It is really stupid to have explicit sexual discussions over official work communications. I can't count how many sexual harassment trainings I have taken. Everyone knows that it is against the rules to talk about sexual subjects at work and it is a fast track termination. Clearly these people lacking in smarts do not belong in "intelligence" organizations.
I read about this. So, was this a company sanctioned chat room/blog? Or was this just something that the employees came up with. If it started out as being sanctioned, and suddenly became a firing offense, I've got a problem with that scenario.
I don't much care for the subject matter. (Duh.) But to each their own. Just don't change the rules at the spur of the moment, and then bust the people who are no longer in compliance.
I read about this. So, was this a company sanctioned chat room/blog? Or was this just something that the employees came up with. If it started out as being sanctioned, and suddenly became a firing offense, I've got a problem with that scenario.
I don't much care for the subject matter. (Duh.) But to each their own. Just don't change the rules at the spur of the moment, and then bust the people who are no longer in compliance.
I seriously doubt that the chat was given carte blanche to discuss explicit sexual matters. At my organization there are officially sanctioned groups for minorities and the LGBT community. In no way does that give them permission to flout the rules of the workplace. Violating the sexual harassment rules are a fast track to getting fired. If a 3rd party overhears, sees, or reads such a discussion then so long job. With work electronic communications, it is automatic that someone in the information security office is going to see and read the discussions. That is an automatic 3rd party as all of our communications and work on our computers is monitored.
I work in IT so I am keenly aware of the monitoring that the ISO does. Woe onto anyone that does not know and thinks that they have any privacy while using work computers and work software.
Doug, I get it. I'm a career telecom/IT guy. I've seen a few people get gone for "inappropriate use of electronic media". But most of the time, when that happened, the company was looking for an excuse to thin the herd. And with some of these gummint departments (dare I say "shadow organizations"?) one never knows...
Yeah, I would like to add one thing... the media keeps throwing in NSA for all of this. It kills me that this keeps getting repeated.
IntelLink is run by the DIA, not the NSA.
NSA and CIA have their own top secret networks that are separate from all the other agencies (which those agencies do not have access to). All the other agencies, such as NGA, NRO, DIA, and general TS DoD... that's all done on a network called JWICS. This is run by the DIA. NIPR (unclassified) and SIPR (secret) are all run by an organization called DISA. The three networks, NIPR, SIPR, and JWICS are all interconnected to share data up via IntelLink, which is managed and run by the DIA.
All of that said, people from the NSA and CIA have access to JWICS, but everyone else do not have access to NSA and CIA's networks (higher compartments, etc.). But a few sick bastards from NSA decided to post on the message forums for JWICS, but it does not represent the NSA in general.
There's a lot of stuff on that network that's screwed up. I desperately want them to search for the term "communism" too... because there is RAMPANT support for communism in the intelligence community. All of those people need to get fired as well.
