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Are Marines Censoring Web Access for Troops in Iraq?
Gavin86 and others have submitted links to This Wonkette article (profanity warning) about the Marines Corps blocking access to some Web sites for their people in Iraq. This article was a follow-up to an earlier Wonkette post. Before I posted these links, I looked for verification of this problem but found nothing but links to Wonkette, so I cannot say for sure whether this is true. Hopefully, alert Slashdot readers (like you) will post confirmations if, indeed, there are any to be found. Meanwhile, if this is true, it's eerily reminiscent of an experience I had when I visited Saudi Arabia in January, 2004.
The Wonkette post contains this list of sites blocked and not blocked, allegedly sent by a Marine serving in Iraq:
I spent several hours in my Riyadh hotel room one evening checking sites suggested to me by Slashdot coworker Jamie McCarthy via IRC (which was not blocked by the Saudi filters). Among them were sites decrying Holocaust denial, which were blocked, although many sites espousing the old Protocols of the Elders of Zion antisemitic lies were not.
A number of sites that talked about human rights -- especially women's rights -- were also blocked. Sites that glorified Islam were, of course, fine. Interestingly, Jamie and I found that some (but not all) sites that were blocked when the 2002 Harvard Law School article, Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia, was released had been unblocked by the time of my visit.
And when I met with Eyas S. Al-Hejery, the man in charge of Saudi Arabia's Internet Serice Unit and told him about some of the blocked sites Jamie and I had found, including several innocuous Israeli government ones, he agreeably unblocked them.
I have no way of knowing whether Eyas reblocked those sites as soon as I left his country, but he told me more than once that he did not, himself, decide which sites should be blocked but only reacted to complaints from Saudi Arabia's infamous religious police and submissions from concerned citizens, which he said numbered up to 200 per day, total, while he only received a "trickle" of requests to unblock sites.
Now comes a big question: If the charges of Marine Internet blockage are true, will the Marines unblock incorrectly-blocked Web sites as quickly as Eyas did in Saudi Arabia?
But first, another big questions must be answered: Is the Wonkette story true? It's been up and spreading around the Internet since March 1st, and no official Marine spokesperson has bothered to either debunk it or admit that yes, the Marine Corps is blocking Web sites for political reasons.
It's going to be interesting to see if, here in a country where we supposedly hold freedom of speech dear, we expect our overseas troops to submit to the same sort of censorship that is an everyday thing in Saudi Arabia, a famous breeding ground for the Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism our Marines are supposed to be fighting against.
- Wonkette - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.wonkette.com/) is categorized as: Forum/Bulletin Boards, Politics/Opinion."
- Bill O'Reilly (www.billoreilly.com) - OK
- Air America (www.airamericaradio.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion."
- Rush Limbaugh (www.rushlimbaugh.com) - OK
- ABC News "The Note" - OK
- Website of the Al Franken Show (www.alfrankenshow.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion."
- G. Gordon Liddy Show (www.liddyshow.us) - OK
- Don & Mike Show (www.donandmikewebsite.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.donandmikewebsite.com/) is categorized as: Profanity, Entertainment/Recreation/Hobbies."
I spent several hours in my Riyadh hotel room one evening checking sites suggested to me by Slashdot coworker Jamie McCarthy via IRC (which was not blocked by the Saudi filters). Among them were sites decrying Holocaust denial, which were blocked, although many sites espousing the old Protocols of the Elders of Zion antisemitic lies were not.
A number of sites that talked about human rights -- especially women's rights -- were also blocked. Sites that glorified Islam were, of course, fine. Interestingly, Jamie and I found that some (but not all) sites that were blocked when the 2002 Harvard Law School article, Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia, was released had been unblocked by the time of my visit.
And when I met with Eyas S. Al-Hejery, the man in charge of Saudi Arabia's Internet Serice Unit and told him about some of the blocked sites Jamie and I had found, including several innocuous Israeli government ones, he agreeably unblocked them.
I have no way of knowing whether Eyas reblocked those sites as soon as I left his country, but he told me more than once that he did not, himself, decide which sites should be blocked but only reacted to complaints from Saudi Arabia's infamous religious police and submissions from concerned citizens, which he said numbered up to 200 per day, total, while he only received a "trickle" of requests to unblock sites.
Now comes a big question: If the charges of Marine Internet blockage are true, will the Marines unblock incorrectly-blocked Web sites as quickly as Eyas did in Saudi Arabia?
But first, another big questions must be answered: Is the Wonkette story true? It's been up and spreading around the Internet since March 1st, and no official Marine spokesperson has bothered to either debunk it or admit that yes, the Marine Corps is blocking Web sites for political reasons.
It's going to be interesting to see if, here in a country where we supposedly hold freedom of speech dear, we expect our overseas troops to submit to the same sort of censorship that is an everyday thing in Saudi Arabia, a famous breeding ground for the Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism our Marines are supposed to be fighting against.
Fighting for freedom are we?
Before people start all the suppressing soldiers rights chatter... this is nothing new and I'm sure its being done to all the forces, not just the Marines. The military has always kept a tight grip on incoming and outgoing information. In WWI and WWII, mail was looked at for sensitive information and photographers had their pictures looked at. The was especially true in Vietnam. I'm not justifying it, but I don't think most people are in a position to judge if you yourself haven't led troops in combat or fought in a war yourself. Having served in the Marines myself, I can say that good morale is vital to a mission's success. It's so important that it may even be worth losing some freedoms to maintain it. Anyone who has served in the armed forces will tell you that you give up your rights when you enlist. The military is a serious game and normal rules don't apply often. May seem strange to many, but its reality.
gasmonsoWhile I can agree that members of the military give up some rights because of their job, they still should enjoy the basic constitutional rights that all Americans have. For example, Troops in the Army who live on base are not allowed to have any political posters of any kind. There are no signs of "I support X for congress". Military troops also have less rights in criminal cases. They don't always get a jury, sometimes it is a tribunal. There have been cases when their contract for service has expired but they are forced to continue service.
On the other hand, when we enter another nation, we must respect their laws. There is no freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia. If they want to censor the internet, it is their right. The USA can not dictate to Saudi Arabia how to live, what values to have. Muslim nations have a right to form religious states where their doctrine determines laws. Just like the USA can form a state based on our values.
Preposterous.
One of my closest childhood friends commented to me in 1999 that on a carrier (the ship, not the service provider) their web access was censored.
Furthermore, they were forbidden by their CO from watching any news other than Fox News in the mess. Apparently, due to personal preference of the CO, not because of military policy... but after checking with and other parts of his ship, they all had the same mess/recreation policy.
See, dissenting points of view could harm troop morale, and diminish their effectiveness. The military is allowed to get away with a lot of things in the name of protecting morale. You wouldn't want any doubters to risk the lives of brother soldiers/shipmen/airmen because of their conscience, would you?
The armed forces, including all the men and women in them, are responsible for the execution of war -- not the morality of war. The Congress is responsible for those decisions, so the armed forces have no reason to hear dissenting points of view. Right?
Since the Revolutionary War in the US, that has been how it has worked. Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, and all that. As long as Congress is respnsible for the ethical decisions of war, then censoring information accessible to the troops is fine. Oh wait...
Apologies in advance for the tongue-in-cheekiness.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Regardless of whether soldiers have a right to uncensored internet access, congress needs to look into biased filtering.
If the military wants to block political-opinion websites, that's fine, but block ALL political opinion websites. The category and reason for blocking is "Politics/Opinion" , not "Liberal Politics/Opinion" or "Politics/Opinion that the Bush administration doesn't like".
$8.95/mo web hosting
As for the websites, it's not a matter of political bias, it's a matter of morale and welfare management that causes the apparent political slant to which sites get blocked. Rush is an idiot, but he's an idiot that isn't constantly saying "Pull the troops out now, they're fighting an illegal war, etc, etc". If he began to do so, you can be sure he'd be blocked as well. It's easier to maintain a fighting force's morale by limiting their exposure to that kind of speech, and it's within the rights of the military to do so.
Great, but don't forget that these military folks are also voters. It seems to very, very convenient for one side or the other to define a common political view as "bad for morale". Then they can block their opponents outright. If political speech is so dangerous to morale, the filtering is at least as dangerous to our democracy, since it allows one side or the other to sculpt the political opinions of a large portion of the voting population.