Friday, 21 September 2018

Sunspot Observatory Update

There has been a press release from the Federal Bureau of Investigation relating to the closure of the National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico USA. The reason the FBI placed the entire facility under lockdown and ousted all the personnel from the observatory and local post office is because a member of staff was suspected of downloading child pornography using Sunspot's wireless network. They then distributed it to others on the same service. The staff member was a cleaner, of course. Unlike hospitals which have porters to blame everything bad on, the observatory has to make do with second best. The individual concerned has not yet been arrested or charged. Source: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/09/19/sunspot-new-mexico-solar-observatory-evacuation-explained-fbi-docs/1365325002/. This might be true, and of course if the person is guilty then they have committed an appalling crime; but it still sounds to me rather like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It's odd that they have not been arrested or charged; surely there's evidence isn't there? The abuse of workplace internet for criminal activity is not an unusual offence and it has happened many times in the NHS, and indeed once at my hospital... and despite what I said above, the culprit was unfortunately a porter. However the procedure when that happened was very different. The head porter ordered the porter off duty and suspended him, and the police then arrested him at his home. No helicopters were necessary; the hospital was not closed and evacuated. Nearby post offices continued operating normally. Therefore I wonder if this latest news is just a smokescreen, the equivalent of the Roswell weather balloon or the Bentwaters lighthouse.

2 comments:

  1. https://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/2018/09/6-more-solar-observatories-closed-and.html

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  2. Thanks for the information, Andrew. I'm sure they can't be downloading porn in all of them!

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