BE BREITBART: DoIT Right To Know Request : State of NH Internet Filtering policies

by Skip

You know, we are still trying to find out the root reasons why folks like Richard de Seve and “GAIA” (and others like them) were allowed to comment and blog at the Concord Monitor so often during normal work hours.  So, we continue to think of what we need from the State that would be “non-exempt” that would be available.  We just sent this latest RSA 91-A request on the filtering policies that have been put into place by the State of NH:

  • what is blocked?
  • who requested it (Department) that it be blocked?

Here is the request:

Right to Know Request
as per
RSA 91-A
April 26, 2012

To:

Stanley “Bill” Rogers, Commissioner and CIO, Department of Information Technology, State of New Hampshire

Thomas S. Burack, C, Department of Environmental Services, State of New Hampshire

In light of the final response of April 19th concerning our first Right To Know request  (re: political postings by State Employee Richard de Seve during regularly scheduled work hours contra to the policies of both the Department of Environmental Services (“DES”) and the Department of Information Technology (“DoIT”) filed on March 11, 2012), we are making the following RSA 91-A request.

As noted in that final response:

That software categorizes web sites based on historical content. Agencies establish filter policies that determine which categories are accessible or blocked. Based on a user’s login information, the software is able to associate a user with his or her IP address and based on the policy assigned to that user, determines whether the requested page is allowed or blocked. If allowed, the software permits the requested web page to be sent from the requested server to the user for viewing.

Although we were fairly sure that web sensing / filtering software was part of the State’s network, we now have further requests knowing that such filtering software is actually used by  the State.  We hereby request, in electronic digital form, those electronic Governmental records of existing (and to the extent possible, retired or disabled) filtering policies that:

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BE BREITBART: Update 8: DES Right To Know Update : DOIT and DES – living up to their own policies (#FAIL)

by Skip

The last post on this topic (GraniteGrok’s Right To Know to the State of NH on the non-State biz use of the State’s network: political commenting) effectively ended on these notes:

  • what did they know and when did they know it?
  • and “they did know it all and they knew it when the packets went through the system.”

Which leads up to the next important question:“…can the State live up to its own personnel policies in this area?”

This actually breaks down into two parts:

  • Can the State technically actually do what the policies say imply based on the results sent to us from our Right To Know request?
  • And if the State can technically support its policies – are they actually using those technical tools and if not, why not?

Now, I would be remiss to not point out that part of RTK for our calculus is still outstanding – Mr. Richard de Seve’s outbound (of the NH State domain) emails which the DES RTK guy has told me, multiple times now, is in process:

Request 5:

5. Any and all of Mr. de Seve’s emails that were outbound of the NH State’s domain and whose destination were other than for another NH State employee.

Response to 5:

All known emails have been collected and are currently being reviewed to determine 1) whether they are responsive to your request and 2) whether they are subject to any privilege or statutory exemption under RSA 91-4. Responsive, non-exempt emails will be provided upon completion of this review.

 So, this needs to be fit into the picture when they arrive.  In the mean time, there is more to review and our interim conclusion at the end…

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