I’ve written about this before, but the Christian Science Monitor has an article that notes that there have been several instances where employees have been disciplined or fired because of their blogs:

San Francisco freelance journalist Curt Hopkins has documented more than 20 cases of bloggers who claim they were fired because of their online activities. . . Last month, the Society for Human Resource Management surveyed 279 human resources professionals and found that 3 percent had disciplined employee bloggers. While the firings are “certainly not an epidemic,” employers need to deal with blogging, says Mr. Hopkins, who runs a blog himself. . .

As for free speech, government employees and union members may have special protections, and some states - including California and Washington - strictly protect the privacy of workers. “The rules vary widely,” says Lea VanderVelde, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. But “it’s clear that if [employees] write about issues related to their employment that might reflect upon their employer, they get very little protection in the courts.”

I can certainly see why someone who blogs anonymously to criticize his/her job and/or coworkers may be disciplined or fired but I would think that if one’s blog has nothing to do with one’s employer, then freedom of speech should prevail. However, as we’re seeing with the controversy surrounding Professor Ward Churchill’s comments about the 9/11 attacks, apparently freedom of expression is a bunch of hot air these days.