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We are they same here as Mr. Richey stated they are. We do not allow our new employees access for one year, as that is the length of our training period and we do have policies that state we will suspend anyone's internet access if it interferes with their job or for misuse. We also make them sign a user agreement before getting access.

We allow open internet access to our comm. center personnel at their consoles. I am very pleased that our IT department allows for this type of access for them and since we are such a busy center, it's nice when they have downtime to be able to surf and look-up information.
They do sign a computer use policy regarding what sites that can and cannot visit. Other than a few websites blacklisted by our firewall, such as social networking, gambling, pornography, etc., they can pretty much get to anything else.
We've had very few issues with this practice up to this point and the few viruses that have been found on the individual machines have been traced back to emails but were eradicated easily.
In my opinion, we trust these people to save lives everyday, giving them internet access isn't asking too much.
Good luck with your policy...

We are preparing to submit to the union a policy regardnig internet use in the dispatch center. Our policy will state that a minimal amount of internet use in the dispatch center is permissible, however, a dispatcher actively on the radio may not use the internet for anything other than specific law enforcement business purposes.
If the union accepts or we move forward, we will re-evaluate after a period of 90 days. Part of the problem we have is that the same computer/screen that access the internet also has mission critical functions, incluidng the dispatch center email box. If employees are not monitoring email and other other applications apprpriately, we will have to consider a no personal use of internet policy.
To be honest, so far, it has not been an issue ... we just want to make sure it does not become one.