🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <46qmum$eic@zippy.cais.net>, packer@cais.cais.com (Charles
Packer) wrote:

> Last week officials at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
> ordered that the rec.humor newsgroup hierarchy be removed from
> the Center's news server. After protests, they allowed one of
> the newsgroups, rec.humor.funny, which is a moderated
> newsgroup, to be restored.
> 
> I called up the Center's Chief Information Officer to find out
> more about what was going on and this is what he said: A
> Goddard employee made a work-related posting to a technical
> newsgroup. Said posting contained additional, and vulgar,
> remarks. Somebody =outside= Goddard reposted it to rec.humor
> without the originator's knowledge. A complaint came from high
> up -- the official mentioned the White House and Senator Sam
> Nunn when I pressed him for details.
> 
> How this translates into the need to remove rec.humor from
> =inside= Goddard is beyond me. But if I've misrepresented what
> he said, he is to blame for declining to get into specifics
> that would clarify things.
> 
> He, and every NASA or contractor official I've talked to about
> Usenet (or "Abusenet," as one poobah calls it), justify
> restrictive measures by saying that NASA is "vulnerable" vis a
> vis its budget and can't afford to anger anyone.
> 
> But how did NASA, once upon a time the most dynamic and
> creative of government agencies, come to be vulnerable? Might
> it be because it's become topheavy with bureaucrats who employ
> flaky reasoning?

The same reason the rest of the government agencies come under fire. 
Citizens aren't convinced they're getting what they're paying for.  In
most cases, those citizens are right.

I pay a considerable amount of money for internet access.  I use it for
business as well as personal purposes but I pay for it out of my own
pocket.  If my company paid for it, I wouldn't even consider posting
anything that could be construed as abusive/rude/vulgar/etc. (not that I
would intentionally do any of these things anyway, but if it were a
company account, I'd be even more careful).  Everything that a NASA
employee sends on a NASA account has a NASA address...the company (NASA
and the federal government) is clearly identified in the post.  No one can
tell who I work for just by reading my address.

NASA (and other government agencies) provide an internet connection to
their employees (presumably) to make their work easier.  It's not for the
employees' entertainment needs.

NASA owns your site, folks.  You work *for* NASA (and, frankly, for me). 
If the hierarchy at NASA decides to remove certain newsgroups, that's
their perogative.  Those employees who don't like it are free to seek work
elsewhere (or purchase their own internet connection).  Would people
object if microsoft banned newsgroups from its system?  Maybe (probably?),
but they too would be free to seek work elsewhere.  When you pay the piper
you call the tune.

NASA (and the feds in general) are somewhat unique in that they
continually have to justify a budget to a group of people (taxpayers) who
are forced to give them money and are increasingly displeased with the
product they get in return.  Government FINALLY is becoming a little more
responsive in this regard and listening when the taxpayers complain.

I say delete all the rec.* and alt.* from the NASA (and .gov) hierarchy. 
Read them on your own time and your own ISP.

-- 
P.J. Geraghty, FF3/NR/MDEMT-P/CPTC/Etc.         
http://www.clark.net/pub/geraghty/
Be an organ donor...it's the chance of a lifetime!