had to invent the measures myself throughout most of my career. However, measures tell you when you’ve already had the problem; making decisions on Internet access is required to prevent them in the first place.
Ed Morrissey on July 3, 2010 at 5:43 PM
The senior execs in DoD don’t understand that role based access control could help solve a lot of this. Too many junior officers and civil servants, who are not in the security side of the business are convincing upper management how much “synergy and creativity” will be unleashed with very loose access rules.
works great for apple and google but not so much for a much more structured and hierarchical org like the mil.
Bradky on July 3, 2010 at 5:49 PM
I don’t think they will ever put Fox News in the category of ‘controversial’, that would be ridiculous if not downright idiotic…I was thinking more like Drudge, they can always argue about some of his ‘inciting’ titles…etc..but that would be too stupid a move, given Drudge’s wildly wide circulation :-)…probably they will pick some blogs that are leaning more far right, doubt that they will do the same with the far left-wing leaning ones though…the funny thing is that with most organizations and businesses you can see their bias or the left/right leaning of the particular place, without any official ‘block’ instituted by the higher-ups…If you are waiting in a hospital reception area, or are in a fast food place, you can tell right away by what news channels they play in the particular place…it’s usually either Fox News or CNN…and almost never MSNBC :-)…and almost always the obligatory ‘customers, pls do not change the channel blah, blah, blah…’ in some places you can’t even do it, in some others you can actually change the settings manually, as the remote is usually not there :-)…this TSA new ‘rule’ wouldn’t be anything new…I wonder if the policy is going to the airport TVs…like are they going to ban Fox News for instance and put CNN instead…in some airports it’s already the case..
jimver on July 3, 2010 at 5:52 PM
Well, they still get their pron!
csdeven on July 3, 2010 at 6:04 PM
They should block them all. Is it that hard to acknowledge that employees are paid to work or at least look like they are working and not to surf the internet?
Blake on July 3, 2010 at 6:05 PM
Just another reason why I no longer fly.
GarandFan on July 3, 2010 at 6:11 PM
At one site, Hotair is blocked but Michelle Malkin is not. Go figure that one.
Daggett on July 3, 2010 at 6:17 PM
Not to worry, they’ll be so starved for cyber entertainment that they’ll spend all their free time on it.
jeanie on July 3, 2010 at 6:23 PM
Homosexual TSA members to throw a tizzy in protesssthht…
… in 3… 4…. 5! (Snap!)
/
Seven Percent Solution on July 3, 2010 at 6:25 PM
So
whitehouse.govwhitemosque.gov is on the “no surf list”, huh?ZING!
madmonkphotog on July 3, 2010 at 6:43 PM
As a front-line TSO (Transportation Security Officer), I’d like to clear up a few misconceptions. First off, we don’t have a union to argue against these rules. The only reason some DHS agencies have one is because they won a lawsuit based on the fact that the previous, non-DHS iterations of their agencies had unions.
Second, and more to the substance of the post, the only time I really use a computer is during my weekly training or on my break. Every week we get 2 hours or so to do what is called the OLC, or Online Learning Center. Basically it consists of refreshers and SOP changes, as well as X-Ray training. Most if the time that precludes me from doing non-work-related surfing, although I do admit checking the news or my fantasy baseball team in-between modules, and even firing up YouTube to listen to some music while training.
As for my break, it’s my time. I have in the past watched Hulu and YouTube videos and even done some shopping. Social networking sites are, however, already blocked by the internet filter. My point is that none of this effects my actual work product. I still complete my training and I still get back from my breaks on time.
Shivv on July 3, 2010 at 6:53 PM
old news, the military blocked certain sites while allowing move on and the rest through last year.
rob verdi on July 3, 2010 at 6:56 PM
Well I guess they won’t be able to look at the U.S. Constitution any more, if they ever did.
Tav on July 3, 2010 at 7:03 PM
Big Brother is watching.
Tav on July 3, 2010 at 7:04 PM
That would be the Fuhrer, Mighty Captain Kickass Himself, of course.
Tav on July 3, 2010 at 7:08 PM
Do “controversial opinion” sites include the website of their union?
Like this article that tells members to tell their Congressmen to vote for a bill that would allow for bargaining rights for the TSA?
Will they ban this article at the TSA Union’s blog that encouraged members to attend a rally with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee for “TSA rights?”
Or will they just ban sites like this one that provide a contrary opinion?
29Victor on July 3, 2010 at 7:09 PM
What about lunch time?
chemman on July 3, 2010 at 7:48 PM
Good question. Many federal agencies allow for prudent use of the internet during the midday when employees are at lunch. In fact, depending on the agency (and the examples are too numerous to mention here), use of the internet in some form is normal to the performance of that particular employee. Even so, there are many types of entertainment sites which are blocked for obvious reasons. And if an employee is not producing what is required at the end of the day, it is not hard to figure out why, and the supervisor can take corrective action.
Obtaining a “controversial opinion” is just as easy when reading a magazine during the lunch hour. Is an employee’s briefcase to be examined by the supervisor, to make sure they’re not sneaking in copies of the National Review?
In any case, it is unlikely that a TSA inspector at an airport checkpoint is going to be in a position to surf the internet. When was the last time you saw one try?
manwithblackhat on July 3, 2010 at 8:34 PM
There should be a strictly agency channel on the internet. Nothing but agency business. No opinion, no politics, no blogs, no news, no entertainment, and no porn. Just agency business communications. A strictly gubmint agency affairs channel. With filters, how hard would that be to do, if anyone wanted to?
petefrt on July 3, 2010 at 8:55 PM
Bush made a lot of serious mistakes. One of his first was to cave to Dems in unionizing TSA. Bush is a fine human being, but he was a disaster as a conservative prez.
petefrt on July 3, 2010 at 8:58 PM
HotAir is blocked from US Air Forces in Europe servers. Oh, and Michelle Malkin, too.
That evil MM.
Black Adam on July 3, 2010 at 9:00 PM
True, but they’re supposed to be working and not web surfing. If they block all political sites, that would be fine. However, even hard news sites often allow for commentary, but of course from average Joes like us rather than the Brent Bozells and Michelle Malkins out there.
Dr. ZhivBlago on July 3, 2010 at 9:01 PM
Bush made a lot of serious mistakes. One of his first was to cave to Dems in unionizing TSA. Bush is a fine human being, but he was a disaster as a conservative prez.
petefrt on July 3, 2010 at 8:58 PM
history will be kind to this man
he had many many issues thrown at him and his first priority, our safety and support of our military were second to noone.
I remember well the 9/11 commision and like BS
the BS findings were an attempt to take georges decision making abilities as if we elected some commision to lead us and not Bush
I’ve said it before
Obama couldn’t have lasted ten minutes in that environment
Sonosam on July 3, 2010 at 9:34 PM
Whoa! What a concept! Government workers actually doing the jobs they were hired to do? Jeepers! Tax dollars might actually turn productive! ;)
KendraWilder on July 3, 2010 at 9:39 PM
Eat lunch… This is “security” the safety of the nation is at stake, so NO surfing at lunch.
(Or the safety of the nation isn’t at stake, and it’s just a job, so we don’t need TSA.)
CrazyGene on July 3, 2010 at 10:33 PM
Why just the TSA? Why not all pubic organizations? Why not all organizations recieving public funding?
elfman on July 3, 2010 at 10:44 PM
Why are they on the web when they are supposed to be working? Seriously, if they have time to browse the web, they shouldn’t have been hired.
ray on July 3, 2010 at 10:45 PM
Yikes, I missed it.. The bureaucrats are the single greatest threat to our freedom and prosperity.
If we are going to have a nation in the future, we MUST dismantle the bureaucracies and their unions.
CrazyGene on July 3, 2010 at 10:54 PM
The News Nazis strike again….
DL13 on July 3, 2010 at 11:05 PM
I’ve worked at businesses that didn’t allow internet videos sometimes even work related! Forgetaboutit if you”re just surfing. Public employees should have the same restrictions, really it’s only common sense.
kellyjane on July 4, 2010 at 12:28 AM
Bush made a lot of serious mistakes. One of his first was to cave to Dems in unionizing TSA. Bush is a fine human being, but he was a disaster as a conservative prez.
petefrt on July 3, 2010 at 8:58 PM
The unions have no collective bargaining rights, They talk big but are effectively neutered. For now.
opiemuyo on July 4, 2010 at 1:01 AM
So I guess they can always view the controversial web sites at home! Why in the H are these guy’s looking at the internet at work? What are we paying these guys to do? Nevermind, one look at Hussei nand his Posse of Clowns explains it all.
BigMike252 on July 4, 2010 at 1:02 AM
And they should make sure noone has a smuggled copy of the Washington Times or the Journal editorial page. ‘
Oh, and that copy of Walter Williams’ column? That’ll get you sensitivity training baby!
BacaDog on July 4, 2010 at 1:04 AM
What a concept! Actually, if they’re using gubmint computers, then why not block everything except gubmint sites that are needed to do the gubmint’s bidness?
petefrt on July 4, 2010 at 8:12 AM
Does anyone else out there believe that the TSA is by far the most USELESS outfit ever conceived?
pilamaye on July 4, 2010 at 9:02 AM
A very slippery slope, indeed…
Khun Joe on July 4, 2010 at 9:31 AM
It is not just the mental midgets as TSA. Hot Air was blocked by DoD for 3 days last week, but finally was unblocked after what I assume to be a lot of bitching at our IT folks. Although we can get on the social networking sites of Facebook and U-Tube with no problems. Go figure?
Still working for the USAF as a simple servant. Happy Independence Day!
Retired USAF on July 4, 2010 at 10:01 AM
Prolly these guys. Sounds like TSA’s gettin’ themselves a FortiGuard content filter or something similar. You can see at the link what sub-categories go under “Controversial.”
Full disclosure: I work for an organization that sells these things. And we use them for our own internal network. Wouldn’t be very fair of us to tell a customer it’s an effective product unless we’re using it ourselves. At first we were horified when they put this darned thing in. But after a while we could see where they were coming from. Although the company allows for free incidental web use on company equipment, there’s a lot of stuff we probably shouldn’t be looking at on the company’s dime: It can be not only a problem for productivity, it can also be an embarrassment to a company if, for example, an employee gets caught in a child pornography sting and he’d been using company equipment.
By the way, the customer gets to pick which categories they want in place, and entries within each category are contestable; if a site gets blocked, there’s a link you can use to send a message to the databases administrators to tell them why site “thus-and-such” is not (for example) a “Political Organization” and should therefore not be categorized as one and blocked. Which is a good thing; there was a time this product blocked Hot Air because it was an “Arts and Entertainment” site.
apostic on July 4, 2010 at 10:28 AM
This is just the first step by the Obama Regime to silence the opposition. “Controversial Opinion” is any opposition to his policies. When TSA started the democrats beholding to the Unions demanded that these employees be Union members and cannot be fired for “non-performance”. Next on their list of things to do is to shut down conservative talk radio and websites like Hot Air-Michelle Malkin, Atlas Shrugs and others. Would not surprise me if they tried to shut down FOX. Does the name Hugo Chavez bring anything to mind?
flintstone on July 4, 2010 at 7:22 PM
These are government employees. They can afford there own laptops.
Slowburn on July 4, 2010 at 10:14 PM
Homeland Security needs to do a much better job of wording this decision, to reassure us that political speech is not the target here. While I’m an indefatigable proponent of free speech, some censorship is understandable at the work place, and, as was famously said about pornography, I know it when I see it. I suspect they are targeting sites such as those found on this list. Certainly, no one has the “right” to, say, check in with NAMBLA while on the job.
However, if the day comes that Big Sis tells us that all Americans will have their access to certain websites restricted, I’ll be right there protesting.
Buy Danish on July 6, 2010 at 10:49 AM