wrote in :

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 13:59:04 -0500, Casper
wrote:
Guy working in a software company would go out to lunch and pick up a
DVD rental. Back at the office he would rip it to his work laptop,
which he took home every night to work on. When the company found out
he was immediately terminated and fortunate not to be prosecuted. He
didn't think he was doing anything wrong. Ergo, he wasn't thinking.

Durn right he wasn't thinking. Making unauthorized copies of copyrighted material is a
crime. Knucklehead committed a crime on company time, using company resources. They
were right to fire him.

That's why I carry my own laptop (though I wouldn't rip DVDs, in any
case).

When I was fresh out of college, about mumble years ago, the company I was working for
hired a guy who apparently had a gambling problem. From time to time, he would call a
bookie at lunchtime (from the company phone) and place a couple bets on horse races
(illegal at that time in that state). Being still wet behind the ears, I figured it wasn't really my
place to say anything about what someone senior to me was doing on his own time, but I
did think it was stupid to use the company phone, when there was a pay phone right across
the street. Then one day Knucklehead called the bookie in the middle of the afternoon. I
decided it was time to say something, but before I could move a muscle, my project leader
was already on her feet and heading to the boss's office. Next morning, around 8:45,
Knucklehead wasn't at work yet (not unusual), Boss walked in, said "I have an
announcement. As of last night, name is no longer with us. At my request." and walked
out. And that was that.

-MIKE- wrote in :

Not clear... because of our corrupted court system which has been taken
over by activist judges, perhaps. The constitution and prevailing cases
are pretty clear on the matter.

How clear it is depends on which specific First Amendment freedoms you're talking about. It
does not violate the *Constitution* if a private-sector employer fires an employee because of
his religion -- because the First Amendment restrains the government, not the private sector.
However, it does violate both state and Federal *employment law*.

In employment-at-will states, a company is perfectly free to fire an employee who expresses
opinions which the employer doesn't like -- and there is no violation of the First Amendment.

Well - not so much. In states that are Work At Will states, the employer
can dismiss you for any reason they chose, as long as it is not one of the
forbiddend reasons (discrimination). As someone else said, they can dismiss
you because they don't like your smell.

That's certainly true for me. My employment is "at will". I can be
fired or I can quit "at will". No justification whatsoever required,
except as noted above (i.e. "protected status").

On 1/8/2013 7:33 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:23:18 -0500, woodchucker nospam.nospam.com
wrote:

On 1/8/2013 5:02 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Keith Nuttle writes:
On 1/8/2013 1:23 PM, woodchucker wrote:
On 1/8/2013 12:10 PM, Swingman wrote:
On 1/8/2013 10:36 AM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
If you post information on line, you may be unknown to the casual user,
but if someone is determined to know who you are they will learn who you
are.

Absolutely ... in the "Internet Age", once you hit the send button it
will be available to those with the resources in perpetuity, or as long
as that is.

Yes, but again, my name is not attached, therefore I can't bring harm to
the company directly, or indirectly, as it was an anonymous post. Or
almost. Any perceived breach is just that percieved and not real.

Several people have told you that your name does not have to be
attached. Have you ever looked at the expanded header of your email.
There is a wealth of information that one could use to track you to the
very computer you used to post the message.

This is the software you are using with your last post:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Thunderbird/17.0

The NNTP-Posting-Host: header is much more interesting:

$ host 76.6.47.27
27.47.6.76.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer nj-76-6-47-27.dhcp.embarqhsd.net.

So Jeff appears to be posting from a CenturyLink address in New Jersey, USA.

From the X-Trace header, the giganews poster ID can be derived (albeit not
without help at giganews, unless they've used a trival obfuscation means)

The IP address is sufficient (with ISP help) to determine the ICBM address
at which the post originated.


Yep you are right, it would be, but again that would be extreme to get
to me. It is using my name that could, would get me in trouble with the
company, not a post that removes my name from the issue. But if I
mentioned the company in a negative comment I guarantee they would try
to find out who posted it.

They'd have to get a court order (subpoena) to get the information.

Now if I use my name in any negative post, I am putting it right out
there.. Which I won't do. I'll chose to not fight that battle, because
even if I win, I lose.

Sounds like you've already lost, just by working for them.

Yep, you are right. But I need to pay the bills and I took this before
knowing. But I have a feeling this won't be the only company like this.

--
Jeff
formerly tiredofspam..

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:45:13 -0500, woodchucker nospam.nospam.com
wrote:




Now if I use my name in any negative post, I am putting it right out
there.. Which I won't do. I'll chose to not fight that battle, because
even if I win, I lose.

Sounds like you've already lost, just by working for them.

Yep, you are right. But I need to pay the bills and I took this before
knowing. But I have a feeling this won't be the only company like this.

Seems to be a growing trend. Schools too, are restricting what
faculty can do and say on line. Seem as though Facebook is causing a
lot of problems in society as more and more people do dumb things and
reveal too much of their personal lives and thoughts.

Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:45:13 -0500, woodchucker nospam.nospam.com
wrote:




Now if I use my name in any negative post, I am putting it right out
there.. Which I won't do. I'll chose to not fight that battle, because
even if I win, I lose.

Sounds like you've already lost, just by working for them.

Yep, you are right. But I need to pay the bills and I took this before
knowing. But I have a feeling this won't be the only company like this.

Seems to be a growing trend. Schools too, are restricting what
faculty can do and say on line. Seem as though Facebook is causing a
lot of problems in society as more and more people do dumb things and
reveal too much of their personal lives and thoughts.

It's the dumb every thing down to the lowest denominator way we do things
these days so that those that don't put in the effort have an equal chance.
The every one gets a trophy for signing up, mentality. It is knowing that
we can control what you say on your own time because if you don't like it
we can fire you and hire the person that only gets trophies because he
signed up.

The problem is that we live in the real world where our competition does
not think that way and they are currently whipping our asses. Banks steal
from us because they know that 50% of their customer are below average in
intelligence and because we are lowering expectations so that every one has
an equal opportunity many many more of us fall below the 50% average
intelligence compared to a few years ago..

With our new government health care system Nurse Bubba is going to have an
equal chance, to perform brain surgery on you, as the doctor that pioneered
the procedure that is about to performed on you. Nurse Bubba's
qualifications, three, count'm three trophies. Nurse Bubba won out over
intern Guber because one of Nurse Bubba's trophies was for actually
participating.

Rant off. :-)

On 1/9/2013 4:51 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

Seems to be a growing trend. Schools too, are restricting what
faculty can do and say on line. Seem as though Facebook is causing a
lot of problems in society as more and more people do dumb things and
reveal too much of their personal lives and thoughts.

Arguably doing the rest of us a big favor by providing the dickheads
with the means to shine the light of scrutiny on themselves ... you
can't fix stupid, and it is getting harder to hide.

--
eWoodShop: www.eWoodShop.com
Wood Shop: www.e-WoodShop.net
https://plus.google.com/114902129577517371552/posts
http://www.custommade.com/by/ewoodshop/
KarlCaillouet@ (the obvious)

On Jan 8, 9:49*am, Swingman wrote:
Just one of the reasons I have chosen to be self-employed/major
shareholder of place of employment since 1973.


So if you screw something up and say "Man, I am such an idiot", that
means you can fire yourself for disparaging an employee, right?

In article ,
Doug Miller wrote:
wrote in :

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 13:59:04 -0500, Casper
wrote:
Guy working in a software company would go out to lunch and pick up a
DVD rental. Back at the office he would rip it to his work laptop,
which he took home every night to work on. When the company found out
he was immediately terminated and fortunate not to be prosecuted. He
didn't think he was doing anything wrong. Ergo, he wasn't thinking.

Durn right he wasn't thinking. Making unauthorized copies of copyrighted
material is a
crime. Knucklehead committed a crime on company time, using company
resources. They
were right to fire him.


I don't disagree that the company was within its rights to fire the employee,
but making a copy of copyrighted material for personal use is not
necessarily illegal.


--
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation
with the average voter. (Winston Churchill)

Larry Wasserman - Baltimore Maryland - lwasserm(a)sdf. lonestar. org

(Larry W) wrote in news:kclm5l$t88$1
@speranza.aioe.org:

In article ,
Doug Miller wrote:
wrote in :

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 13:59:04 -0500, Casper
wrote:
Guy working in a software company would go out to lunch and pick up a
DVD rental. Back at the office he would rip it to his work laptop,
which he took home every night to work on. When the company found out
he was immediately terminated and fortunate not to be prosecuted. He
didn't think he was doing anything wrong. Ergo, he wasn't thinking.

Durn right he wasn't thinking. Making unauthorized copies of copyrighted
material is a
crime. Knucklehead committed a crime on company time, using company
resources. They
were right to fire him.


I don't disagree that the company was within its rights to fire the employee,
but making a copy of copyrighted material for personal use is not
necessarily illegal.

Not if you've already bought a copy, no. You're permitted to make a backup. Doesn't apply
in this case, though: he was copying *rented* DVDs, which is most definitely not legal.

Swingman wrote:
Just one of the reasons I have chosen to be self-employed/major
shareholder of place of employment since 1973.

Yep. Back in '78 I decided that as long as I was going to work for a fool,
that fool might as well be me.