Thursday, July 27, 2006

Reality DHS and you

The perception that DHS employees can snoop into everything unchecked is a myth. People are fired for snooping into computer systems they have no business looking at.
In fact the point of respecting privacy is one of the first points that is mentioned in orientation.

There have been a couple of times where I was asked about a search. On the one or two times it involved changing the order of Muslim names and removing titles. For example a person in the military would not use Colonel as a first name. Thus Haji is a religious title given after one makes a pilgrimage to Meccca. It should not be entered as a first name.

This is not an adverserial situation and there are times a mispelling does create a problem. Most people spell Gomez but there are people who spell the names Gomes. Management does an excellent job and is understanding of these types of problems.

The bottom line is that if the security search is related to a case it is okay. If one makes an honest keypunch error that is fine. Snooping is a zero tolerance offense and should be grounds for termination.

The law is so restrictive that in certain situations I may not ask certain questions.
If a step mother is petitioning for the children there is a whole list of questions I can not ask.

The next time a far left type cries about privacy at DHS let them know it is just hot air.

7 comments:

nanc said...

o.t. - thought you may be interested to know that fpm is advertising the book dh and poe wrote. 40 percent off.

also - osher doctorow has been mingling with the masses - unusual.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Anyone who cries about privacy ought to go to any number of publicly available snoop sites, like privateeye.com and enter their name. Anybody can find anything on you.

Dan Zaremba said...

DHS - Does it stand for Department od Homeland Security?

beakerkin said...

Felis

I work for the Department of Homeland Security.

Always On Watch said...

Beak,
I've read elsewhere that the random snooping of library accounts isn't happening; but if DHS were to check my library account, here is what they'd find right now: Mexifornia (immigration), Daniel Isn't Talking (a novel about autism), The Hajj (Leon Uris's novel about the title topic), Tom Sawyer, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Story of My Life (Helen Keller's autobiography), and Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve.

Frankly, I don't much worry about any snooping on the part of DHS. I'm not doing anything wrong! But it's good to know this: The perception that DHS employees can snoop into everything unchecked is a myth. People are fired for snooping into computer systems they have no business looking at....The bottom line is that if the security search is related to a case it is okay.

nanc said...

yes, plucky - it was medusa.

Dan Zaremba said...

You mentioned that Beak.
I wasn't 100% sure about the abbreviation.
(Living down under has certain disadvantages.)