People outside of Kentucky might think it's somewhat bizarre that government officials are now blocking state employees' Internet access to blogs that are critical of Governor Ernie Fletcher.
Unfortunately, it's not that crazy. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.
The current administration has made a name of cutting off as much negative opinion as possible, and since June 23, state workers cannot resolve the Bluegrass Report and other statewide blogs.
I don't necessarily have a problem with blocking gambling, gaming and porn websites, at least for almost all government employees. These may still need to be accessed on rare occasions for research, but not nearly as often as political websites, regardless of the side they report.
According to ABC News, State Finance Cabinet spokeswoman Jill Midkiff said workers can appeal the decision, if they deem it necessary to read the sites.
So will an employee have to do this for every possible website that can be visited? The state uses web filtering software called Webwasher, which groups websites into a multitude of categories, including blogs. But what constitutes a blog ... news that doesn't come from a syndicated news source? Wait a minute ... how do newspapers and television and radio stations get their information. Don't they get it from non-news services? I suspect a blog would be anything not from an actual company ... meaning that suppressing blogs means eliminating the voice of the people.
I thought we elect officials to listen to our voices?
I'm assuming the next step will be to just remove the Internet from the entire state. Then there's an even more difficult chance will figure out what's going on in Frankfort at the Capitol.
Comments1
Re: What's next ... Kentucky to ban the Internet?
So, when are you moving out of Kentucky again? With the internet being gone that pretty much leaves you hanging in the wind, no?