Some ‘funny’ emails aren’t funny
p2pnet.net News:- Air Force machinist Donald Thompson didn’t think twice last November when he forwarded an email criticizing president Bush, says an item in the Federal Times, going on:
"He saw nothing wrong with passing on to 70 friends and acquaintances a lampoon of the president’s qualifications from the union office in Warner-Robins, Ga., where he served as president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ Local 987. ‘It was a funny e-mail, and I thought people would enjoy it,’ Thompson said. ‘To me, sending it was just an electronic version of water cooler chit-chat’.
Unfortunately for Thompson, the Office of Special Council wasn’t laughing and now he’s fighting for his job.
The OSC says it’s an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency and "operates as a secure channel for disclosures of whistleblower complaints and abuse of authority".
In other words, someone ratted Thompson out and the OSC now claims Thompson violated the Hatch Act that restricts the political activities of federal, state and local government employees.
"If the Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates Hatch Act complaints filed by the OSC, finds Thompson violated the law, he could be suspended or fired," says the Federal Times.
Nor, it says, is Thompson’s case isolated.
"This year, OSC is prosecuting a record number of Hatch Act violations," says the report, quoting Scott Bloch, head of the OSC, as saying "misuse" of e-mail is, "one of the most common ways employees run afoul of the Hatch Act".
But, "when a federal employee sends an e-mail that advocates the support or opposition of a partisan candidate running for office and does so from a government computer, in a government building, or while on duty in a federal job, he or she violates the law, Bloch said."
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See:-
think twice – Hatch Act minefield: As political activism rises, so do violations, prosecutions, Federal Times, October 4, 2004
October 5th, 2004 at 8:02 pm
LOL…so in otherwords, if you work for the government you better not have anything to say about them, even in a joking manner…heaven forbid that Bush baby could be worth joking about, or the Federal System at all for that matter.
Hmmm, sounds like another excuse and vehicle to restrain freedom of speech, to me…a joke is a joke…whether everyone agrees or not.
October 5th, 2004 at 9:47 pm
Hatch act? that explains it
October 5th, 2004 at 10:08 pm
Right. hehe
October 6th, 2004 at 3:53 am
Yep any law or bill with Oral Hatch attached to it has got to be against personal Freedom!!!!! He is a SORRY excuse for a Republican and a senator!!!!!!!!!