Welcome to Amerika… TSA-Team Obama Acting Like Orwell’s “Thought Police,” Block “Controversial Opinions” on Internet
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on July 6, 2010
First off, I get really miffed when I hear that taxpayer dollars pay some bozo government slacker’s salary who spends most of his or her time earning that salary frittering the day away on the Internet. Oops, that’s already happened with porn sites.
Team Obama’s Transportation Security Administration has begun to clamp down on access to areas of the Internet for its employees. While on one hand, it is the legitimate right (and often, wisdom) of an employer to determine who can and cannot access the Internet when working. For some chuckleheads, this should mean TOTAL blockage of the web, because their job does not necessitate Internet access and they’d be watching porn or silly cat tricks or hip hop music videos all day, while getting paid to do so.
However, the “controversial opinions” block is unsettling. It has heavy whiffs of socialist tyranny and the Cloward-Piven Strategy. Many would view this Internet block at the TSA as the first step of gradualism.
And, for some inexplicable reason, porn is NOT on the TSA list of topics to block. So removing access to well-known Internet time wasters to increase performance output is not the motivation here. Watching Internet videos of big-bosomed, sweaty women engaging in carnal calisthenics with beef-cakey, sweaty men are still available to TSA employees. (I’m sure a number of TSA goldbrickers are sighing with relief).
In George Orwell’s chilling futuristic novel, 1984, government domination was maintained by the “thought police.” Per Wikipedia, the Thought Police were trained to “uncover and punish thoughtcrime and thought-criminals, using psychology and omnipresent surveillance from telescreens to find and eliminate members of society who were capable of the mere thought of challenging ruling authority.”
Gulp.
What does TSA, under the suspicious, leftist guidance of DHS head liberal Janet “Incompetano” Napolitano — who considers Christians, pro-lifers, conservatives, non-presidential supporters, and US military vets, but not radical Muslims, a national security threat — consider “controversial opinion”?
In Ja-No’s controversial Homeland Security government report (and approved by her boss, Barack Obama) released last spring to law enforcement officers, Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, is available online (PDF format), she targets the non-threatening, non-Obama-Koolaid drinking American public. Ja-No’s document targets a huge percentage of law-abiding, taxpaying, non-left-wing Americans, but leaves out any mention of statistically and historically proven threats, such as the radical Muslims who used jets as bombs on September 11, 2001. Only one religion is mentioned in the report: Christian.
Who in the world gets to make the call as to what is controversial (eye of the beholder and all that good rot), determine the filters, select the content to block from TSA employees?
What’s “off limits” and “on limits” per TSA’s perception of “controversial opinions”?
Pro-Muslim or pro-military or pro-socialism discussion? Flip side… Anti-Muslim or anti-military or anti-socialism discussion? ANY Muslim or military or socialism discussion? Criticism of the federal government, except if it criticizes Republicans or tea party candidates? Any criticism of the growing disaster of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? Will ANY CRITICISM of anything left-wing or about Barack or any of his cronies be blocked at some future date?
Will the conservative/free-market opinions expressed by FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Ronald Reagan, Mark Levin, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Michelle Malkin be blocked from TSA employees, but the left-wing, anti-American rantings and writings of Karl Marx, Saul Alinsky, Daily Kos, Code Pink, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Janeane Garofalo, Sean Penn, and the Dixie Chicks will be permitted? Is the Dalai Lama and Winston Churchill off limits, but Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez A-OK? Recipes for arugula get a green light, Southern fried chicken and McDonald’s French fries gets a red?
Granted, this is just TSA’s block, and left-wing pundits will be pooh-poohing that conservative opinions will be on the chopping block. Olbermann and Matthews will likely laugh like hyenas that conservatives would be so paranoid to EVER think that the government would attempt to block Freedom of Speech. Again, Cloward-Piven Strategy.
Mark my words: this is a government test run for something much bigger, much uglier.
It’s going to be a bumpy summer, boys and girls. Welcome to the USSA… welcome to Amerika.
Reported by CBS News… TSA to Block “Controversial Opinion” on the Web:
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.
From Hot Air, Great news: TSA to block “controversial opinion” websites to employees:
The Transportation Security Administration has taken a bold step forward in securing commercial air, sea, and ground transportation, thanks to a renewed focus on technology. Are they using state-of-the-art scanners? Perhaps, but that’s not their focus these days. Instead, they’re busy protecting their employees from, er, controversial opinions…
[...]
However, the “controversial opinion” and “gruesome content” restrictions are just begging for arguments. Who decides what is “controversial” and what is “gruesome”? Do some opinion sites get through, while others get blocked, and on what basis will those decisions be made? Will Fox News get blocked but MSNBC approved, or vice versa? How about the HuffPo and Hot Air, or the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times? The Nation and National Review? “Controversial opinions” are, after all, the lifeblood of American politics and of free speech.
Or, given the track record of government agencies and Internet access, maybe the TSA would be better advised to cut off the Internet and tell people to pay attention to their jobs.
Doug Powers, guest blogging at Michelle Malkin’s popular conservative site, asks this of Malkin’s readers:
Does Michelle have some readers out there who work for the TSA? If so, try to access this site — and then try to access HuffPo. I’m just curious, but I think I know how that will turn out.
You’ll notice that porn sites are not on the list of banned sites. This is so that SEC employees aren’t discouraged from seeking careers with the TSA.
From American Thinker, TSA blocks employee access to ‘controversial’ opinions on net:
Say hello to the thought police. The Transportation Security Agency is making certain that its employees do not have access to websites featuring “controversial” opinions, leaving the exact definition of “controversial” unclear. Somehow, I suspect that President Obama’s opinion that the United States is not a special nation is not deemed controversial.
[...]
Evidently, pornography is no problem for the TSA.
I wrote this in June… Censorship of Internet: FCC Deem and Pass, Net Neutrality, & So-Called “Hate Speech” Are Still Alive and Kicking, but Maybe Not for Long:
Freedom of speech on the Internet is still threatened, particularly that of conservative speech. “Hate speech” seems to be directed only towards protecting or kowtowing to certain groups (translation: liberal, progressive, socialist, communist, etc.) — very likely, people writing hateful rants wishing that George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, or Dick Cheney would die gruesome deaths would be ignored. Criticisms of Team Obama or groups favored by this administration… hmm, wonder how that would go?
The First Amendment is in the crosshairs, patriots.
About the author
Welcome to Amerika – TSA-Team Obama Acting Like Orwell’s Thought Police……