A slew of press reports this morning detailed the blocking of a political blog from all state employees' computers. The move appeared to be an effort to silence the site, Bluegrass Report, which had been instrumental in publicizing recent controversies surrounding Governor Ernie Fletcher.

Authorities denied viewpoint discrimination, citing instead the deployment of web filtering software to block access to all blogs. Jill Midkiff, spokeswoman for the Finance and Administration Cabinet, was quoted in the Courier-Journal saying, "Today we blocked new categories of sites. We didn't target specific sites," said Midkiff. "The new categories are in addition to categories that have been blocked for a while now -- pornography, lingerie, computer games, hate sites, illegal activity sites, chat rooms."

BluegrassReport's Mark Nickolas suspects otherwise, and is documenting conservative blogs that remain accessible to state personnel in an effort to confirm his accusations of censorship.

It certainly seems that partisan discrimination was a factor in the blocking, particularly since, as this story received publicity from other political blogs throughout the day, those sites were soon reported inaccessible as well.

However, if in fact this represents merely an effort to keep state employees focused on their work, political blogs are an inappropriate target. Press reports cited Midkiff's qualification that "mainstream media sites were not blocked because they can provide state employees a broader range of news on issues which agencies may need"; this statement would suggest a real ignorance on the part of Kentucky authorities of the very legitimate purpose blogs serve.

Blogs are playing a crucial role in bringing to light important matters of public interest, providing insider information and minority viewpoints that are typically absent from mainstream media reports. Particularly in the realm of local politics, sites like BluegrassReport offer invaluable commentary that could truly benefit awareness of public concerns and inform sound decision making on the part of the state government. We urge Kentucky to reconsider this restrictive move.

» Click here for NCAC's initial report on the controversy