Wisconsin Governor Accused Of Blocking Union Internet Access Mubarak-Style

Posted by | February 22, 2011 15:56 | Filed under: Top Stories


Taking a page out of the Hosni Mubarak playbook, it appears as though Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is blocking Internet access in the state Capitol to at least one union-supporting left-leaning website.

The website, defendwisconsin.org, could not be accessed on Monday and into Tuesday morning in the Capitol building, where crowds assembled over proposed legislation that would increase the costs of benefits to public employees and curb their collective-bargaining rights.

Wisconsin Democratic Party press secretary Graeme Zielinski blamed Gov. Scott Walker and Republican lawmakers — who returned to work Tuesday — for causing the outage.

Walker’s spokesperson, Cullen Werwie, says this is “a lie,” adding, “The Department of Administration blocks all new websites shortly after they are created, until they go through a software approval program that unblocks them.”  But Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Michael Tate says, “That doesn’t explain why the website was fully accessible for the entire time it was up, up until they started blocking it on Friday.”

If it is true that the site is being blocked, it could be a legal issue.

Former Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Charles Hoornstra said that, if Walker is blocking the website, it could be a violation of state and federal laws concerning free speech laws. The accusation by the Wisconsin Democratic Party accompanies an accusation by the Teaching Assistants Association that Wisconsin state authorities cut off wifi access to a room they had taken over as a headquarters inside of the Capitol.

Likewise, the Teacher Assistants Associations (TAA), which has been coordinating the various cleaning and food operations of the protesters occupying it, has been allowed to occupy room 300NE in the Capitol as their headquarters or situation room. They have used this room to help coordinate protests within the Capitol. Up until today, they had been able to arrange a special high speed Wifi so they could work their coordinating.

Yesterday, however, the Wifi connection mysteriously ended and it’s not clear exactly why.

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Copyright 2011 Liberaland
By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.

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