Military Steps Up War On Blogs

An anonymous reader writes "The military's war on blogs, first reported last spring, is picking up. Now the Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read. One senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so 'utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.'"

When's the next speech

Is Bush going to come out in a month and give a 'mission accomplished' speech after we defeat all the blogs?

Re:When's the next speech

after we defeat all the blogs?

Granted all of us here on /. can probably agree what constitutes a blog. However if you look at the strict definition, Dictionary.com: A weblog. (Weblog: "A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.")

By that definition wouldn't they have to block news.google.com and news.yahoo.com among a multitude of others?

Free speech

Way to go, take away rights from the people who are fighting to protect them.

Re:When's the next speech

What you call "worn out", I call "tacit acceptance". The day the Bush administration steps down from office is the day commentary, satirical or otherwise, on their actions and policies will become effectively moot — and not a day sooner. Should their actions really go unchallenged for the next ten months because everyone knows they're "douchebags", and is tired of hearing about it?

Ah, irony...

The article is posted on http://blog.wired.com/ [wired.com] and is therefore blocked by the filter it's complaining about.

It's a training issue; not a free speech issue?

How many hundreds of hours of training do warfighters get on the operation and maintenance of their M16 rifle?

How many hours of training do they get on the topics of personal publishing, viral marketing, and information security awareness in today's age of instant global communication?

Same as letters home

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned.

Is that not what they do when soldiers write letters? I thought the military screens, and sometimes redacts parts of letters that reveal information that they don't think should be freely disclosed. But the summary goes a little far. The soldiers aren't limited to what blogs they can read. It simply limits which ones they can register for and/or post info. I would hope this is limited to military personnel and not journalists who are with soldiers.
This does however remind me of that story a while back about soldiers trading pretty grotesque pictures [cnn.com] for access to pr0n sites.

RTFA

How is it that the summary goes a little far by directly quoting the article? Unless the article is completely wrong, this is about limiting which blogs can be read.

So lets list 'em...

So lets list our favorites, or good ones, or whatever...

http://michaelyon-online.com/ [michaelyon-online.com] - embedded reporter with no corporate sponsor, etc. Does it all on his own, takes *amazing* photos, and writes well...

For The Military Inevitably Blocked (It's a blog!)

The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. It's the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value -- and hazards -- of the sites. At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."

Until recently, each major command of the Air Force had some control over what sites their troops could visit, the Air Force Times reports. Then the Air Force Network Operations Center, under the service's new "Cyber Command," took over.

AFNOC has imposed bans on all sites with "blog" in their URLs, thus cutting off any sites hosted by Blogspot. Other blogs, and sites in general, are blocked based on content reviews performed at the base, command and AFNOC level ...

The idea isn't to keep airmen in the dark -- they can still access news sources that are "primary, official-use sources," said Maj. Henry Schott, A5 for Air Force Network Operations. "Basically ... if it's a place like The New York Times, an established, reputable media outlet, then it's fairly cut and dry that that's a good source, an authorized source," he said ...

AFNOC blocks sites by using Blue Coat software, which categorizes sites based on their content and allows users to block sub-categories as they choose.

"Often, we block first and then review exceptions," said Tech. Sgt. Christopher DeWitt, a Cyber Command spokesman.

As a result, airmen posting online have cited instances of seemingly innocuous sites -- such as educational databases and some work-related sites -- getting wrapped up in broad proxy filters.

"A couple of years back, I fought this issue concerning the Counterterrorism Blog," one Air Force officer tells Danger Room. "An AF [Air Force] professional education course website recommended it as a great source for daily worldwide CT [counterterrorism] news. However it had been banned, because it called itself a blog. And as we all know, all blogs are bad!"

He's joking, of course. But blogs and social networking sites have faced all sorts of restrictions on military networks, for all sorts of reasons. MySpace and YouTube are officially banned, for eating up too much bandwidth. Stringent regulations, read literally, require Army officers to review each and every item one of his soldiers puts online, in case they leak secrets. And in televised commercials, screensavers and fliers, troops are told that blogging is a major security risk -- even though official sites have proven to leak many, many more secrets. Now there's the Air Force's argument, that blogs aren't legitimate media outlets -- and therefore, shouldn't be read at work.

But this view isn't universally held in the military. Many believe blogs to be a valuable source of information -- and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, at home and abroad. Gen. David Petraeus, who heads the U.S. effort in Iraq, has commended military bloggers. Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who replaced Petraeus as the head of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, recently wrote (in a blog post, no less) that soldiers should be encouraged to "get onto blogs and [s]end their YouTube videos to their friends and family."

Within the Air Force, there's also a strong contingent that wants to see open access to the sites -- and is mortified by the AFNOC's restrictions. "When I hear stuff this utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.... Piles of torn out hair are accumulating around my desk as we speak," one senior Air Force official writes in an e-mail. "I'm certain that by blocking blogs for official use, our airmen will never, ever be able to read them on their own home computers, so we have indeed saved them from a contaminating influence. Sorry, didn't mean to drip sarcasm on your rug."

One of the blogs banned is

I fear this is even more sinister than it appears

Bear in mind I am not American, but from what I understand it is fairly costly to go to university there, and one of the easiest ways for people not born into money to finance themselves is to join the military for a bit before they go.

Now, centres of power have an uneasy relationship with academia. On the one hand, healthy universities are vital to maintaining a countries technological and scientific edge. On the other hand, putting lots of smart, young people with fresh ideas in one place and giving them free time often breeds 'disrespectful' thinking.

But the US government seems to have found a solution. Get the kids to join up so the military has first swing at their impressionable minds. Give them the states point of view and only the states point of view, and teach them that opposition to this point of view is treason. Create the us-and-them mentality cults use to make their victims hostile to information that might free them from the lies they have been told. Or, to save time, let Rupert Murdoch do it for you.

Now, this might be a bit tinfoil hat for you, but it doesn't require anything secret or anything that violates physics or the boundaries of current technology. It just requires that the people in charge of your country are totalitarian shits who will exploit any opportunity to control the environment and thus the minds of the people, especially young people.

Blogs!=News

I can't read blogs, myspace, or facebook at work either. This is far from censorship.

Disobedience

You know, I spent two years in Iraq and we never had to do this. During the second tour they tried, but there was a simple fix for all of us. We bought a satellite dish and a year's subscription to the internet from a company in Italy. Divided among 30 people it wasn't very expensive at all. The leadership tried to get in on it so they could censor, but a few "anonymous" whispers to embedded media later and they left us the fuck alone. Damn the leadership hated me.

Re:If he thinks the policy is stupid...

It *is* a stupid policy.

If you don't want your troops to lose morale because of the blogs, let them know what's really going on ... oops, that won't work either ...

Next step - installing spyware, so that in Soviet Amerikan Army, blog reads YOU!

Re:If he thinks the policy is stupid...

Exactly! We don't need to distill truth! That's why we have Fox News playing on every TV in every common area all over base. You can watch "facts" while you're eating, working out, smoking, taking a dump, seeing the dentist, or even while you're doing discharge paperwork regarding that arm you just lost.

Vietnam lessons

Looks like they learned something from Vietnam after all.

The American public is very happy to support war so long as 'war' is sort of an abstract thing happening "over there". They're more than happy to 'support the troops' and make grand speeches about the trials and tribulations and the suffering of "our boys overseas"--so long as they don't -see- it.

Once any given generation -sees- the dirty, bloody, nasty physical reality of war--the coffins coming home, the frontline reports with people getting blown up on camera, the interviews with the troops who have been worn down by months of stress--they stop supporting the 'cause' and start making ugly noises about bringing the troops home.

So they started with disguising the casualties--excluding people from photographing the coffins. No highly visible casualties? Then any losses are, for everyone outside the families--families that are, by and large, "in" the establishment itself (base housing and that sort of thing)--abstract. Just numbers.

Then quietly weed out the embedded reporters. Reasons of security, you know. Have to make sure the press stays 'safe'.

And now making sure that there's as little other information exchange between the armed services and the outside world as possible.

It's all to be expected, really.

Re:Vietnam lessons

Exactly. If there is one thing the armed forces learned from Vietnam it is control the information given out by the press. I remember a general's response to the question of why dead bodies and such were not allowed to be shown in the US was something like "If we let the public see what was really happening, to see dead bodies and destruction, they would never support the war."
To me it sounded like the best reason FOR showing the pictures.

Most people in the U.S. don't know the history.

The cause of the violence is people who have control over the U.S. government wanting to make a profit. I don't have time now to give a lot of links, but there are some below.

What started the violence between the U.S. government and Arabs was the U.S. government, not the Arabs. Having the U.S. taxpayer pay for violence to make a profit works only because most voters don't know the history of U.S. government action.

See, for example, Coups Arranged or Backed by the USA [krysstal.com]. Most or all of that corruption happened for profit, such as kickbacks of U.S. government foreign aid. When the governments of Israel or Pakistan buy weapons from U.S. manufacturers using money from "foreign aid", that is embezzlement of taxpayer money.

For one example of profiting from violence, read How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power [guardian.co.uk] or Bush-Nazi Link Confirmed: Documents in National Archives Prove George W. Bush's Grandfather Traded with Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor [rense.com].

Apparently Slashdot editors agree with at least some of this, because now and for the last 2 months or more, this has been on the main Slashdot page, on the right, under Book Reviews: "The Creature from Jekyll Island [amazon.com] is a compelling look at the history of the Federal Reserve system and asks if it's a system that has run it's course. (Michael J. Ross's review [slashdot.org])"

"The Creature from Jekyll Island" discusses how the U.S. monetary system is manipulated by rich and powerful people for their own profit. It says that wars are started for profit.

The Cooperative Research History Commons [cooperativeresearch.org] is very valuable for those wanting to do their own research.

The poorly edited but very interesting free movie Zeitgeist [zeitgeistmovie.com] explains in three parts that 1) People who believe in myths are easily manipulated. 2) It is common that people are manipulated through fear. 3) The U.S. monetary system is controlled for the profit of a few individuals. (Note that the movie used respected sources for the first part which were later shown to be somewhat in error. The underlying issues are correct, however.)

When you talk about U.S. government action, don't say "we". Whoever does the secret decision making would kill you and your family if they thought you would cause trouble for them.

When people try to calculate the total number the U.S. government killed, they arrive at figures like perhaps 3 million killed directly since the end of the 2nd world war, and perhaps 8 to 11 million total if the people killed by the destabilization the U.S. government caused are also included, not including the people killed in Iraq. Partly the killing happened as a result of the U.S. government invading or bombing 25 countries.

Re:PressedWords

Presumably he didn't post that on his blog...

Don't be so sure. From FTA:

Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who replaced Petraeus as the head of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, recently wrote (in a blog post, no less)

Quick correction

"you give away your Freedom to virtually congregate and by extension freedom of thought among peers."

The distinction is important, and not just semantically.

And I can't figure out how you think they're losing "freedom of thought", as far as I'm aware, the military has no way to know what you're thinking (I hope...) so that part of your post really doesn't make any sense.

Freedom has responsibilities.

and repercussions for going over the line.

I think the important part is that people forget that when you join the military (ex Air Force here) you give up a lot of your rights. You do so willingly. You do so with the expectation that it is for the common good. Don't take this as an ego trip, but for me today's soldiers are the people I look up to. To willfully put yourself in harms way in support of others, the majority of which will never know your sacrifice, is to be a true hero. Not some insipid hollyweird starlet, some sports player, or the latest American idol. These soldiers are of the same stock as firemen and policeman. They step up so the rest of us don't have to. Yet we don't always respect their contribution or what they give up. Some of them might not fully understand the later but I put this as coming from a society of entitlement viewpoint that comes to a screeching halt when you join.

So while I do not find too much wrong in limiting what they can say, especially with the fact that enemy of the day has near instant access to it, I think it does deserve a good amount of thought before it goes too far into restrictive. I know my friends letters from the first Desert Storm were monitored but that was easy to do, all mail went through the military. With the internet a big exposure is created and any attempt to close it appears as an affront. It is, but its one voluntarily entered. The military cannot afford to be all open and exposed. It doesn't work well in that environment. A good military works best when it can control the variables. There are some it can and this is one area where it can do something. Your there to do a job and the people around you don't need extra risk because you slipped up.

Hmm. Not sure about that.

If something is truly a right, an inalienable right, then it cannot be given, taken or surrendered. Those things that are given or taken are called privileges. A parent can grant or withdraw privileges from their children, for example, but cannot withdraw those children's rights. (Thus, countries that withdraw privileges are quite literally "nanny states".)

The question is, is free speech actually a right or is it merely a privilege that the privileged are granted? If it is the former, then that is absolute and inviolate. There's no two ways about it. If it is the latter, then yes, certain jobs may withdraw certain privileges that would be granted to others.

What you can't have is it both ways. I honestly don't care which American society wants to define it as being, as it is using an ambiguous interpretation that is far too often more about convenience than about standards in life. Less ambiguity, even if more restrictive, can't be any worse.

im not sure that's a problem

plenty of those offenses are lame (marijuana should be legal of course), but i think chinese and russians would complain about too many criminals running around the streets due to corruption and laziness, not celebrating their vast freedoms as compared to the usa

BECAUSE AMERICA IS A DEMOCRACY

I can't even scream this loudly enough if you were here in person. China is a communist dictatorship which I have no control over. Russia is a pseudo-democratic dictatorship that I have no control over. When my government is doing evil, I complain bitterly about it. What good does bitching about China or Iran do? Absolutely nothing! Which is the only thing these so called pundits and reporters do - bitch about things that we cannot control, while ignoring the fact that WE have a part to play in our own destiny.

Vile regimes? How about Saudi Arabia? How about Pakistan? How about our One China policy? You completely missed the point of my first post. America does not care if you're a vile regime, as long as you do what we tell you to do. That's why Saddam had our public support - we removed him from our Terrorist States list in the early 80s so we could sell him weapons. Weapons which he used to exterminate hundreds of thousands of people, which didn't bother us in the slightest. Like the slaughter of the people of East Timor, also in the hundreds of thousands, didn't even cause us to stop selling weapons to Indonesia.

You are paying attention to the smoke and the mirrors, and not the real issues. This is not a pissing contest. This is a matter of injustice, and what we can do about it. So, if saying that the US is as good as Russia helps you sleep at night, by all means, get back in front of the TV and tuck in. Celebrate your freedom by doing fuck all. Trust the government. Ignore the fact that the president today is asking the public to provide immunity to telcos to spy on the public. Ignore the blood in the streets in Baghdad. Ignore the cries of injustice in the inner city. Ignore the fact that we spend more money on the military than any other expenditure in our budget, and more than any other country by any measurement (per capita, GDP, whatever.)

The sad thing is, you are the perfect American citizen. Because you are listless, thoughtless, you follow orders, and you ask no questions. If this sounds familiar to communist ideals, perhaps that should be alarming?

Re:Don't be so melodramatic.

Too bad you posted AC, but I served 26 years in the AF (retired last year) and will happily confirm everything you posted. What civilians don't get is how mellow the AF life really is. BFD if they filter a few sites or snivel about blog posts.
If you are going to post controversial shit you just omit your name and rank so it does not appear to have AF sanction.