That was the most Orwellian sentence I've read in years.
If you self-identify as a government employee, then it is reasonable to assume that someone might take what you say as government policy. Had he not said he was a TSA employee first, there would have been no issue at all.
It just give the government ability to yell "we guarantee freedom of speech" without really giving it.
It's not "Orwellian" (the term doesn't make sense here), however what would you say if the TSA fired someone because he was a muslim, for example. I doubt the following:
""You have a First Amendment right to follow any or no religion. You don't have a right to a government job""
> If you self-identify as a government employee, then it is reasonable to assume that someone might take what you say as government policy.
No, that's ridiculous. If someone says, "I work at the TSA, and the official policy is X", then perhaps it's "reasonable". Also, had he not identified himself as a TSA employee, none of what he said would make any sense: he was describing his experiences as a TSA employee.
Actually, that's built directly into the constitution, so the First Amendment doesn't enter into it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Religious_Test_Clause
I disagree. Especially when you are at the bottom of the chain of command.
Would you expect a Starbucks barista, when speaking in an off-hours context, to speak for Starbucks? "I work at starbucks, but I don't think their coffee is particularly good, and my boss is an asshole." No. That's clearly the private opinion and gripes of a grunt. Now, if said barista said that on national TV, sure, they'd get fired. But nobody would be mislead into thinking that the Starbucks official message was "our coffee is bad and our supervisors are assholes"
The expectation that a grunt will stay 'on message' on personal time is... pretty goddamn silly, if you ask me.
I mean, sure, if a grunt goes counter-message at a company that demands slavish obedience, you are going to get fired.
Hell, if you go off-message in a public enough way, and embarrass your bosses enough, especially if you reveal real weaknesses in the system you are a part of, as this person did, you are going to get fired about anywhere. I'm not making moral judgments about that; it's just the way it is.
But, going "off message" on your personal time and embarrassing your bosses, while it might get you fired, is not in any way misleading to the public. Especially when you are just a grunt.
I was just taking issue with this idea that a reasonable person would think that a grunt speaking off-hours was speaking for the corporation or government that employs them.
(I also have pretty strong feelings that complaining about your boss to people who aren't your boss is a reasonable sort of thing to do... and maybe even a fundamental human need. But that's not really relevant to the discussion at hand.)
The speech issue is a real ethical issue. A government employee has to be careful with what and how they say things in public, as people can and will decide to interpret your statement as policy statements. In NY, a DOT engineer was fired because he said something about snow plowing (that wasn't negative) which conflicted with the administrations narrative.
Don't you agree that a Starbucks barista saying "Our coffee is not good" is a different matter from John Doe saying "Starbucks coffee is not good"?
Well, let's put it this way. I interviewed at Yahoo search, back when Yahoo Search was a thing. I was passing on a question, playing it off as a detail that i would look up. I said something to the effect of "I'd just google it"
Laughter. "we try not to say that here." I got the job.
As a SysAdmin, really? my knowledge of search-engines was probably not any more nuanced than any other technical person. That's probably true of the Starbucks barista, too; I believe that Starbucks uses so-called super-automatic espresso machines, meaning that the machine grinds, tamps and pulls the shot, so a starbucks barista might very well know no more about espresso than a random enthusiast.
I do believe that it is completely reasonable for an employee to have a low opinion of the company they work for.
In fact, I think that only having "yes men" type employees who always parrot the company line can be dangerous; I think this is a big part of why facebook doesn't understand just how creepy the rest of us think they are.
I think that this expectation that employees "work for the mission, not the money" and the other exercises in groupthink that are becoming more popular in "Startup culture" are... kind of dangerous. You are training your employees to conceal their honest feelings, which is certainly bad for your employee, and I believe also bad for the company.
"I think you should vote for Nixon" is entirely different if it's a random person saying that, vs. a police officer who could choose to search you.
Its too much to expect the average person to understand rank structure. Everyone is capable of understanding it, but almost nobody cares because civilian life doesn't often give you a good reason to care about military/government rank structure. Many people see an intimidating looking guy in a uniform and assume he's in charge of a lot of really important stuff.
I was in the military for over a decade, yet to my wife, there were three ranks. Privates, Her Husband (Actually a Sergeant), and the mythical Officer/First Sergeant (Everyone higher ranking than myself would alternately be referred to as First Sergeant or my Commanding Officer, as in, the same person would be referred to as either one, depending on the conversation. I explained the differences to her a thousand times, but she, like many military wives, just didn't seem to care.
Civilians care even less. Most people recognize that a general is the highest authority in the military, but that's about where it ends.
You also have to consider the way that the media often likes to twist a person's words around. You might be speaking as a matter of opinion, but if a news station uses clever editing to make it sound like you are an important person who is declaring an official military position on a subject, it doesn't really matter that its not true, the damage is still done.
While I agree that military rank is complex, I'm pretty sure that most people are very clear that the folks doing the grope and grab at the airport are at the very bottom of the hierarchy.
Of course, I could be wrong, but my impression is that the objection many people have to the grope and grab is at least partially a class thing. Most people see TSA employees as "beneath them"
I believe this is exacerbated by our (fading) sense that air travel is a luxury thing, and that the employees who facilitate said travel ought to kowtow to me, not the other way around.
You'll feel a lot less giving towards TSA the first time you show up two hours in advance of a domestic flight and end up having to sleep the night in an airport because they detained you for additional screening (for no apparent reason other than perhaps not liking your look) long enough to miss the last flight out to your destination.
That's not how it works. Freedom of speech means you can say whatever you want without fear of being prosecuted by the government. And if firing the employee is not prosecuting them, what is?
Well, how about something like:
pros·e·cute (verb) law : to hold a trial against a person who is accused of a crime to see if that person is guilty
-- Merriam-Webster
I realize you probably feel the actual text of the first amendment is needless pedantry, but what it actually says is congress shall pass no law...
But more relevantly, one is allowed to say what one wants in government - one just has to be ready to take responsibility for one' s actions. That is far from not having freedom of speech.
If you become a government employee, do you sacrifice any constitutional rights?
Can there be a clause or contract in any situation that removes your rights as a citizen, or do you cease to be a citizen when employed by the US government?
Military officers in the US are barred from speaking contemptuous words against the President and VP. (article 88 UCMJ). There is a parallel article that applies to enlisted members. Calling the Pres a "fascist pig" is a no-no.
Army regulation 600-20 limits members ability to campaign on behalf of candidates for public office and partisan political causes.
I'm not aware of anything like this that applies to civilian government employees.