DHS Cracks Down On IRS Workers Protest

DHS Cracks Down On IRS Workers Protest

www.blacklistednews.com

Not ten minutes after IRS employees of the Austin Accounts Management center near I-35 and Ben White began protesting their office policies Tuesday afternoon, Homeland Security police began ordering them to leave.

The workers, represented under the National Treasury Employees Union, are upset about what they see as a double-standard in how managers are handling vacation days and late penalties when family is sick or when an employee is st

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I've said it before, but it deserves to be said again. We no longer have freedom of speech in this country. People have the right to protest their employers. I hope that the National Treasury Employees Union takes this case as far as it will go. Just because these people work for the government does not negate their right to freedom of speech.

www.blacklistednews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

In watching the video. I wonder is DHS getting geared to break up protests on a more sinister level?

reply to post by jhill76

Well, their mandate is to protect the homeland. I guess what they really mean is protecting the government from bad press.

reply to post by scarlett1125

Just because these people work for the government does not negate their right to freedom of speech.

No, but it does negate their right to protest their employer.

reply to post by jackinthebox


Why is that? Why should the people's right to protest their employer be infringed because they are employed by an illegal agency within the government? Isn't that just another form of silencing the people? They weren't even protesting the legality of the IRS like one of us on ATS would have. They were protesting unfair working conditions, which should not have been a problem. Of course, if the government were treating them fairly, there would have been no reason for their protest, I suppose.

Their rights were not infringed. They failed to register for a permit.
Since they probably did this spontaneously, and were not professional protestors, they probably did not know that they needed a permit.

All protests need to be registered. The leaders need to be identified, and held responsible. Sometimes conflicting groups need to be kept away from one another, or monitored carefully for safety reasons. Like keeping the KKK away from the NAACP. The officer seemed to be extremely courteous. I would hope to deal with such a decent professional.

Their union needs to get behind them.

reply to post by Cyberbian

I agree that their union does need to step in. However, it's disturbing that this became a job for DHS.

We're getting one side of the story here, so it's impossible to make any judgement that isn't based purely on emotional response and driven by one's present view of authority.

I would like to say that you do not have any right to negatively affect your employers' abillity to conduct work via picketing and protesting. Also you have no right to protest on private property once you have been ordered to leave said property. Since the government technically owns not just that building, but the sidewalk and street in front of it, they're within their rights to order the protestors off the land. Now if these protestors had made an agreement with a neighboring lease holder or property owner and were on that entity's land protesting the government, any action by the government would have been in violation of the protestors' rights.