Forget newspapers - TWITTER costs kid scholarship

Anything? No. Do you have much more protection than someone employed by a private company? Yes. A government employer, for instance, can't fire you for mentioning to a co-worker you hope that the next assassination attempt on the president is successful. As Justice Marshall said, "[v]igilance is necessary to ensure that public employers do not use authority over employees to silence discourse, not because it hampers public functions but simply because superiors disagree with the content of employees' speech."

 

Government as employer =/= Government as sovereign. The government as employer can fire or refuse to hire you based on matters of private concern. <i>Pickering</i>, <i>Connick</i>, etc. Just because the government couldn't fine you doesn't mean the government can't fire you.

 

I didn't say otherwise. All I said was the government has less leeway than a private employer, which those cases you cite hold to be true. Further, National Treasury Employees Union interpreted "public concern" quite broadly. The court invalidated a statute that prevented government employees from earning outside money for speeches, etc. , finding employees were made to a "public audience, were made outside the workplace, and involved content largely unrelated to their government employment."

In addition, despite the language in Pickering, the public concern test arguably shouldn't apply in cases in which the speech is off-duty and non-work-related. That said, courts can stretch to make something work related. Will probably be more persuasive when firing a cop than a street cleaner, though, for something like racist comments.

 

Didn't mean to imply I was arguing with you. I was trying simply to put it succinctly.

 

Kid should just attribute the tweets to Onward State.

 

^^^^Quality^^^^

 

Excellent, yes.

 

I've reached my stopping point with youtube links. In the middle of a thread, there is a youtube link.... usually some crappy movie reference. I stopped clicking on those years ago.

 

I said it before: these kids are amazing in their knowledge of the technology, such as the instruments (cell phones, pads, computers, etc.) and what they can do with them (posting video, photos and how to use facebook, twitter, etc). But they're absolute morons when it comes to the fallout after something inappropriate or otherwise damaging gets out there. And the more the technology gets better, the dumber they get about about what it can lead to.

 

Quite true, hondo, and a greater truth underlies it.

Youth has the ability to use the tools of life, but sometimes doesn't have the wisdom to use them correctly.

 

Welcome aboard, Yuri!



Hey, you into teabagging?

 

@ yuri the bitch set me up