A small item in the Conway Daily Sun caught my attention this morning. A new social media policy approved by the County Commissioners warns employees that if they identify themselves as an employee of the county, which most people do on Facebook as part of their basic info, their postings and actions could be considered reflective on the county.

Whoa.

The policy, which got the OK from the county’s HR specialist and an outside attorney, goes on to say, “Supervisors may be held personally responsible for offensive communication or photos that occur on social media sites between co-workers outside the workplace on personal equipment,” if that supervisor is “friends” or follows that co-worker.

While there are plenty of previous cases on the issue of social media and First Amendment rights, holding a supervisor accountable if an underling makes offensive posts? Seems a bit harsh.

Cases on this have been leaning more toward the employer than the employee, as we see in this Huffington Post fluff slideshow. Enjoy.

— Portsmouth Naval Shipyard workers will rally today at noon against federal budget cuts that put their projects at risk. If any of you remember all that these workers did (most of them union) to keep the PNSY open during the last BRAC, you know these men and women don’t fool around.

— On the defense cuts theme, Sen. Kelly Ayotte spoke earlier this week about cutting the “missile to nowhere,” explained below and put in context in this NYT article.

“Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, pleaded to kill what she called a missile to nowhere — a European-based missile defense system that both the Senate and House armed services committees have repeatedly tried to zero out — and to shift the money to military operations and maintenance.

‘There’s not going to be another funding bill for the government until the end of this federal fiscal year,’ she said. ‘This is our only opportunity.'”

— I was in college when they were expanding the east side of Route 101. I remember because I has to drive the road four times a year to get to the Manchester Airport (which it was appropriately called back then). I’ve always wondered why the same courtesy was never extended on the west side of Route 101, seeing as there are many people who travel the road every day and it is a complete traffic nightmare. It looks like the NHDOT is now planning to do so, and spoke in Bedford with residents about what an expansion would look like. Residents are worried the expansion would make Route 101 a barrier from one side of town to the other.

— From the Nashua Telegraph, “Casino bill authors vow to avoid tying expanded gambling to budget battle.” Good luck with that.

— Also from Nashua, the school budget gets a small cut.