Blog: Air Force Blocks Reader to Religious Site
By Allan Holmes | Monday, April 09, 2007 | 06:05 PM
By Allan Holmes | Monday, April 09, 2007 | 06:05 PM
A blogger who writes the Philocrites blog (on "religion, liberalism and culture") claims that a reader accessing his site from an Air Force computer has been blocked from accessing his site.
Chris Walton, who says he writes about the Unitarian Universalist movement, posted an item on his blog reporting that an Air Force employee sent him an image of the message that pops up on the employee's monitor when he types in Philocrites web site address www.philocrites.com. "The Site You Are Trying To Access Is Prohibited," the message begins. "Category of Blocked URL: "Forum/Bulletin Boards. Monitoring of Your Web Activity is Being Performed."
The reason for blocking access to the site, according to the message, was because of "unauthorized personal use."
But Walton wonders if the reader was blocked because his site is considered liberal. He provides links to stories about the possibility of federal agencies blocking access to liberal Web sites, one from the political blog Daily Kos and another from Federal Computer Week. Wikipedia describes the Unitarian Universalism as "liberal."
Walton also writes that readers from other federal agencies have not been blocked from accessing his site, including one from the Justice Department who visited his site in March.
Tell us if you have had any problems accessing sites considered liberal or conservative by clicking the "comments" link below.
Comments
glad to see it. how about earning your pay rather than playing around.
dan ketter | Wednesday, April 11, 2007 | 11:04 PMPlease keep in mind as you collect this information that social bias may creep in. For example, in the case of this survey, liberals *tend* to think society owes them more that do conservatives. Thus, there will be the tendency to think that they *should* be free to visit non-government-business web sites more than conservatives (though policy is pretty clear in most workplaces that personal access is limited). The end result will be a greater tendency to abuse the privilege, getting them prohibited from access. Your survey, then, would *tend* to show a larger number of prohibited web sites that are liberal in nature.
SOS | Tuesday, April 10, 2007 | 08:53 AMThis is an ongoing process to keep spyware, malware, rootkits, viruses, and other cyber crud out of government computers. Sites are identified as "entertainment" or non work related and added to the firewall by the agency's security group. Most Feds do not take the time to keep their PC's clean until they freeze and the tech guys come up to clean them out. Philocrates may also have been identified as a site carrying various cyber crud and blocked by the Air Force anti virus software. There is one major right wing site that is blocked on all Federal PC's, AOL.
Anthony Weishar | Tuesday, April 10, 2007 | 07:47 AME-mails from the DMC and even from charitable organizations have been blocked on my computer at SSA. I've since cancelled or redirected to my home computer those sources. Kind of scary isn't it?
Sue Coleman | Tuesday, April 10, 2007 | 06:17 AMABOUT THIS BLOG
Allan Holmes, Bob Brewin and Daniel Pulliam on what's happening and what's being discussed in the world of federal information technology.
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