Entertainment For Lively Minds
Wikileaks ban
Posted by latenitetellyvision on 14 December 2010 - 6:09pm.
My GLW, works for a UK company with a US parent company.
Last week she had a company-wide email banning all employees from looking at wikileaks, including on personally owned computers and other devices.
And reiterating that any information from wikileaks that was reprinted on websites, blogs or newspapers, was still "classified"
I guess they are covering their arse, but I found it staggering that they could instruct employees to not look at something on personal computers....
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I presume they can TRY to
prevent employees looking at such material in the privacy of their own home, on their own time and on their own computers, but they'd be hard pushed to enforce it. If your GLW works for an ultra sinister organisation that actually has the wherewithall to monitor what y'all do of an evening, then, when you're done being very scared, you can wonder how in the hell they'd hope to defend themselves at the employee appeals tribunal (or whatever they're called) if firing was mooted...
Dumb question
Is the material classified anywhere else apart from the US? Surely not. And legally, US companies operating outside the US with non US nationals as staff can hardly enforce that, can they? Would it stand up in court, as they say?
Absurd
I'd love to see them try to enforce that instruction in court.
Stretching credibility
but it's probably not that far off most companies IT policies. It *really* says personally owned computers? What, they didn't run it past legal before issuing the memo?
The 'IT' scourge
Problem is, when you are employed to do something completely unproductive in company, to keep yourself busy the temptation is to do all you can to prevent others from doing anything productive as well.
I'd propose that the 'company wide email' itself
ought to be up on Wikileaks.
They have no right at all to make demands regarding perfectly legal activities their employees enjoy in their own time, and may well be in breach of UK employment legislation by making such demands.
Any Massive briefs here to confirm/deny/enlighten us?
Massive Briefs, TMFTL.
Clarification
Does it actually ban employees from viewing Wikileaks in their own time at home? Maybe when it says personal computers and devices, it means whilst at work (checking the net on your phone whilst sat at your desk...etc).
Very funny
All I can say is 10 years down the line, all this McCarthyistic and unsupportable reaction over Wikileaks will look very ridiculous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
What happens when you open your
daily paper? Must you avert your eyes from anything that might be deemed classified. Is it April already?
Perfectly legal
In the USA, and yes staff could be terminated for it over here.
In the UK? Some dumb HR person should get their head handed to them. (THat's my professional HR opinion :) )
Really?
You could be sacked because you read something your employer doesn't want you to read? Are you ABSOLUTELY sure of that? Has it been tested in court?
Am I alone in thinking
1984 has finally arrived?
And not just in terms of the apparently constant surveillance of everything, but in the overriding mood of panic, gloom and catastrophe that every news outlet, every government, every government department etc etc is pushing? Keep the peasants in a state of fear and they'll not notice what we're really doing.
It seems
the terrists* have already won.
*Copyright 'Dubya'.
True
But which ones are the terrists?
In the USA?
Yes, I am absolutely sure about that.
[dork mode] The USA has employment at will. It means that unless the termination is based on what's called a protected characteristic - race, gender, age etc - then you can be fired for any reason.
Don't like red socks? Fire 'em for wearing them.
Want to be able to tell your employees to do/not do something outside the work place? Yes, in theory, you can fire people for it.
One possible exception is Massachusetts, where they are starting to explore the concept of implied covenants of good faith. But here, in Virginia? Lawful. [/dork mode]
The usual refrain is that things may not be ethical or 'right' when it comes to employment rights over here, but they will be lawful.
Strewth.
I knew worker's rights were limited in some states, but hadn't realised it was so baldly antiquated. It's a good job the OP's wife works in the UK, and not where employment law hasn't advanced since the middle of the seventeenth century. If I were you I'd consider a move to Boston!
Not quite as absurd ...
... but my company wants to have a policy that regulates the behaviour of employees having after work drinks or any social occasion where two or more employees are gathered. And the HR bods were surprised that we all thought it a bit bizarre.
oops, have posted using work laptop, oh dear.
Nice.
The teachers' code of practice (a laughable document produced by the equally laughable and soon-to-die General Teaching Council for England) states that teachers shall "maintain reasonable standards in their own behaviour that enable them to maintain an effective learning environment and also to uphold public trust and confidence in the profession."
That's pretty easily interpretable as whatever the employer feels like, but the standard interpretation is that we have to behave ourselves at the weekends. A senior manager once explained it to us in a very patronising briefing as "don't do anything in your own time which would be inappropriate to do in front of a student". Our staffroom wag piped up "That's alright, I've not had sex with my wife for ages anyway."
I'm no union firebrand, but I reckon that what I do outside my contracted hours is nobody's business but mine. Why do some employers think they get to own us?
The contract, dahlink, the contract
Your contract of employment with an employer isn't limited in scope to your working hours. They can stipulate anything they like, as long it's not illegal or contravenes other specific laws or human rights. There's that small step where you sign a contract of employment, thereby agreeing to abide by it. Yes, even if that includes items relating to your conduct outside the place and hours of work. Unfair? Shockingly so, but we're talking about what IS here, not what should be.
Yep
I used to work at a place where the contract stipulated that any ideas I had outside of office hours were the property of the employer if those ideas could be construed as being related to their business in some way. As almost everything I was doing online in my spare time could have been seen in that light, I simply never gave the contract back after it was delivered to me for signing. Thankfully, they never chased me for it.
An employment lawyer once told me
that an employer doesn't have to rely on a contract being signed and returned for it to be in force. It just has to issue the contract. If you continue to turn up for work, and don't register any objections or refute any of the terms, the employer can assume acceptance, evidenced by your continued working.
I've never seen it tested in court, but said lawyer tells me he had, and it was accepted.
Those contracts
They're not even worth the paper they're not written on.
Not to condone the ban
but perhaps they're just saying you can't use your own devices to connect to this material over *their* network?
Any organisation that allows its staff
to connect their own IT equipment (and I mean that in a pretty broad sense) to the corporate network is riding for a fall. Doing so should be a disciplinary offence, potentially resulting in dismissal.
The BOFH would probably arrange a rapid visit to the bottom of the office lift shaft.
The IT scourge, Episode 2
I'd say more than that. Execute them and then incinerate the bodies. Its the only way to be sure of virus not spreading. Cost of incinerators £100,000 quid.
The is an exception
Our company network is tied down to the nth degree. This is one of the few forums that I can access at work. There is so much security and paranoia about it that we can still safely (but grudgingly) use IE6 to browse the web.
However, there's another company network that only allows access to the Internet and we can connect our own equipment to that. The two networks never meet (although they can talk to each other via external Internet routing).
Presumably they're covering themselves...
... given the uncertain legal status of Wikileaks and suchlike, and don't want to get into trouble for their employees accessing this material via their network. Which, although perhaps a little over-cautious, is not entirely unreasonable.
Presumably, though, they don't have the same restrictions in place for the many hundreds or thousands of sites which also host the information, either as mirrors or as journalistic pieces (The Guardian), for instance. Which goes to show how utterly stupid and pointless it is...
The reach of US law is global
...or so they seem to think.
I once worked for an American company and they never quite twigged that UK employment and H&S law applies to everyone, irrespective of where they were born, working in the UK and that US law does not apply one jot. To be honest I think that was more to do with the fact that 90% of employees were in the USA and the rest in various parts of Europe. So more out of laziness than anything else and I supect that's the case for Mrs Latenight...
As to internet usage. I now work for a large telecomms company (I won't say which one but there are only 2 letters) and we have a fair usage policy in relation to internet usage at work. Which is all common sense stuff - no porn, no downloading, no streaming, no P2P. And no-one can use any personal electrical equipment at all. That's not just an IT security issue it's H&S as well. Internet usage policy applies to usage of my work laptop at home inside and outside of working hours. That's because the company could be implicated if I was involved in any criminal or other nefarious activities.
As to my personal computer...they cannot restrict what I do. However, if I bring the company into disrepute they would get interested. What employer wouldn't? But it would have to be something that is either criminal or breaks commercial confidentiality.
My wife is a teacher and her employer strongly discourages staff from using Facebook etc. The reason being that the teachers could take to pupils. The implication given is that any teacher using FB who has pupils as friends is ipso facto a paedophile. Guilt without evidence. Which applies to the original Wikileaks. If you access it you must be guilty or, and this seems to be the real crime in US company's view, sympathise with it. Perhaps Mrs Ltenite.. should access it from home and see what happens.
Teachers and Facebook
The reason being that the teachers could take to pupils. The implication given is that any teacher using FB who has pupils as friends is ipso facto a paedophile.
Mrs Umpire is a school governor. The head (supported by the governors) has strongly recommended that the teachers do not use FaceBook, Bebo etc. It is not a ban but a strong recommendation. This is nothing to do with 'paedophilia', per se, but rather an attempt to prevent situations such as those that have arisen in the past couple of years; for example:
- teachers accepting some kids in a class as friends but not others;
- the lads passing around pictures of 'Miss' in a bikini (innocently enjoying herself on holiday with her mates);
- everyone giggling over pictures of another 'Miss' looking a little worse for wear on a night out with her mates.
There's nothing inherently 'wrong' with any of the above (except, arguably, the first), but the head's view was that didn't help the teachers concerned to maintain an appropriate relationship with the pupils. I have no problem with that.
Quite.
I would never be "friends" on Facebook with a pupil at any school I was teaching at at the time. While I'm their teacher, I've got no business being their friend anyway. There may be a lot of mutual liking and respect, but for me friendship with a current pupil is crossing a professional line.
Plus, you really are asking for trouble adding current pupils to your Facebook account, purely because of the associated privacy issues.
Depends how it's phrased
I meant to say "talk" not "take". I take your point and it's commoin sense stuff. The school at which Mrs Cradlerock teaches at had a talk from a Child Protection Office from the LEA. The implication given, in what was no doubt a very clumsy presentation, was that a teacher merely being on FB and the like is a threat and any teacher on there will be viewed with suspicion. There was no recognition of the common sense and discretion of those teachers. All tarred with the same hypotehetical brush in other words.
Having said that Mrs C has no intenmtion of ever going on FB. She's got more sense. Unlike me. What she objected to was the strong arm tactics used by her employer and that was analagous withtn the wiklieaks issue noted by the OP