Is The School Board Blocking Browardbeat.com?
BY BUDDY NEVINS
The Broward School Board should know about the First Amendment. After all, they didn’t go to a Broward County school.
Browardbeat.com received the following comment this week. It indicates that employees are being discouraged to look at Browardbeat.com.
Is it true?
The comment was posted on an item critical of member Bob Parks attempts to extend the contract of School Board’s chief attorney Ed Marko.
Marko was due to leave later this year. Parks wants him to stay through 2011.
The School Board put off a decision, which is what they do best.
If the Board — or its bureaucratic thought-police — are trying to block employees from seeing critical websites, its pathetic.
Anybody walking through the School Board’s headquarters can see employees surfing through eBay and scanning the Sun-Sentinel. Please don’t tell me there is an informal list of approved Internet sites employees can visit.
Here is the comment to Browardbeat.com:
“I heard that the school board made browardbeat.com a forbidden sight for employees to read. I am now sure why, but maybe it has something to do with the threat made by “soon to be laid off or maybe the comments school board high ups. It seems twisted that access to this site would be denied, but school board employees can still access many other news and information sources. As Buddy would sayhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..”
April 22nd, 2010 at 4:52 am
No, coming through crystal clear!
April 22nd, 2010 at 5:11 am
I was cautioned not to surf the Internet only after I was seen looking at your website, Buddy.
There is great fear in this building because of the pending layoffs. Everybody is scared and the administration is using it to their advantage.
April 22nd, 2010 at 5:16 am
I read your blog all the time while at KCW!
April 22nd, 2010 at 5:23 am
Buddy, whose district do you live in?????
You really need to run, you would be great!
Would you fire Notter and/or Marko?
FROM BUDDY:
Thanks for the confidence, but I would never run. Never. Nada. No way.
April 22nd, 2010 at 5:26 am
is there truth to the long running rumors that Marko has stuff on the Members, including Parks?
April 22nd, 2010 at 5:52 am
Comes up as forbidden says it is a social network page. just tried it yesterday.
April 22nd, 2010 at 7:21 am
through Buddy to Mr. Notter (and I do know you are sneaking peaks at this blog, Mr. Notter):
Your entire system is an abhorrent disaster. Stop trying to sugar coat it. Do us a favor, retire, and advise the Members to bring a person from outside the typical Acadamia world. None of you traditional Adadamia types are capable of running a $4 billion business efficiently, well or legally.
April 22nd, 2010 at 7:23 am
Government control freaks like this make me sick.
April 22nd, 2010 at 7:30 am
Hey Buddy;
Offer up an RSS feed… Through Feedburner or the like. Let folks subscribe that way…
Make it tougher on the network police…
April 22nd, 2010 at 7:40 am
So… Let me get this straight. The first amendment provides the right of an employee to surf the web instead of doing the job they’re actually being paid to do? Especially a public employee??? How can you justify this Buddy? You, the stalwart critic of governmental waste and fraud making convenient exceptions?
FROM BUDDY:
I’m saying that if employees surf the web, they should be allowed to go to anywhere with the exception, maybe, of pornographic sites. Browardbeat.com should not be blocked because administrators object to its criticism of the Board.
Allowing employees to view some websites, but blocking others because of their political content is censorship, plain and simple.
As I wrote, school employees are surfing the web. They are not alone in this.
The traffic at the Sun-Sentinel, and almost every other website, increases during the workday when people are stuck in front of their computers.
Is it right to be surfing the Internet when you are suppose to be working is another question? Each employer has their own rules.
When I was a boss, I didn’t care if an employee surfed the Internet as long as they completed their assigned tasks. I didn’t believe a workplace should be like the slave ship in Ben Hur with workers chained to their seats only allowed to do their jobs. I was dealing with adult professionals and not one of them ever let me down. And they all worked more than 40 hours-a-week.
What’s the difference between an employee is surfing the Internet or standing around the watercooler gossiping?
You have to give employees a little freedom or you won’t get top performance from them.
April 22nd, 2010 at 7:47 am
the frist amendment is alive and well in the Broward School Board Government,not.
dont do as I do,do as I say,I know this is old but it is true.
buddy your right government employees are on the internet a lot sometimes for pleasure and sometimes for information,but your right the minute you insult there little kingdom a window comes up saying your blocked in most governments
April 22nd, 2010 at 9:16 am
Great discussion between “Get Real” and Buddy!
Buddy is more correct than “Get Real” but I understand “Get Real’s” stance.
BUT WHEN IT COMES TO RONNIE GUNZBURGER RUNNING HIS MOTHER’S POLITICAL CAMPAIGN ON THE TAXPAYER’S DIME, THEN THE LINE NEEDS TO BE DRAWN AND SATZ NEEDS TO INVESTIGATE!
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:23 am
I’m at a school now and your blog is coming through loud and clear. If you read this post it means it is working,
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:47 am
Buddy,
It was not a false alarm. Your site was legitimately blocked and then later the block was removed. I have spoken to several school board viewers who experienced the problem and I am happy to see it was “fixed” because is sure was a “hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm” moment. Good work.
April 22nd, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Duh! Double DUH!
We are blocked from sites like Facebook, MySpace, etc. too!
We just surf right in anyway, on school computers, using proxies!
Google “proxy surfing” and see how it’s done.
Remember you heard / learned this from a 10th grader.
April 22nd, 2010 at 2:05 pm
The temporary block had nothing to do with politics. It was a technology systems upgrade and other websites were temporarily affected. The blocked message stated to contact technology support if a site was inappropriately blocked. This site was blocked for a few hours, until someone informed us. Public schools and public libraries must enforce state policies of providing reasonable Internet safety that will protect children from access to harmful and inappropriate material.
FROM BUDDY: Thanks for explaining this. Funny how the site is never blocked on the 14th floor of KCW where the School Board roosts, but sometimes in other parts of the building.
April 22nd, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I think you need to look up the definition of megalomania, or paranoia.
You might think the school board and administrators are obsessing on your blog . . . but you’d be wrong.
April 22nd, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Buddy, I think I speak for the most of us out here when I say that Floridian is wrong…the school board and administrators obsess on this and other blogs. The school board perpetrators are finally finding out what it feels like to have a “great equalizer” to their typical spin. It hurts them and tantalizes them at the same time.
Parks, Marko, Dinnen, Notter and others in denial have been realizing the awesome power of, in Notter’s co-opting of Paul Harvey’s words, “the rest of the story”. It must be frightening for them now. Look at how differently they have been acting. Why I’ll bet that this latest burst of misdirected action (reducing staff) will send even more people than have already gone to the many interested law enforcement agencies. That is a part of how things work in Broward…people don’t talk until they are personally hurt.
That leads to a philisophical question; if electeds and appointeds break the law, is it only illegal if loyal staff is negatively impacted? One would think so by watching this county as long as I have.
The “whole truth” has only begun to reveal itself. The months to come will not only see the fall of the usual suspects, but it will bring about the demise of the quiet but active puppeteers who have typically been insulated from trouble from their mystical dens. They have never had to defend themselves from so many impacted victims before now, but they will also face being frozen in a quagmire of denial when their historical protectors turn on them. Then and only then will this town know what I mean when I vehemently state that there is no honor among thieves.
April 22nd, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Hammerhead is Right. I have been specifically told to “watch” what sites I visit on the Internet. I got the impression that it didn’t matter if I spend all day on Costco.com shopping, as long as I didn’t visit a site that the School Board considered controversial, like the BoyScouts of America, The New Times or your site.
April 23rd, 2010 at 2:46 am
Buddy, after reading the story about the audit in Deerfield Beach I began to wonder if, as a stakeholder, you could suggest that the Kessler International group perform a similar audit of the BEF. They seem to be thorough, ethical and beyond reproach locally. (Some may later say witch hunters, but the data seems pretty strong in the reports I have heard)
It is encouraging to see that two managers have been removed from their official duties and that their computers were confinscated for review. I am not commenting on their guilt or innocence in this, but action alone is refreshing.
I believe that everybody in this town needs to know where the BEF money trail leads. I really feel it is a slush fund (see certain GOP and DEM credit card bills) for the local power elite, disguised as a charitable and honorable organization. Please understand that I am not singling out any one person, or that all involved are dirty. It only takes a couple of people to do the dirty work and I believe it is being done.
Revenues and expenditures tell the story. I believe that Kessler or a similar group (if others exist which are not afraid of local powers that be) should do a total review of their revenues and spending over the last five years and let us know what is going on.
April 23rd, 2010 at 6:17 am
In reference to comment #16 to Buddy. Only half of the district is going through the content filter. If you are using the new filter you will know by seeing a new block screen.
Technically speaking if the second octet of your IP address is 156 and below you are using the new filter. KCW (the entire building) is on the high side of the range. This was done because the product is still in testing, to be sure it scales, and to prevent the help desk from being inundated with calls. This is the second stage of testing.
April 23rd, 2010 at 3:55 pm
I have such a low expectation for the SBBC that absolutely nothing they do amazes me. I wouldn’t doubt at all that they’ve never heard of the First Amendment.
April 23rd, 2010 at 6:06 pm
the sbbc is said to be an entity that eats its
own.