Monday, October 16, 2006

The Belmont Clubbed

I got an email from someone at the Department of the Interior, who confirms that the Belmont Club and certain other sites are being blocked by that agency. His email, sans any identifying information is reproduced verbatim below. The person has asked not to be identified. (Also, see Baron's full length investigative piece at Pajamas Media.)


Hello Wretchard, wise and great hearted

The Department of the Interior (DOI) has implemented a new internet filter policy to prevent access to "sexual content, on-line gambling and other inappropriate uses." It seems The Belmont Club is "inappropriate" for federal employees.

The policy has been in force in our agency for two days. The first site to go down was Michelle Malkin, then Chris Muir's Day by Day, then NRO's The Corner (columns are available). Today, The Belmont Club and Instapundit.

Oddly, the Daily Kos is still fully accessible, headlines, diaries and comments ... (I'm not brave enough to hazard Democratic Underground ... ;)

Comment

One way to think about it is that sites like Michelle Malkin, Instapundit, Day by Day, NRO, etc are so riveting that they can compete with the porn sites as sources of employee distraction and therefore have to be banned. On the other hand, maybe the Daily Kos is so infernally dull that nobody will read them at all. A comforting thought, but somehow I don't think that's the reason.

5 Comments:

Blogger Teresita said...

Federal employees should only be surfing on breaks and lunch anyway, at which time it should be nobody's business which blog they read.

10/16/2006 07:37:00 PM  
Blogger Ragnell said...

After I installed my belkin firewall, I found sites such as Instapundit and the Volokh Conspiracy sites blocked due to "poronograhic content". A large variety of conservative blogs were blocked due to "political content". In contrast, I had no difficulty visiting left wing sites such as Kos or the DU.

10/16/2006 09:03:00 PM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

Just consider it a continuation of the Columbia story.

10/16/2006 09:10:00 PM  
Blogger Db2m said...

More than once I have advocated wasting oil, not conserving it, in order to gin up exploration & production in our little Gulf of Mehi. (Bet nobody at Kos or DU says that.)

No wonder Interior pulled the plug...mystery solved!

10/16/2006 11:42:00 PM  
Blogger Shaun Mullen said...

The blocking is surely selective. I know for a fact that people at the U.S. Central Command can access my blog. Whether they read it is another matter.

10/18/2006 09:42:00 AM  

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