This topic refers to this case: http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-servant-loses-fight-over-twitter-attack-on-government-20130812-2rsgn.html

While public servants are mindful of their obligations to serve the government of the day in an impartial way, there is no reason why commenting on policy on social media as an anonymous contributor should pose any problems. The fact this department took steps to investigate the owner of the Twitter account is surprising. Do departments investigate every Twitter account that tweets critical messages?

It falls back to the idea that the government wants to know it can trust it's public servants to carry out their policies and entrusts those same people with information. Fact is there is a growing trend to keep information secret when it need not be and a tendency to deny access to information. But I digress.

Simply put, I believe public servants should be able to express their views outside the workplace in a respectful and informed way, as the right of any other citizen.

Why would anyone conclude from this Twitter profile that Twitter userID '@LaLegale' was a public servant working in the Department of Immigration And Citizenship (DIAC)? Would anyone make such an identification just on the basis of her claimed Canberra domicile? See this TwitPic: http://t.co/vaWlF3vfKs

You wouldn't, would you?! So unless Twitter userID (and now also OLO userID) 'LaLegale' made reference in her tweets, or elsewhere on social media, to being a public servant, nobody in the general viewing public would know of either that employment relationship or her real-life identity. The only way, from her tweets alone, that she might be identified as a DIAC employee would be if she revealed something in tweeting that she could only have learned as an insider, and then only by others within DIAC!

So even if she had posted tweets critical of government policy or DIAC, there would be nothing that would indicate to the viewing public that hers was an inside, and perhaps therefore more authoritative, view as a public servant.

This is how and when I first learned of '@LaLegale' s being 'outed': http://twitpic.com/d9fc8m

'@FuriousFong' s observation in that Twitter conversation in relation to '@LaLegale', "That's terrible. You're hardly a trolling type. ..." coincided exactly with my reaction upon learning of the DIAC dismissal recommendation the subject of the legal action. Not the sort of tweeting I had seen over several years from '@LaLegale'.

Yet Markus Mannheim's news item reports a claim that:

"She regularly posted critical tweets about Australia's
immigration detention policies, the security company
that works at detention centres, and government and
opposition frontbenchers."

Normally, such a claim would be unable to be verified by the viewing public, due to the ephemeral viewability of tweets on Twitter users' timelines, but shortly Ms Banerji may be able to let the public judge for itself whether she ever posted critical tweets identifiable with a public servant at the time. Twitter now permits users to download their ENTIRE ARCHIVE of tweets ever published.

Might be interesting, especially if none are unduly harsh or critical of persons.

The judgment in Banerji vs Bowles, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCCA/2013/1052.html , states in paragraph 50. that:

"The tweets in question (with dates, message and commentary)
are set out in Annexure B to the 21st December 2012 submissions."

I should expect that links to at least these tweets should be able to be posted as soon as LaLegale has obtained her tweet archive, whether here (as manual copy & paste links), on GrahamY's blog Ambit Gambit (which can make 'https' addresses live links), or elsewhere such as 'No Place for Sheep' blog where the tweets can be embedded and display as they would on Twitter.

In paragraph 45 of the judgment reference is made to a claim by Ms Banerji that her social media account (Twitter) had been the subject of covert surveillance without her knowledge at the time (April and May 2011). May 2011 was the time around which Ombudsman Allan Asher had engaged in an email correspondence with Senator Hanson-Young in relation to scripted questions for a Senate estimates hearing that would in due course be attended by both.

Bearing in mind that Ms Banerji's Twitter account evidently had been the subject of DIAC surveillance in May 2011, it is not unreasonable to have expected such intra-departmental surveillance to have been ongoing to some extent.

This is a link to a post of mine on 'Ambit Gambit' to one of Ronda Jambe's (who shares the blog with GrahamY) blog items: http://www.ambitgambit.com/2013/01/27/hey-nova-what-happened-to-your-kneebone/comment-page-1/#comment-38462

If you go there, and then click on the link contained within my post there, you will be able to see a Twitter conversation that DIAC surveillance would also have been able to see in November 2011. The links within the tweets will be live if you continue to surf for the full picture, even if you are not on Twitter.

I have no idea whether LaLegale was able to implement what was discussed, which was perfectly legitimate public interest activism. I didn't even know she was a public servant in DIAC.

What's the betting she was judged on it anyway?

From where I sit the issue of a class-based exclusion is an important one but there are others, including a reasonable expectation that an employee will be loyal in word and deed, or have the personal moral courage to quit.

From the American Elbert Hubbard

"If you work for a man, in heaven's name work for him.

If he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him -- speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by the institution he represents.

I think if I worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of the time, and the rest of the time work against him. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.

If you must vilify, condemn and eternally disparage, why, resign your position, and then when you are outside, damn to your heart's content. But I pray you, as long as you are a part of an institution, do not condemn it. Not that you will injure the institution -- not that -- but when you disparage a concern of which you are a part, you disparage yourself.

More than that, you are loosening the tendrils that hold you to the institution, and the first high wind that happens along, you will be uprooted and blown away in the blizzard's track -- and probably you will never know why - - - Get Out or Get in Line"

If you don't like the policies you should work internally to effect change and if you can't and you feel it is important, leave and campaign against them.

It might be different if you were to comment without knowing policy and were prepared to retract or correct or indeed defend your comment when properly informed. Was that the case?

I wonder if people are truly aware of the personal and business secrets held by a government that is constantly mining for more and more private information, yet regularly demonstrates that the provisions of the Privacy Act were (consumer) hopes, not rigid rules to be followed.

If only government protected our personal and business information with the zest and determination with which it is collected. Information gathered is not used exclusively for the purpose for which it was gathered and worse, is released by mistake, 'Whoops, sorry, but we will continue to gather it anyway!'.

Originally the public was also led to believe that it was only permanent public servants with a lot to lose who might handle their information. But alas that became casual workers, contractors and their subbies. Of course they will all maintain your privacy, yeah right!

While I agree with some of the sentiments of those who wish for public servants to comment on internal matters (that is what some look forward to isn't it and upholding the 'rights' of public servants is just a convenient blind?), government has a long way to go before it can assure the public that information already held is as secure as it once was.

No-one has mentioned security classifications, or the openness of many of the public systems to deliberate release of confidential information (and fraud).

Dear Antiseptic

You say "If he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him -- speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by the institution he represents", and I would agree with you completely in a situation of private business. However, life is rather different for public servants, for they have a loyalty to the public. For example, it was reported on ABC this evening that 50 percent of public servants do not approve of the PNG offshore arrangements. That is an interesting number, and surprising too. So why am I, who has a conscientious objection to offshore processing as being contrary to our international law obligations, the only person who has the courage to say so - and have people baying for my blood. Is it not more damaging to our democracy to have 50 percent of public servants who disapprove of PNG processing yet keep silent. To paraphrase Professor Sarah Joseph who wrote on this topic in the Conversation on 12 August, we may simply end up with a situation where the only public servants we have in this country are those who are too afraid to speak. Is that "a legitimate" end?