Friday, 14 July 2006
Blocking Web Sites to State Employees
« Louisville Arena Boondoggle Continues | Main | Prayers for Northup's Family »The left in this state have freaked out over the fact that the state has blocked people from viewing political web sites. In fact, Mark Nickolas from BluegrassReport.org has filed a federal lawsuit claiming he was discriminated against because of his criticism of Gov. Ernie Fletcher.
Yeah Mark, he did it to target you! Well, you know my blog is blocked from the state and I support Ernie Fletcher! Am I discriminated against as well? See I don't think I am. Why? Because these employees can read my blog when they are home. They don't need to be reading it while on the clock. The reality is the state like many business are trying to cut down access the unproductive side of the Internet from employees.
Finance Cabinet spokeswoman Jill Midkiff said no individual sites were targeted, but rather categories of sites -- such as blogs, entertainment, humor, online auctions and shopping. The software was imperfect and has been updated to ban new sites or unblock legitimate ones, she said.
A review of state employee computer use had found that workers were spending significant amounts of time viewing sites unrelated to their jobs, Midkiff said. "There is no attempt to limit anyone's free speech," she said. "This is an effort to ensure that state government employees are using state government resources on state time to do state work."
Personally, I think it shows that this administration cares about how it is spending our taxpayer dollars. It shows that the state is being run more like a business and less like a welfare center.
