Breaking Your Employer’s Computer Policy Isn’t A Crime

Keep in mind that you'll probably still be fired for looking at porn at work.

The decision is important because it ensures that employers and website owners don’t have the power to criminalize a broad range of innocuous everyday behaviors, like checking personal email or the score of a baseball game, through simply adopting use restrictions in their corporate policies or terms of use.

One of the funny quirks of the US Constitution is that, the bill of rights amendments at the end of the day only burden the government with limitations, but the private sector can carry on unencumbered by their idiosyncratic rules, even when no violation has not been committed.
So, while the government cannot fire you for violating the computer policy, your private sector employer might do so for a lesser violation. As they can fire you for being sick, for being pregnant, for being gay, for being a different color than they would prefer... etc etc.

yay, now congress can continue looking up high profile hookers and blow.

So did they basically say that the cops can abuse the systems they have access to for any purpose they deem fit and that it isn't illegal to do so?

aShrubbery! said:

One of the funny quirks of the US Constitution is that, the bill of rights amendments at the end of the day only burden the government with limitations, but the private sector can carry on unencumbered by their idiosyncratic rules, even when no violation has not been committed.
So, while the government cannot fire you for violating the computer policy, your private sector employer might do so for a lesser violation. As they can fire you for being sick, for being pregnant, for being gay, for being a different color than they would prefer... etc etc.

Click to expand...

If someone gets fired over a minor computer incident, they were looking for a way to get rid of them anyway. Now, major incidents (security, porn, etc...) all bets are off.

BoogerBomb said:

So did they basically say that the cops can abuse the systems they have access to for any purpose they deem fit and that it isn't illegal to do so?

Click to expand...

Well they can't be criminally held accountable but they can be fired which is how it should be. A bad employee is a bad employee but a bad employee isn't a criminal offense.

Semantics said:

A bad employee is a bad employee but a bad employee isn't a criminal offense.

Click to expand...

Can we make it one? I work with some really, really useless lazy jerks.

nightfly said:

Can we make it one? I work with some really, really useless lazy jerks.

Click to expand...

You use the word "we". But the problem with laws is that they affect "we", but were not crafted nor put in place by "we". You are accountable to a 1000 laws as it is, yet how many of those did you have any say in?

Be careful when you ask the government to solve your problems.

aShrubbery! said:

One of the funny quirks of the US Constitution is that, the bill of rights amendments at the end of the day only burden the government with limitations, but the private sector can carry on unencumbered by their idiosyncratic rules, even when no violation has not been committed.
So, while the government cannot fire you for violating the computer policy, your private sector employer might do so for a lesser violation. As they can fire you for being sick, for being pregnant, for being gay, for being a different color than they would prefer... etc etc.

Click to expand...

That's kind of how freedom works ... the employers have freedom just as there employees do ... part of that employer freedom is they can define the rules to work there (as long as they don't violate laws passed by the government) ... the government does have the ability to pass laws making the firing of the protected classifications a civil and/or criminal act (which they have done)

aShrubbery! said:

So, while the government cannot fire you for violating the computer policy, your private sector employer might do so for a lesser violation. As they can fire you for being sick, for being pregnant, for being gay, for being a different color than they would prefer... etc etc.

Click to expand...

I've never heard of anyone being fired from a corporation or from public service for practicing or asserting homosexuality, but I have heard many accounts since the mid-90s of Christians who were fired, or required to attend "sensitivity training" indoctrination sessions, for disapproving of homosexuality.

Deadly Ramon said:

I've never heard of anyone being fired from a corporation or from public service for practicing or asserting homosexuality, but I have heard many accounts since the mid-90s of Christians who were fired, or required to attend "sensitivity training" indoctrination sessions, for disapproving of homosexuality.

Click to expand...

90s the same time all those "Christians" were busy blowing up abortion clinics? Want to know the difference? A homosexual can be a flamboyant homosexual without personally attacking anyone, "disapproving" sounds like lawyer talk for harassment, making personal attacks which have no place in a workplace.

Semantics said:

90s the same time all those "Christians" were busy blowing up abortion clinics?

Click to expand...

I'm sure there were a lot less incidents of vandalism, fewer still of violence, at abortion factories than there were peaceful protests. A spate of church burnings in northern Europe also took place during the 90s (linked in large part to black metal extremists like Øystein Aarseth and Varg Vikernes), and I recall a photograph in Nirvana's In Utero album booklet featuring the edifice of a Republican Party County Headquarters in South Pasadena that had been damaged in an act of arson, so it's not as if only places in which abortions occurred were targeted by vandals and arsonists.

Want to know the difference? A homosexual can be a flamboyant homosexual without personally attacking anyone, "disapproving" sounds like lawyer talk for harassment, making personal attacks which have no place in a workplace.

Click to expand...

Former Atlanta fire chief Kevin Cochran wasn't harassing anybody when he was fired by mayor Kasim Reed for publishing a booklet, Who Told You That You Were Naked, in which half of one of its 162 pages upheld a Biblical view on marriage:

'According to the report there was little evidence the chief used his views to discriminate against his employees. The report states, "There is currently no indication that Chief Cochran allowed his religious beliefs to compromise his disciplinary decisions."
In fact, the report states that the chief suspended some firefighters after they posted a picture of themselves on Facebook at Chick-Fil-A.

The picture was meant to support CEO Dan Cathy's stance on homosexuality. Last year, Cathy spoke out against gay marriage. The same sentiments expressed in Cochran's book.'