They were often range officers, the guys who sit in the range office (the range is a hallway with cells in it). They were bored at night when the offenders were in bed asleep.
There had never been effective enforcement so they got away with it. It took some time for the message to get out that we were watching and that there would be consequences.
There was a lot of violence and sexual violence, torture, and extreme bondage. Things like clamping that result in obvious injury are considered obscene in Canada. Menacing is considered obscene. There were also murder and suicide videos.
The people who were fired weren’t fired because of what they were looking at but because they refused to acknowledge what they were doing. One guy who was looking at extremely violent porn said “Yes, it was me. I have a problem.” He got counselling and kept his job. A guy who was looking at violent bondage fought for weeks until I was able to correlate logs, password changes, MAC addresses, and door access logs to prove beyond any doubt that it was him. He was fired on the spot
The problem is that many of the people inside are violent sexual offenders and porn can be used as currency in the illegal prison economy. I have no issues with porn personally but it was my job to enforce the policy. I was really only interested in illegal porn which is clearly defined in Canadian law.
I left there almost 15 years ago and have been working for US companies in international security. I have never looked back.
I was only looking at things coming in and going out through the corporate firewall. We were in a correctional environment so porn was prohibited. I was mostly interested in things that were illegal or dangerous. I dealt with anything that wasn’t criminal. Anything that wad criminal I referred up them responded to requests from the investigating officer when they came. I often got requests from managers to pull full histories and look for things that were outside of my remit like wasting time at work. I refused those requests and any that were overly broad. Once an investigator got to know me they figured out how to make requests that I would agree to fulfill.
Our work environment was pseudo legal, outside of the bounds of normal government office work. We were able to write our own policy, perform our own investigations, and even hold our own trials. I was involved in several disturbing investigations. A couple resulted in people getting fired.
One of the things I liked was the fact that I was able to deal with people who were simply out of bounds. I could call them and say, “Hi. It’s MapleEngineer. I just wanted to remind you that we can see everything you do online and that you have obligations under [policy]. There is nothing in writing and if we don’t talk again no one will ever find it about this conversation.” That solved 95% of the problems. 4.9 percent were handled by their manager if I saw them in the logs again. Very few results in formal investigations but I was never wrong.
Years ago I worked in IT policy enforcement. My job was to review what employees were doing on the internet that fell outside of what was permitted. We had automated systems that did most of the work but I was responsible for looking at exceptions. I would occasionally send my wife a note telling her that I was coming through to my home office and that no one should talk to me. I would retreat to my office and emerge when I had calmed down enough to interact with people.
My boss told me when I started in the role that it was only possible to do it for so long before you needed to stop. He told me that I could raise my hand at any point and say, “I can’t do this anymore.” and he would take me off.
I worked in corrections. The people I was watching were staff who worked directly with the offenders. I saw some truly fucked up stuff.
Tell me you’re American without telling me you’re American.
Two months ago the lymph node under my left collar bone got very inflamed. I went to the doctor who ordered an ultrasound and chest x-ray. The ultrasound was, “worrying” so they ordered a CT. The CT suggested that my lymph nodes had gone bad. I spent the last two months afraid that I was going to leave my kids unsupported as one was finishing her first year of university and the other his first year of high school. A couple of days ago I got the best possible news under the circumstances that I have Hodgkins Lymphoma which is curable and I am expected to go on and live a long life.
That largely depends on who you talk to.
Christofascists think I’m bad. White supremacists, white nationalists, racists, anti-vaxers, neo-Nazis and Nazis, anti-choicers, anti-maskers, Covid deniers, vegan extremists, incels and incucks, Puritans, the US Taliban, magats and the anti-reality crowd, the convoyists, the Save-The-Children crowd and Queen Dildo and her ragtag band of morons, PETA, the rabid pro-gun I’m-terrified-of-everything-so-I-need-a-grenade-launcher-to-buy-donuts crowd, and others think I’m bad but so do the tankies, and trans extremists, the anti-gun crowd, and others who hate the first group. Just about everyone who lives in an echo bunker would think I’m bad.
I do things that many people think are bad but they tend to be the controlling-what-other-people-do mob but generally I think I’m a good person and the people around me seem to think so too no matter where they lie on the political, religious, or social spectrum.
My wife had my first when I was 39. I wish I had had kids sooner. I love going to minor hockey games and taking to my daughter about her crafts and school.
Sorry…I didn’t answer these parts of your comment.
One tactic that I like is asking them questions that lead them to point out the flaws in their own arguments. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method
They have a carefully rehearsed circular logical set of arguments that are self-confirming. I can explain and explain and explain but it doesn’t confirm their bias so they just keep going around in circles. I don’t expect to reach them but I may help someone who isn’t so closed minded to understand.
My daughter goes to pride festivals every year as a vendor in the market. Last year was hopping. This year was dead. My wife and I wondered if all the pushing to force biological males into the places that biological females fought for decades to get wasn’t turning a lot of people off. That would be extremely sad since the LGBTQ+ community has worked so hard to get to where it is now.
Would you be more or less likely to learn from someone that calls you an extremist?
I have Asperger’s so I don’t care what people call me (other than calling me a transphobe or antisemite with the new definitions written by the extremists.) If they’re making a cogent argument I will generally respond in kind.
I have a lot of experience and I am very LGBTQ+ friendly. I only label as extremists those who push beyond the bounds of, “Everyone has rights, gender is a social construct and you can identify as whatever you want” into denying that male and female are things or claiming that identifying as a woman somehow magically makes you female. The whole, “You can’t question what we believe or you’re a transphobe” is EXACTLY the same as, “You can’t question the actions of the state of Israel or you’re an antisemite.” It’s utter nonsense. Those are both examples of extremism.
I meant “female” in the context of biological sex as opposed to the social construct of gender as in, “woman” which may be a person who is either male or female. I am FAR from a transphobe and using the word and the reporting system on Lemmy as a bludgeon to try to silence anyone who doesn’t buy into the extremist group think utterly devalues anything else that the extremists say. One of my oldest friends is a trans woman. She would VERY much disagree that I am a transphobe. My lesbian daughter whose trans and non-binary friends I interact with every day would also very much disagree.
I would like to counter report this as a false report by an extremist pushing a political agenda and trying to silence anyone who has different ideas than them.
Trans women are women but they aren’t female. Gender is a social construct. Sex is not. You can choose to be a woman but that doesn’t make you female.
Female atheletes understandably feel that it is unfair to have male atheletes breaking female athletic records. I mean…that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?
I’m trying to explain to you why a female athelete who chose to play a female sport to have a more level playing field and to play against other female atheletes might feel that is is unfair to be forced to play against a male athelete and why they might feel that it is unfair to have a male athelete break a female athletics record by such a margin that no female athelete could ever hope fo break it again.
This is not a difficult concept. Gender is a social construct but we’re not talking about gender. We’re talking about male and female. A male can decide to identify as a woman but she can never be female. A female can decide to identify as a man but he can never be male. You can be equally socially but you will always be different sexually. That’s just reality.
You want to live as a woman and be called a woman I’m totally on board with that. You just can’t force people to believe that you’ve magically changed sexes because you haven’t.
You can want against all want for it to be different but it isn’t and it never will be.
I am not transphobic. Not by the longest of shots and labelling anyone who doesn’t buy into the group think as a transphobe completely devalues anything else you might say. I absolutely believe in social equality but trans women and females will never be the same thing.
It’s only confusing to you because it doesn’t fit into your narrative and your carefuly rehearsed arguements don’t work.
Go back and point to ANYWHERE that I said that it was unfair for trans women atheletes to play against female atheletes. I’ll wait…
No? I didn’t say that. You made that up. What I said was that female atheletes who choose to play female sports to have a more level playing field and to play against other female athelets feel that it’s unfrair to be forced to play against male atheletes playing female sports.
THAT is absolutely undeniably true.
Female atheletes understandably feel that it is unfair to have male atheletes breaking female atheletic records by such margins that no female athelete will ever be able to break them.
What’s not true? That trans women aren’t female? That’s undeniably true. That female atheletes who choose to play female sports to have a more even playing field and to play against other female atheletes find being forced to play against male atheletes unfair? That’s undeniably true as well. That female sports were intented for female atheletes? That’s undeniably true. That gender is a social construct? I mean…that’s a central pillar of the platform so we have to agree that that’s true.
Your beliefs don’t change reality and simply waving your hand in the air and declaring undeniable truths to be untrue does NOT make them untrue.
There were a number of people who had the legitimate and sanctioned need to access prohibited material (I was one of them). At the time (and even now) it is virtually impossible to open every website that someone might need to access. Personal use was allowed as long as it didn’t impact your work and was inside the guardrails. We tried using Websense back then and it was a disaster. Virtually everyone complied with policy. There were a very small number who didn’t and I was responsible for catching them.