Pro-union website blocked inside Capitol Building in Madison, Wisconsin

[Sgt Meowenstein]

A pro-union website that was accessible before Friday is no longer accessible inside the Madison, WI Capital Building. If this is true, the Wisconsin Republican Gov (assuming he called for it) has gone way too far.

Pro-Union Website 'Defend Wisconsin' Blocked In Capitol

A website being used to help organize protests against Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin has been blocked from the Capitol Building in Madison, according to reports.

The site, Defend Wisconsin | Against Scott Walker's Attacks, was inaccessible from the building on Monday and into Tuesday morning, CNN reported.

Wisconsin Democrats were quick to blame Walker and Republican lawmakers for causing the outage. Wisconsin Democratic Party press secretary Graeme Zielinski said: "In a direct assault on the First Amendment, Scott Walker's administration is blocking access in the Wisconsin Capitol to opposition websites."

State Department of Administration spokeswoman Carla Vigue said in response to the allegations, "DOA's security software automatically blocked the site, as it does all new websites."

But according to Michael Tate, chairman of the Democratic Party of Website, the DOA explanation is not sufficient, as the site had been working previously but has been blocked in the Capitol Building since Friday.

Tate said of the development, "(Apparently Governor Walker) feels comfortable blocking the First Amendment right of protesters at the exact time that they are exercising their First Amendment right. This is undemocratic and this is un-American."

 

[apdst]

A pro-union website that was accessible before Friday is no longer accessible inside the Madison, WI Capital Building. If this is true, the Wisconsin Republican Gov (assuming he called for it) has gone way too far.

How will they have gone to far? It's not as far as the governer of Rhode Island prohibiting state employees from calling into radio talk shows. I bet you didn't have a problem with that.

 

[MCS117]

If the DOA's software blocks the website, nothing you can do. Also, how can a governor block websites? I thought it was the IT's job to do such. And software are updated on a timer, so maybe that day was the "update" time. Also, Friday sounds the right time to do maintenance on the servers for some IT people, so it seems plausible that the update blocked that website. Last time we updated the school's firewalls, it blocked anything and everything that contained the word "war." Well let's just say trip to the library to research World "War" II was nearly impossible....

Also, what are the employees doing visiting random websites when they are supposed to be working? Just saying, employers would make a whitelist rather than a blacklist and just block any irrelevant websites that does not pertain to their work. Just noticing this...

 

[Sgt Meowenstein]

How will they have gone to far? It's not as far as the governer of Rhode Island prohibiting state employees from calling into radio talk shows. I bet you didn't have a problem with that.

Rhode Island state employees are banned from appearing on talk shows (in an official capacity I assume). That's a lot different than blocking a website from a publicly accessible wi-fi network.

It's not employees who are blocked from the website. The website is not accessible to anybody inside the Capitol Building. They have free wi-fi. If you walk into that building with your laptop and access their wi-fi, you will not be allowed to go to that website.

Do you really believe that it's a coincidence that a pro-union website being used by protesters for organizing events was blocked?