Well, it seems we are loosing another privlage in the name of 911.
UP Issues Warning To Employees Divulging Info.
Policy Prohibits Divulging Non-Public Information
Is Providing Details on Railroad Activities Really Harmless?
The need for confidentiality of company information has increased
due to recent changes in the law, as well as heightened security
precautions following 9-11.
Providing information about the location of a Union Pacific train in
response to a query on a rail fan Internet site may seem innocent
enough. In today’s world, though, that inquiry may be from a local
rail fan – or perhaps it’s from a terrorist thousands of miles away.
It’s important that employees understand the importance of not
divulging non-public railroad information to outsiders, no matter
how harmless it might seem. This includes information about business
or transportation plans, as well as strategies, measures, legal
proceedings and financial information.
In one instance, a rail fan Web site obtained and posted the
schedule for a special train – information that is not made public
for security reasons.
“Employees have a responsibility to understand what is confidential
information and should not be shared with others,” said Butch
Ethington, ombudsman and director of ethics. "Supervisors also have
a responsibility to help their employees understand the risk of
sharing information outside the company.
"In today’s environment, it’s hard to know what is harmless and what
is critical information. You might think a train list or information
about a facility is pretty harmless, but sharing that information
could pose a sec
Well, it seems we are loosing another privlage in the name of 911.
UP Issues Warning To Employees Divulging Info.
Policy Prohibits Divulging Non-Public Information
Is Providing Details on Railroad Activities Really Harmless?
The need for confidentiality of company information has increased
due to recent changes in the law, as well as heightened security
precautions following 9-11.
Providing information about the location of a Union Pacific train in
response to a query on a rail fan Internet site may seem innocent
enough. In today’s world, though, that inquiry may be from a local
rail fan – or perhaps it’s from a terrorist thousands of miles away.
It’s important that employees understand the importance of not
divulging non-public railroad information to outsiders, no matter
how harmless it might seem. This includes information about business
or transportation plans, as well as strategies, measures, legal
proceedings and financial information.
In one instance, a rail fan Web site obtained and posted the
schedule for a special train – information that is not made public
for security reasons.
“Employees have a responsibility to understand what is confidential
information and should not be shared with others,” said Butch
Ethington, ombudsman and director of ethics. "Supervisors also have
a responsibility to help their employees understand the risk of
sharing information outside the company.
"In today’s environment, it’s hard to know what is harmless and what
is critical information. You might think a train list or information
about a facility is pre
This from the same RR that just announced it was putting GPS on one of it’s steam engines in order to allow the public to track it in real time on a map on their web site?
Man, when is this crap gonna end? Lets keep taking steps to provide a false sense of security to protect us from the false sense of fear we all seem to have.
They are in the business of transportation. There is certain information which is confidential and should not be disclosed to the public, except thru normal channels. They wi***o control who issues that information. Quite a bit of seemingly harmless info is easily analyzed and disected into business intellegence.
There is plenty of ways to get the info needed today. The example of them posting a GPS tracked position of a steam engine is their way of communicating that info to the public.
Unless trains are carrying something Top Secret there wereabouts should not be of much interest to a terrorist, unless he/she wants to dump a bunch of chloride products in the railyards of a city. Then they would have to know which way rhe wind was blowing. Then on the other hand how many rail fans really care whats in that box car or tank car.Yes the corporate spies are out there, but the biggest threat to any company or site is internal.
Comment from the peanut gallery:
Has anyone bothered to e-mail the memo back to its source & let them know.
I’m sure they would be very interested(maybe they would have a anxiety attack & UP would need a new person in the position.
It appears to be an internal employee memo. The lack of maturity on the employee/poster’s part is apparent. If they had received it and tucked it away, we wouldn’t be having this forum at the moment. I’m no fan of UP, but I understand the need to keep business on the QT, in particular haz-mat or MIL transports. No conspiracy fellas, Just someone realizing that the rails are a potential target (remember Madrid and the London subway…?)…[X-)]
