NASA Employee Suspended For Blogging At Work 211
BobJacobsen writes "FCW has an article about a NASA employee that was suspended for blogging on government time. Seems the unnamed employee's 'politically partisan' blog entries were a violation of the Hatch Act. The article ends with a chilling quote from the government's Special Counsel in the case: 'Today, modern office technology multiplies the opportunities for employees to abuse their positions and — as in this serious case — to be penalized, even removed from their job, with just a few clicks of a mouse.'" Thing is, he was soliciting campaign donations and writing partisan stuff.
Hatch Act (Score:5, Informative)
This [osc.gov] nice writeup. Bottom line is, this guy's a federal employee soliciting funds and pushing a political agenda on work time.
This of course has nothing to do with blogging, as you could replace "blogging" with "making phone calls" or "mailing letters" or "stalking people at the coffee maker".
Government jobs (Score:4, Informative)
No Surprise Here (Score:4, Informative)
Second, the Hatch Act has, for decades, prohibited partisan political activity by federal employees. There's good reason, if only because those employees make decisions every day about how and where to spend taxpayer money.
Third, the provisions of the Hatch Act are made clear to every federal employee when they accept the job.
I work in government (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hatch Act (Score:5, Informative)
If you would have read the linked resource in the parent post that you responded to, you would have known why that isn't a violation of the Hatch Act. This is a list of who cannot participate in partisan activities [osc.gov]. You will notice that the president does not fall into that heading. Not to mention that every US President that I can remember has politicked for members of his party, so I don't know why you are singling out ole George.
Re:Hatch Act (Score:5, Informative)
In particular, the Hatch act has nothing to do with whether you are at work or not. The Hatch act prohibits a government employee from doing pretty much anything political even on your own time and with your own equipment. It is pretty draconian. And, of course, it only applies to peons; those high-level muck-a-mucks who are most likely to be abusing their positions are exempt. The excuse for all this is that it "protects" the employees from political pressure. Pretty lame excuse, though.
The bit about doing this stuff on government time is completely unrelated to the Hatch act. That's a distinctly separate offense, and one for which there is much less excuse.
It is unclear from the article whether the suspension was really because of the Hatch act offense or the use of government time.equipment. I suppose it could have been both.
Re:Hatch Act (Score:3, Informative)
Being a Federal employee involves a lot of extra baggage folks aren't always aware of. I wouldn't be surprised if the person in question didn't realize what they were doing was an issue. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if they did. I know a few Civil Servants who avoid going out to lunch with a vendor simply to avoid the issue of gifts (even though such lunches tend to be very productive and common-place in the private, commercial world... and even quite legal in Government circles if you're mindful of the rules).
Re:Hatch Act (Score:1, Informative)
Worst (Score:3, Informative)
Re:fair enough (Score:2, Informative)
It's sad but warranted. He could've been more careful.
Re:Hatch Act (Score:5, Informative)
We can also still run for and hold local office as long as we're not violating any conflict of interest rules.
Hatch Act wasn't do depoliticize politics (Score:5, Informative)
While we joke about government employees being "lazy, incompetent, over/under paid, whatever," without a professional Civil Servants class it becomes a cesspool of corruption. As the public employees are normally unionized with a union that can both fight management (as a union) and change management (as a political organization), they are generally well paid and compensated, particularly with pension benefits and other back end benefits that politicians can approve and leave someone else with the bill. As a result, those jobs are potentially very desirable.
If you don't keep the political bosses away, watch how quickly jobs go to politically connected people that don't show up to work... It seems unlikely that someone powerful would care about a 30k - 90k/year job, but what if they could get it for their daughter-in-law that doesn't work, and just funnel money and benefits to their kids. That's how these positions work in countries without extensive controls, and why we have so many to keep the "friends and family plan" out.
Look at any community non profit and look at how many incompetent people hold well paying jobs because someone that gives money is friends with their parents/grandparents... corruption happens everywhere, and this attempts to reduce it. It doesn't attempt to remove partisanship from politics.
Re:why a lower standard for government workers? (Score:4, Informative)
It also prevents one from using one's office to "encourage" (read extort) political contributions from those that must do business with one's office.
Re:fair enough (Score:3, Informative)
I think it's a good thing. The last thing we need is political rallies on the intranet posting boards.