http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20009642-10391695.html

Quote :

"TSA to Block "Controversial Opinion" on the Web (Credit: CBS News) 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." The categories include: • Chat/Messaging • Controversial opinion • Criminal activity • Extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content • Gaming The email does not specify how the TSA will determine if a website expresses a "controversial opinion." There is also no explanation as to why controversial opinions are being blocked, although the email stated that some of the restricted websites violate the Employee Responsibilities and Conduct policy. The TSA did not return calls seeking comment by publication time. "

7/6/2010 1:31:47 PM

So?

7/6/2010 2:36:40 PM

^
You don't have a problem with a government agency blocking "controversial opinions"?

[Edited on July 6, 2010 at 2:46 PM. Reason : controversional, lol]

7/6/2010 2:42:34 PM

Not to their employees while they are at work. They're supposed to be working instead of posting on TWW (oops). It's not like they are blocking them from doing whatever they want at home.

7/6/2010 2:47:39 PM

only for employees.

No different than what employers in the private sector do.

There's no real distinction here because this isn't a government agency creating legislation that affects the public, it's just a policy for their own employees.

7/6/2010 2:47:48 PM

internet filtering is a kind of meh thing. When you get to the low level grunts that just need to sit down and do the same thing over and over, just block everything and whitelist what they need. For middle/upper level internet policies should just be there as a dumb legal thing. Enforcing them is almost a waste of time because you're not going to be able to do a blockall+whitelist, so you end up spending more time hunting down specific things to blacklist than you save in regained productivity. At the end of the day performance based metrics are a superior way to go.

Although i guess bandwidth could be an issue in some cases. In that case QoS or connections based on purpose would be a better solution than filtering specific sites.

[Edited on July 6, 2010 at 3:02 PM. Reason : a]

7/6/2010 3:01:48 PM

Quote :

"At the end of the day performance based metrics are a superior way to go."

Yes.

7/6/2010 3:09:48 PM

altho i guess that doesn't really matter when we're talking about the fed.

7/6/2010 3:13:22 PM

^

7/6/2010 3:20:24 PM

I haven't heard anything recently (although politics has to get pretty quiet for performance based management to be considered a newsworthy story on gov), I do remember hearing a little stuff about it a few months back.

http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot0406a10.mp3/view

I remember hearing that story which touched on it, and talked about a White House Forum on the subject.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/management.pdf

Pages 5 through 20 or so (haven't read the document recently) of the PDF seems to contain some performance objectives some of which actually seem measurable if I recall correctly.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/rewrite/part/index.html

Quote :

"The Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) was developed to assess and improve program performance so that the Federal government can achieve better results. A PART review helps identify a program’s strengths and weaknesses to inform funding and management decisions aimed at making the program more effective. The PART therefore looks at all factors that affect and reflect program performance including program purpose and design; performance measurement, evaluations, and strategic planning; program management; and program results. Because the PART includes a consistent series of analytical questions, it allows programs to show improvements over time, and allows comparisons between similar programs."

Unfortunately the federal government ignores too much of the performance data they do collect, but I think they are now starting to move in the right direction.

7/6/2010 3:38:11 PM

There is no accountability in government. There are no penalties for failure. Because of that performance metrics either a) aren't used b) aren't accurate c) are ignored or d) all of the above.

7/6/2010 3:41:48 PM

An example of accountability in gov:

Quote :

"Five U.S. Organizations Honored for Innovation and Performance Excellence with the 2009 Baldrige National Quality Award For Immediate Release: December 7, 2009 Contact: Michael E. Newman 301-975-3025 WASHINGTON, D.C.—President Barack Obama and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced that five organizations are the recipients of the 2009 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest Presidential honor for innovation and performance excellence."

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/vacsp_profile.cfm
http://www.research.va.gov/programs/csp/

Quote :

"Highlights •The Center's financial results demonstrate its ability to maintain its competitive market position. The Center’s budget from new studies grew 143 percent from 2002-2008, compared to 58 percent for the VA over the same period. •The Center’s 2008 productivity (revenue/employees) of $221,000 compared favorably to eight top competitors, with the highest competitor performance at approximately $195,000. •Over the past three years, The Center's work benefited more than 90,000 patients per year at approximately 1,600 sites using nearly 300 drugs. •Multiple methods are used for learning from and listening to customers, such as clinical trial study feedback, information from prospective suppliers and customers, and tracking customer complaints and retained customers. "Overall Satisfaction" went from 83 percent "good-excellent" in 2003 to 100 percent "good-excellent" in 2009. "Customer Complaints" were consistently below Six Sigma (less than 3.4 complaints per million units shipped) from 2001-2009. •Seventy five percent of The Center’s customer relationships exceed 10 years. The majority of extramural funding is from repeat business, achieving its highest level of $11 million in 2008. •Capabilities are enhanced through organizational culture and processes that embrace regulatory, quality, and performance excellence management systems. As the first International Organization for Standardization (ISO) registered VA facility, The Center serves as a leader within the VA's Cooperative Studies Program. •The Center creates an agile, learning organization that values its workforce through the use of a fully deployed, agile matrix management system and an interlocking committee structure with one senior leader representative on each committee to ensure consistent communication across the organization. •The ratings for workforce engagement are equal to Gallup’s 75th percentile rating, outperforming that rating for "Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services" from 2006-2008. "Workforce Satisfaction" results have exceeded the Gallup’s 75th percentile rating for four consecutive years (2005-2008). •Low turnover, a supportive learning environment, and leadership effectiveness are factors in The Center's recognition as a Federal Executive Board Employer of Choice for 2008 and 2009, and a top 10 ranking on the "New Mexico Best Place to Work for 2009" list. •Senior leaders personally promote legal and ethical behavior through multiple formal and informal systematic approaches, including an extremely popular course called “Cowboy Ethics–The Code of the West” deployed to the entire workforce. The Cowboy Ethics program forms the foundation for manager and employee behavioral expectations such as “live each day with courage; take pride in your work; be tough, but fair; and ride for the brand.” •In a 2009 employee survey on ethical behavior, The Center's leadership received a rating of 4.8 out of 5, up from 4.5 in 2007. "

7/6/2010 3:58:04 PM

call me when we aren't running a massive deficit.

7/6/2010 4:05:09 PM

no no you see it's all a charade, gubmint is corrupt to the core and teh dummocrats aren't letting us know any of it

gotta keep that fluoride flowin to our drinking water

7/6/2010 4:05:14 PM

Quote :

"There is no accountability in government. There are no penalties for failure. Because of that performance metrics either a) aren't used b) aren't accurate c) are ignored or d) all of the above."

I wouldn't say that there's no accountability. Government jobs are just like other jobs, in some ways. Everyone is looking to cover their own ass, and no one wants to do any hard work themselves. The difference is that in the private sector, a business made up of lazy people, or people will poor interpersonal skills, will either fail or do poorly. Government entities have no such constraints. They will continue operating, no matter how inefficiently, unless an overseer comes in and mixes things up, or the program/department itself gets abolished, which is almost an impossibility.

7/6/2010 4:12:46 PM

^^

one day when you grow up and become an adult you'll realize that one party is not more corrupt or inept than the other (or any less for that matter).

[Edited on July 6, 2010 at 4:13 PM. Reason : .]

7/6/2010 4:13:21 PM

now malice on the other hand

7/6/2010 4:18:46 PM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38101235/ns/politics-washington_post/

Quote :

"A revolt among big donors on Wall Street is hurting fundraising for the Democrats' two congressional campaign committees, with contributions from the world's financial capital down 65 percent from two years ago. ... But the overwhelming factor is the rising anger among financial executives who think they have not been treated well based on their support of Democrats over the past four years, according to lawmakers, party strategists and fundraisers. Several of the party's biggest New York donors declined through spokesmen to be interviewed. Some Democrats say pushing Wall Street reform is more important than any slippage in political donations. "Democrats worked hard to pass reform with tough oversight, accountability and regulation, and it's no secret the big banks were against it," said Deirdre Murphy, spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "But we believe preventing another financial collapse is the responsible thing to do, and at the end of the day, we will have the resources we need to compete in our targeted states, as will our candidates." "

7/6/2010 5:02:51 PM

Quote :

"The difference is that in the private sector, a business made up of lazy people, or people will poor interpersonal skills, will either fail or do poorly."

LOL

This is the theory, but this isn't really how it works in the real world in many cases. There are lots of factors, but no one would accuse the typical wal mart employee of being particularly sociable or hard-working. In a small town, a grossly incompetent business will stay afloat simply because they're the only option. If you walk into a Best Buy, it's a rare thing to get a correct answer from an employee there (and I used to work for Best Buy...).

The only difference is that people have a selectivity bias against gov. employees, because people are more conscious of where their paychecks come from. People are less conscious about the bitching about private companies, because they either don't spend enough $$$ there to REALLY care, or they just like to confirm their pre-existing notions, whether realistic or not.

7/6/2010 8:05:09 PM

If you work for the government you've already turned your brain off and dropped out of productive society...so I have no problem with this.

[Edited on July 6, 2010 at 8:28 PM. Reason : Almost forgot, Death to America.]

7/6/2010 8:27:47 PM

^^

c'mon, the customer facing employees have negligible impact on the success of retail establishments. as long as the shit is on the shelves and is priced right for the target market that's all that matters. Customer experience may affect the buying habits of more educated people, but they don't affect the masses.

7/6/2010 10:00:21 PM

^

7/6/2010 10:43:18 PM

TSA expects their employees to work while at work? Huh.

7/6/2010 11:31:05 PM

What I found the most fascinating is that they are not going to block Porn, just opinions they disagree with.

7/6/2010 11:54:20 PM

I would imagine porn's already been blocked for awhile.

7/7/2010 12:04:34 AM

Quote :

"If you work for the government you've already turned your brain off and dropped out of productive society...so I have no problem with this."

Untrue. There is only a 70-80% chance of this happening, based upon my real-world experience.

I'm leaving the government before this happens (22 days and counting).

I also love how sensationalist the original story is. They routinely block different websites for whatever reason where I work now. Usually it's the IT department going "uh, you idiots are streaming too much music and playing too many flash games, so we're blocking these sites", as there is an overwhelming lack of productive effort on the part of many employees. Of course, the unfortunate thing in the federal government is that if you prove to be a hard worker who turns things around quickly you will get nine thousand people trying to climb up your asshole with work assignments.

That's why most federal employees keep a low profile and only work what they are directly told to work (process ownership is usually pretty rare, so a supervisor has to delegate work constantly to keep up productivity, and even then employees can choose the rate at which they want to work). Supervisors don't bother with trying to fire low-performers because A: They won't be in the supervisory position they're in for too long (it would take three years of serious, documented fuckups for an employee to get fired), B: they don't want to rock the boat even more and make their employees hate them even more, C: they can just pass the work on to one of the harder working people in their group and the work will eventually get done.

Quote :

"no no you see it's all a charade, gubmint is corrupt to the core and teh dummocrats aren't letting us know any of it gotta keep that fluoride flowin to our drinking water"

The following in italics is all theoretical:

Theoretically, I might have coworkers who use government equipment for private activities, including profit-making activities, some of whom do this all-day while delegating their work assignments out to other employees. There may be coworkers who haven't done a single assignment in the last twenty years of their careers where I work simply by using a medical excuse for everything and by completing projects at 1/20th the pace of a normal government worker. There may also be coworkers who simply stay over after work to earn overtime at great expense to the government with 0% benefit (i.e. they may just stay around online looking at videos and browsing the web). I may have a coworker who threatened to blow up my building (the headquarters of this major installation) and kill everyone in it who managed to legally get his job reinstated and who is virtually untouchable because of management who just want him to stay in his corner and for all the problems he creates to just go away. This coworker may also frequently forget to take his medication and do strange and crazy things while at the office like randomly draw coworkers without their knowledge and spend the entire day in their cubicle swearing and cussing out real/imaginary people under their breath. There may be a whole lot of other shit I'm not including in this completely theoretical situation because I'm tired of posting it over and over again on here.

Seriously, remove thine head from betwixt thine buttocks and realize that claims of "government corruption" are the same as claims of "government inefficiency". Both parties have interests that thrive based on their actions, and all of these government organizations deal with the same problems to a varying extent (it depends on how "visible" the group is as to whether or not it is fairly inefficient and corrupt to grossly inefficient with significant corruption).

This is just an effort to cut back on bandwidth usage and to at least reduce some of the opportunities employees have to screw around.

Quote :

"There is no accountability in government. There are no penalties for failure. Because of that performance metrics either a) aren't used b) aren't accurate c) are ignored or d) all of the above."

Based on some severe, ridiculously corrupt groups of people and unchecked gross negligence, numerous people have been removed or possibly fired from the government installation where I work right now. The shake-up in the command structure going on right now is apparently unprecedented relative to the last twenty years. I believe dozens of people were removed from their positions or shifted to meaningless positions with even less power than they have now (that's how they deal with incompetent management, they shift them somewhere less dangerous at the same pay grade). Some of the most powerful people in the yard were removed from their positions (effectively ending their career in a few years) or had their positions completely destroyed (and they were relocated to meaningless jobs that don't even have descriptions).

Performance metrics are usually discarded/ignored except when they're championed by upper management as one of their "accomplishments". I know this because I came up with excellent justification for doing something that would save the government $16 million (if investment was made up front, assuming some other factors and giving a generous discount rate for a conservative estimate). The report wasn't picked up for two months after being requested by the department that wanted it, and finally after it was delivered we never got any response/interest/heard anything back about them wanting to go ahead with the ridiculously easy, low-cost suggestions contained within. I might give it to my current supervisor when I leave so he can use it to champion his group's efforts and to try to get our budget increased.

Teal Deer: The government is fucked, all government facilities have the same problems and have some varying degree of corruption and efficiency that is at least slightly worse than private corporations (not saying private companies aren't corrupt), numerous 'theoretical' examples of corruption/inefficiency, the performance metrics are a joke, nobody gives a shit, and yeah both parties pander to their own corrupt interests.

[Edited on July 7, 2010 at 12:48 AM. Reason : First-hand experience with the bullshit here, folks.]

7/7/2010 12:48:04 AM