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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?
While I can't speak for The Core, when I was in Kuwait for the Army, we had full access to everything. For that matter, the Internation version of CNN or the International MTV were always on the TV in the mess hall.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Military commanders are worried about troop morale, and will intervene to keep whatever they consider disruptive away. They can and will punish spreading of dissent or other insubordination. Sometimes very severely.
The military also censors what it's members can say. This is necessary to avoid inadvertantly informing an enemy, but like everything else, it can be abused. Also part of service life. It ain't pretty.
See Daily Kos discussion here.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Lets hope Hampster Dance is among the blocked. No need to expose new cultures to that kinda stuff.
Is it just me, or is a profanity warning kinda redundant when we're talking about Marines?
Obligatory Marine joke:
News reporter: "Now that you're back from Iraq, what's the first thing you're going to do?"
Marine: "Fuck my wife!"
News reporter: "Well, we can't go to air with that. How 'bout the second thing you're going to do?" Marine: "Then I'm gonna take off these fucking combat boots!"
I am in Baghdad right now and I am a network admin here. I am aware of no blatant censorship (but we do have filtering software). I was able to read the linked article. Here is one of the comments posted on that page:
Curious if www.pattillmanfoundation.org is blocked.
The article, nor the page referenced are blocked. This article is bullshit.
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Interesting. I have no idea if her claim is true or not, but it is at least consistent with another oddity that I noticed a few weeks ago, when the poll results showed that a majority (IIRC) of the US service personnel over there thought that we were in Iraq "because of what they did to us on 9/11," despite the fact that pretty much everyone over here (apart from a few trolls) now knows there was no connection at all between Iraq and 9/11.
When I heard that my first thought was: how could they not know this?!?
But perhaps there is a simple explanation after all.
--MarkusQ
Given the news today, it sounds like "there" is about to be Iran. Cheney is warning of "meaningful consequences" for the Iranian government if they don't stop their nuclear program. I wonder if he's planning to shoot them in the face...
Beautiful Blueberries
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.
gasmonsoAre you free to surf any website you want on your company network? Do any of us really think that the military lets troops surf anywhere they please on a government owned and operated network that is there for "Official Use Only"? The same network that carries Command & Control data that is vital for operational information.
I think if I were a Marine/Soldier/Sailor/Airman in the zone, I'd rather be limited in what websites I can surf from the combat zone in exchange for having the available bandwidth that lets an alert message come in about an impending attack.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, For you are crunchy and go well with ketchup.
Keeping the troops segregated from anyone but pro-war Republicans isn't part of the military's job. ;p
The best part is that one of those proxy machines is on slashdot's banned list, so I have to try and find one of the others to read/post from time to time.
While I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy, I'm sure the Marines are just trying to keep crap out of their boxen.
Its not that military is censoring, it's that it's censoring with a clear political bias. When you add in recent appearances of military personnel in uniform as participants in political events in clear violation of the law, it is appearing more and more like the US military is becoming a subsidary of the Republican Party.
I know everyone is looking for some vast right-wing conspiricy, but to me it looks like the blocked pages had free streaming radio, or public forums. I can see cases where administrators may block streaming media for the purposes of saving bandwidth, and potentially public forums for a huge number of security and public relations reasons.
It just so happens the Air America lets you listen online for free (becuase they are not trying to turn a profit), and Rush Limbaugh does not. I'm not so certain theres any bias going on here.
At the worst, it seems like a case of stupid network rules, which happen to be the same as at my company. (No streaming media, no forums).
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
If Marines are connecting to the internet though a DoD network, plenty of sites are being blocked. Thousands of sites are blocked at all military post. Also it's pretty obvious that any email, forum posting, or blog entry that they send are also cached. That being to make sure they aren't sending information that they should not be. (Anything that can comprimise the mission, sensitive information, or the lifes of their buddies) What's the big deal? How many corporations do the same thing?
Research or knee jerk?
Wonkette is run by others.
Poor troll, nonetheless.
While 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.
Well, the military is also against food, as here are some other sites that are rumored to be blocked:
All Recipies
Epicurious.com
FoodTV.com
Top Secret Recipies
Of course, I started that rumor, just this minute, but from the reaction of the parent, that shouldn't matter. Now go you slashdot minions! Jump to conspiratorial conclusions on the word of a single, unverified source!
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
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
I work for the USAF as a contractor. All the sites listed above are not blocked solely to those serving in Iraq, or just the Marines.
They are blocked by the Air Force with the same reasons listed. I just tested them all.
It's not just the fact that some two star wants/doesn't want his/her troops going to political sites that are against his/her party, it's the simple fact that the sites that ARE allowed simply haven't been blocked because people haven't been swarming to those sites.
From what I have noticed, being a Work Group Manager (PC Admin for the AF), the more a site get's visited, the higher it stands a chance to be blocked, unless the site is required in order to complete the mission.
In other words. The sites that are blocked are so because the higher ups don't want people chatting up forums when they should be supporting the mission. (hmm, speaking of chatting, I think I hear the blocking police calling me!)
Remember, not everything has a political agenda. On the other hand, not everything isn't. But we tend to fall towards blaming politics. And as much as I hate politics, it's not always to blame.
L8r
From what I can tell here (a Military facility in the US), Internet filtering is hit and miss and often changes back and forth without notice depending on filtering software upgrades and back-ups. I don't think our IT people spacifically filter out any political sites, I've been able to access stuff all over the spectrum. I think because the military used a commercial product that comes with pre-configured profiles, what is filtered and what is not is very hit and miss. Several of my associates who are "down range" tell me that no real organized filtering takes place except for porn and certain ecommerce such as eBay and stock market. On recreational systems, generally, only porn is filtered out.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Of Course! Not to sound like a red-dog republican, but of course they censor the internet for the troops. Their job(and thier life) depends on being focused on their job, not what's going on at the Underground Asian Showgirls(TM)website. Censorship is something that has always and will always occur in the Military. When you join the military you give up several freedoms due to how a military works. There is no free press, free speech, and free will(within limits), etc. in the military.
All you "everyone has a right to do whatever the hell they want" people need to get your collective head out of your collective rears so you can see what actually happens in the world.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
Since my previous post was modded into oblivion and I have karma to burn, I'll link to another discussion. I'd suggest that those who are angered by this other discussion go there and participate in the discussion, rather than simply making it disappear here, in order to avoid the irony of "trollmodding" a link to a political site into oblivion on a censorship story.
See Daily Kos discussion about this topic here.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
the article is saying Rush Limbaugh is 'OK' (not Blocked) and Al Franken is blocked
To bad we can't get any moderation any more.
The Consertives are going nuts pusing their agenda and the liberals are going nuts pushing their agenda. The moderates are accused of being too Liberal and Consertive. The Media has both are both Consertive and Liberal controlled. The Consertives give tax breaks to the that only help the Rich. The liberals make government services that only the rich (Who are normally higher educated) can figure out and go threw the burocracy and get access too. Globalization is only bad for the party that is not in power, otherwise it is a good thing. The Liberals support Unions who protect the workers rights, The consertive are against Unions who makes operations so expensive that the companies are forced to lay off all the workers. The Consertive are for Right to Life except for the Death Penality, the Liberals are for ProChoice except for when you choose to keep the child who may have down-syndrome, or if the guardians wish to keep someone alive and it is to expensive not to. The Consertives want to kill the public school system so the rich only have access to good schools. The Liberals want to keep the current failing school systems and throw more money into what doesn't work.
My God justs becuase their are two view points it doesn't mean that one side is right and the other is wrong. They could be both right and what is usally happening both are wrong. We can debate these sides for ever, but why doesn't anyone try a new approach.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
As long as they allow the dancing banana.
What's more American than peanut butter and jelly?
Your claims are a mix of fact, fantasy and fiction. While out of uniform, or in one's residence signs of support for a party or a candidate are perfectly acceptable. There is always a right to jury at a courts martial, and unlike in the civilian sector you can be certain that those judging you are your peers. The cases where the contract "expired" but they were forced to continue serving are mostly a misunderstanding from the civilian sector of how the contract works.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
I was in Iraq for a year as part of the United States Army.
Internet access was always a little iffy, since it's expensive and the troops have a very high demand for it. There were several ways to get internet access while I was there, some of which are still around and some of which are not.
#1: US Government provided independent internet cafes.
Status: Removed.
Reason: Not cost effective. They decided to go with a consolidated large provider instead.
I ran one of these while I was deployed. The closest I got to 'filtering' was running a caching ad-blocking squid proxy. I did this for speed reasons, because *I* wanted to provide my Soldiers with fast internet access. (PS: f*ck doubleclick.net)
#2: US Government provided Internet Cafes.
Status: Still around.
This is one of the biggest and most commonly accessable internet accesses in Iraq. The US Government contracted for some massive amount of bandwidth through some satellite provider. You can't bring in your own laptop, you have to use their locked-down desktops. But I didn't see any politically motivated filtering going on, and I checked.
#3: Privately funded Internet Access.
Status: Still around, but usually kept on the quiet.
Unit commanders occasionally try to stop them out of generalized fear, but I never saw one go away. It's not against any regulations. It's just expensive. ($1400/month for 128u/512d)
#4: Contractor run public Internet Cafes.
Status: Still around.
If you can make money at it, someone will try to do it. Zaid (http://www.russianwolf.com/) was one that I dealt with on a regular basis. He not only provided the hardware for our cafe, but he ran several others on a for-pay basis. ($20 would let you browse for an hour) Filtering was not in place in any of his cafes. Not cost effective. Consider this my plug for him. He's a good guy.
#5: US Government 'NIPR-net' (Non-Secure Internet Protocol Router Network) access.
Status: Still around.
This is what people use for official communications and internet access. This is for non-secret data only. The closest they got to filtering was publishing what unit and individual computer was browsing the internet more than anybody else on a weekly basis. This network was VERY overloaded and SLOW SLOW SLOW. But it was filtered for sexual content I think, not that I ever tried. But it was not filtered for political content.
In summary, the common methods that people use to access the internet in Iraq are not filtered for content of a political nature. What the Marines may be doing is not something I know, but I saw plenty of Marines using these other access methods that I know were not filtered. Any filtering is either a new thing or isolated to a small unit. It was not the policy of the Department of Defense to filter internet access for political content as of Feb2005 (when I was there last)
Nathan Brazil?
What Service?
I'm surprised you got modded up without substantiating your statements with even 1 fact.
Unless 4 Mods know something about you that I don't?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Here in Europe, and in the middle east the common tool is Websense to block selective things. How they determine what they block and don't block changes. Sometimes it is set to limit access to High Bandwidth sites (like the army's own webmail site), but then later in the day, that access is removed. Beyond that, all bets are off on what is/isn't blocked. It is a official network, no different then any corporate one. In this case though, if you don't like it you have to wait up to a year for your tour of duty to end.
r ticle=33734&archive=true
Here is an article describing the filtering done in Europe by the military, from an end users perspective.
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&a
After this article, lots of the URLs mentioned changed availability.
Cheers,
Mstaj
A brief Googling seems to indicate that they're using Secure Computing SmartFilter as the content filtering service.
The Secure Computing site lists "A United States Defense Agency" as one of its clients. Said agency also uses the Sidewinder product as a firewall.
Of course, this is all conjecture.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Safeguards like this are put into place to prevent leaks that could compromise the troops.
The military has NEVER been 'open' during action for this reason, so why should it start now just because its 'the Internet'?
Get real.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So anyhow, I do a dig/nslookup on the IP and discover it is "n-mnstci-142.mnstci.iraq.centcom.mil" - the edit is coming from United States Central Command's Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq. Thus, my tax dollars are going to some guy so he can rewrite history that I had written. And I had been so excited about Wikipedia because I thought, here is finally a medium of information that is not controlled by multi-national corporations, like say the channels on my television. Instead I have to contend with some modern-day version of a bureaucrat in the bowels of some Orwellian Ministry of Truth.
What really concerns me is that everything in our political discourse is being broken down along this liberal versus concervative spectrum. If you are an activist, your activism is immediately pigeon holed into liberalism or conservativsm. Take, for example, the war in Iraq. If you're for it, you're a conservative and if you're against it, you're a liberal. Really when you analyze the positions closely, one could readily argue that it's a conservative perspective to not rush into a war.
Howard Dean is another good example of this. He was labeled an angry radical lefty. But if you look at this positions on the issues, he was really a moderate. Hell most of the truly radical left was a bit nervous about Dean because he wasn't all that liberal. What got him labeled though was that he did things differently in how he organized.
Today if you look at where the energy is in the Democratic party, the biggest movement is the "fighting dems". These are Iraq and Afghan war vets who are now running for congress. If you look at these people, by and large, they aren't that left leaning, yet the community of blogs, etc are hugely supportive of them. You find those "radical left" sites backing Paul Hackett, over Sherrod Brown even though Hackett is clearly the more conservative candidate.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
And who didn't see *that* coming.
Right when the war started we were joking that we could recycle all the 'don't attack iraq' posters by crossing out the Q and writing an N.
Surprised it took them that long actually..
I am currently a network admin for the USAF. Please remember that this has nothing to do with politics. This has everything to do with government employees using government computers.
If what they are doing is not required for the mission then they do not need to be doing it on a limited bandwidth out of Iraq.
Furthermore it is a COMSEC issue when military personnel currently stationed in a hot zone to discuss their duties on messageboards.
It has been a long standing policy since I have been in that government computers are not for PERSONAL use.
I dont hear people complaining State side that webmail, gmail, yahoo mail, and hotmail access are blocked from on base/government computers. I know ACC blocks them.
So what is the big deal? It looks like someone is running their mouth without knowing what they are talking about.
Welcome to freedom of speech I guess...
File a FOIA request for a copy of the block list for the Armed Forces Internet. Simple. Then you can read the whole list and parse out any meaningful information. Honestly, I'm not even a journalist and it seems completely obvious to me. This is the whole reason the FOIA process exists: to give transparency to the operation of the federal government.
Now, perhaps there's a chance that the federal government will come back with some kind of excuse like "releasing the block list gives aid and comfort to the enemy" but that alone would be a story worth the price of admission. Wonkette is an idiot, so of course this simple idea wouldn't occur to her or her readership. I'm I hope that a real investigative journalist picks up the story so he or she can actually do some investigating and find out the truth. I think that it would be hilarious to compare the Chinese block list with the American block list. Wouldn't it be a hoot to find out that the Americans are blocking more?
-JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Hotmail is blocked from government networks, last time I checked. The only way he could have accessed it would have been from an internet cafe.
Various posters are commenting about similar situations in their workplaces where they can't visit any website they choose for one reason or another.
Most are missing the point. Why are they only censoring sites that tend to be anti-war or liberal in nature? I can accept arguments for general Internet censorship while in the armed forces, but I've yet to see a good argument for why only sites that espouse a particular viewpoint should be censored while others should not.
Too bad that very few of the posters here seem to be in a place to confirm or deny the report. (Which, I beleive was part of the posters request: Is the story true or not?)
There are a few who have responded with constructive comments to this:
- High Bandwith sites (Radio) are blocked.
- Porn is blocked
- This is how Internet access exists: YXZ
Too bad that many of the people here are knee jerking their wan(ers and saying *Conspiracy* or *Conspiracy of the Left-Wing Unpatriotic Types*
The fact is: If the personell there have time to check the Internet (aka: Down Time), they should not have biased access: The (unverified) story is that they do. Hopefully someone can actually provide a meaningful list of what's blocked - or not. And Hopefully, the list will not be biased by politics.
$.02 - now pay up
Yes, they absolutely are. They also monitor outgoing phone calls and instant message conversations. One of the major goals, it seems, is to cover up the large number of 'enemy' casualties (e.g., several days ago there were over 500 deaths in one area when the sectarian violence spilled out onto the street. They shut down the computer center for 2 or 3 days following that.)
Sorry about the AC: this is all straight from my brother, serving in Fallujah. It seems that we went in with a fundamental misunderstanding of regional politics, and are now paying the price.
~AC
"You know, it might have been Fark."
"Beautiful, we have confirmation."
Then you deeply misunderstand what 'enlistment' in the MILITARY means.
As far as the Bill of Rights:
* First Amendment - Freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government = mostly lost. You are not allowed to speak freely, assemble other then as ordered, nor to petition the government except as through the chain of command.
* Second Amendment - Right to keep and bear arms. = mostly lost. You are only entitled to arms as ordered.
* Third Amendment - Protection from quartering of troops. = lost. The army can assign you to bunk with someone or someone to bunk with you at any time, for any reason.
* Fourth Amendment - Protection from unreasonable search and seizure. = lost. The military can search your private effects at any time.
* Fifth Amendment - Due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, private property. = IANAL, not sure how many of these are still available during a Court Martial, but I know that many of them DON'T apply.
* Sixth Amendment - Trial by jury and other rights of the accused. mostly lost = no jury trial, you get a counsellor, but are tried by a panel. There is not necessarily an appeal, as you can be summarily executed in situations judged to be in extremis.
* Seventh Amendment - Civil trial by jury. Dunno about civil matters while you are subject to the UCMJ.
* Eighth Amendment - Prohibition of excessive bail, as well as cruel or unusual punishment. Again, I don't know that there IS bail for military prisoners.
* Ninth Amendment - Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
* Tenth Amendment - Powers of states and people - not applicable
Enlist in the military they OWN you. You can, in situations, be ordered to perform what amounts to indirect suicide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCMJ
-Styopa
Plenty of us do. Luckily, Most people vote party-line and are idiots. Right and left wingers tend to cancel each other out, leaving the rest of us, who can actually form our own opinions outside of political bias, to control the elections. Meanwhile, they are shouting lies and half-truths fed to them by their sheephearder overlords in the media and Washington, DC.
I'd just like to thank them for making my vote one of the ones that really count. Suckers!
Commercial email programs are locked out due to security concerns and leaks over routes and time tables or other sensitive information.
If Joe Schmoe can use Yahoo, or Hotmail then he can purposely or accidentally leak out sensitive information about real operations that could put lives in danger.
It would be nice to trust everyone, but let's face it a lot of the USMC are 18 and 19 year old kids, and as much training and coaching as they are given are prone to mistakes just like anyone else.
One email from a Marine to thyeir girlfriend about when the convoy leaves the base and where they are going, to keep her from being worried, will undoubtedly endanger the lives of the entire convoy.
The military is a different animal and the USMC is whole separate community. The rules and policies are there to fight battles and keep the Marines alive. Unless you have been a part of that community you will not understand. There are many activities that Marines do regularly that normal society or civilians would gasp at and balk at and they have.
The USMC has a mission to accomplish and if screening a few websites helps to accomplish that mission then they will do it.
I don't think anyone is upset that streaming audio and video are blocked. I think the problem is that it's A-OK to head over to Rush Limbaugh's website and read his Oxycontin-induced ramblings, yet you are not allowed to go to Wonkette's website and read her tequila-induced ramblings.
"they still should enjoy the basic constitutional rights that all Americans have."
That is so naive I hardly know where to start.
If the Marine Corps determines that a particular site will lower troop morale, then I would hope that they'd block it. Failing that, they should cut off web access, cable news, or whatever it takes to keep the blinders on. A Marine who doubts is one who dies.
And I want the ones on the other side to die.
Someone in the military, especially in time of war, lives a different life, under a different set of rules. They have less liberty. They have to cut their hair. If they are late to work or tell the boss off, they can go to jail.
On the other hand, they can get in a fight with their coworker and the boss just asks who won and tells them not to waste time. Or he knocks their heads together and makes them run 10 miles holding hands. Or they get the book thrown at them.
The last thing a Marine needs is to be given civilian rights, and thus be judged by civilian standards. He has to think differently, so that when the time comes he won't hesitate to rip his bayonet through the throat of his enemy.
All so you can post on Slashdot.
sigs, as if you care.
/rant NMCI is an excuse to give sweet contracts to civillian buddies. EVERY implemtation of it I have seen (in several states and 2 continents)has resulted in an increase in costs, and a decrease in service and functionality.
Example #1 When it was implemeted at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, they charged $60 A MONTH to "maintain" a single PDA. Oh, and all those PDAs the ships bought for themselves? They now belonged to the contractor (as well as any other hardware that had been bought with ship's funds). If the ship had more computers than the contractor deemed necessary, the excess (even if bought by ships funds) were disposed of. What was deemed necesarry? Well, for my office of 18 people, we were alloted 2 desktops, one of which was dedicated for the Department Head's exclusive use.
Example #2 Trouble call response time went from same day (when they were handled by the base IT department) to a sliding scale that depened on the users rank (which meant that an enlisted person with a critical application was screwed, but the Admiral's printer could be replaced in two hours). As above, the Group Commander was promised 2 hour service by contract, while my submarine Captain had 48 hour service (and this is not "worst case scenario... service actually did take 48 hours, and was never much sooner than that). The enlisted people had much longer wait times.
Wow, what war movie from the 60s did you get these ideas from?
First Ammendment fully available except while in uniform or performing official duties
Second ammendment, not only are you allowed to own and possess personal weapons, you are also occasionally given official weapons and the training to use them
third, Irrelevant
4th, only while on an installation(oh and if you as a civilian go onto federal property you lose those rights too.Read the sign over the door at the post office
Fifth, all are included in the courts martial process
sixth, How would you like to be tried by a jury of your peers(people who have shared similar life experiences, heartaches, joys and pain)?
Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten
you can in this situation be a complete and total idiot.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
I work for the federal goverment as a reservist and a civilian. A requirement of my civilian job is that I maintain service as a reservist, but that is a whole other story. I have confirmed that each of these sites are blocked or permited on the USARC (United States Army Reserve Command) exactly as described above. I am located in Utah on federal property so it should not be a "war zone" issue. This is a government computer, so they have the right to limit viewing as per user agreements, but this seems to be a freedom of speech issue. Good Night and Good Luck.
I am a bit mystified why this would surprise anyone. Maybe those who spent zero time actually considering it are typing out a knee jerk reaction. Anyone who considers the whole picture will say, "Yeah, I suppose so."
The networks that the Marine Corps is running in Iraq have a primary focus: The Mission. That is supporting the forces there, allowing information to organized and passed quickly between those who need to coordinate their work. Marines are permitted to use the network for personal reasons when it does not affect the mission in any way and that use is subject to a number of restrictions. No viewing, transmitting, or storing obscene material, hate speech, chain letters, etc. The normal list of rules for the network is about two pages, courier new type, 10 pitch - including spaces for the user to fill in their name, rank, billet, sign (etc.) and for the approving officer to validate that the Marine needs a network account.
There can also be several layers of filtering for access. There could easily be several firewalls between a user and the Internet. We had one at our division level, then another at MEF. There is usually a something of a standard list of which sites are blocked, but each little network could be unique. We had a problem with idiots downloading large files from one or two Internet sites. It was affecting the performance of the whole network. Not only did I go find those users (and their Staff Noncommissioned Officers), but we cut access to the problem sites.
Oh, and when the unit suffers casualties, the Data Chief cuts access to email and the Internet for everyone except a list of critical users. That stays on until the families are notified by the Marines (in the US) who perform the casualty call. The last thing a parent, wife, or fiancee needs to get is an email with a subject line of "John is dead." That would also leave open the door for cruel hoaxes.
The point is that the Marine Corps allows Marines to use the network, in a limited fashion, for reading their personal email and accessing websites because it is good for morale and we usually have the bandwidth to support it. However, it is a military asset, just like a 7-ton truck. If the truck is being used by someone to clean out their garage, when it is needed to move supplies, there is obviously a problem.
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
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
Having worked for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force G6 (Communications), I also had the luxury of working in the internet cafes. With that said, I can give you the straight scoop and not these purported theories. We have dedicated hardware to handle filtering and devote hardly any resources to monitoring the activities of the servicemembers. With that said we operate mostly on a lock everything down and ask permission for access mentality.
In the Internet Cafes owned and operated by KBR, and serviced by McDean, they rely on BlueCoats for the filtering. Once again, due to fighting a war we're not going to devote the time to locking down websites manually. At these Internet Cafes you can pull up anything any everything you want. Now there are standard policies in place as to what you can and can't look at, and that's an honor system (for the most part). Big brother is always watching, and generally that was me. The reason we watch is to ensure classified information isn't leaked.
To wrap this up, there is no polticially motivated conspiracy to prevent people from seeing certain sites. You can more or less blame the filtering hardware for that. Now if there are some sites that you really want to see go and talk to your local admin and see if they will unblock it for you. More times than not they will accomodate your request. But if you're on a government laptop (non Internet Cafe) don't start asking for MySpace as after all... it's for official use only. We can't have the taxpayers thinking there is "waste, fraud, and abuse".
I spent two years in Iraq, half of which was spent as a network engineer and I tell you from my extensive knowledge of DOD networks that the Marine Corps in particular does "content filtering" based on catergories. For example if a site is known to be political, humours and have explicit matieral the filter will take the highest of them (explicit in this case) and then block that site. This is for moral reasons as well as international reasons. Countries like Iraq have laws against pornographic material. There was even a point where we were almost not allowed to have Stuff magazine and the likes. Another comes down to security. If a Marine is on duty and is surfing the internet or chatting then they are not alert to what they are doing and their surroundings. This can cause issues if something happened while that Marine was on post. Another reason is because YOU the tax payer, pay for that Sat bandwidth we have over there. How we can we justify to the DOD for our next Fiscal year that we need more money for bandwidth if half the traffic is non work related? YES they look at those stats!!! Not EVERYTHING is cut off, we do have moral computers in the internet cafes that allow anyone to surf anything as long as it is not X-rated pornographic material, once again this is due to international laws. The other DOD bodies have different regulations. The Army is less restrictive because they have more money in thier budget to buy more Sat bandwidth. They can afford to surf "junk" to put it plainly. The Marine Corps is not like and will NEVER be like any of the other armed services. We stand a notch above the rest and as such have a responsibility to set the example and pave the way for the other armed services. From internet to operations we are the best as what we do and that can not be argued. We are the elite fighting force of America. We take an honorable and moral high ground to be stay that way; since 1775. Semper Fi 1337P1rt3
To do/say the political crap Bush wants during office time? as opposed to the one that he does not want. If the political crap is not OK, is not OK being lefty or righty. If it's OK to be righty, then it should be OK to be lefty.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Not taking either side in the Iraq/911 argument, but as a combat veteran myself I am always ashamed when any debate ends by invoking your argument.
"I was there, man!" Meaning....? Yes war is atrocious, yes you will never be the same again, and yes NOBODY but those who have been there can understand the rush of often conflicting emotions.
But that has little to do with the facts of the greater debate. Your personal experience does not give your emotions the power to override reality. You might be right or wrong, but not just for having "been there."
I guarantee that some servicemen and contractors (who handle a disproportionate amount of specops responbsibilities) have run into real legitimate terrorists. Are they an anomaly or the norm? Doesn't matter - in those people's perspectives that how it was.
I guarantee that coalition personal have raped tortured and murdered innocent Iraqis. They are certainly in the minority and deserve every bit of hell they have coming to them.
Neither side reflects the entire situation. Stories of "my six months in the Green Zone" or "the year in Tikrit" etc. give the speaker no greater understanding of the macro-war effort. It is simply their individual experience, not to be discounted but also not to be relied on to speak for everyone.
So what about when the anti-war progressive are Iraq war veterans, military families, supporters of the troops or former Green Berets Do you laugh at them too?
Third Amendment - Protection from quartering of troops. = lost. The army can assign you to bunk with someone or someone to bunk with you at any time, for any reason.
You lost me by #3. If a soldier owns a house next to base, the government cannot order the soldier to house other soldiers without the owner's consent.
The barracks is government property.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Which is weird because Al does USO shows ALL THE TIME... but i guess the subject matter of his shows aren't political..
Yup. It sure is a good thing that nations like Islamic Republic of Pakistan don't have nuclear weapons. That would mean the end of the world.
And shortsighted individuals who claim that our only reason for being in Iraq is WMD and Oil tend to piss me off.
Shortsighted? Point blank, as a fact, the only reason that the US agreed to send troops to Iraq was that the Bush administration told us that they knew that Saddam had WMD, that they knew where they were, and that if we waited for the smoking gun it would likely be "a mushroom cloud" (that's a quote). They also told us that Saddam was connected to 9/11, that he had the ability to attack within 45 minutes, that there was no need to plan for the "occupation" since we would be welcomed as liberators, and that the costs would be minimal because the oil fields would pay for it. If they had not told us all these things, none of which, as it turns out, were true, We The People would not have given them permission to invade.
Get this through your head: the only reason the US invaded Iraq was that we were told a bunch of un-truths. If it pisses you off, join the club, though you might want to direct your anger at the people who made the original statements, rather than at the ones who point them out.
--MarkusQ
LOL this is stupid. I am in the Marine Corps. Our Internet access is censored even in the United States! You can't even get to Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, for example. I don't think there is any particular political bias in the censorship. It does make the Internet a hell of a lot less useful the way they have their proxy configured.
The funny thing is how much effort they put into censoring web access, when they let a shitload of spam and virus crap into their email servers, and use shitty Windows systems and Internet Explorer which get infected regularly with shitware.
When I was in Iraq, I used a civilian satellite ISP most of the time, which was so much better than the military network.
The military's IT (or at least the USMC's) is incompetent, hindered by leaders that don't understand IT, and probably underfunded and/or the funding is misguided.
As I mentioned the last time you trolled me, I'm a conservative, not a liberal-hiding-behind-a-codeword. There are plenty of reasons a conservative ought to object to frittering away our military on a land war in Asia based on false statements and propaganda, and in the process running up enormous debts and treating the constitution like last week's junk mail. In fact, it amazes me that any conservative can get behind this sort of "we're going to fix the world 'cause the poor fools are too dumb to fix themselves" nonsense. It's a classic liberal sort of foolishness, and it's just as foolish coming from a so-called Republican like Bush as it is coming from a Democrat.
So are you on active duty, or are you just trying to make it sound that way?
--MarkusQ
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.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. That you got a +5 shows that the mods don't know anything about the military either.
* First Amendment - You have the right to speech, press, religion, and assembly. The restrictions are that you do not have those rights while on base, in uniform, or on duty. Of course, most employers don't like you holding political protests while at work and on the clock. You are expressly allowed to contact your your elected officials.
* Second Amendment - You have the same right to bear arms as everyone else. You cannot carry them on base, but neither can any civilian. Security regulations apply. The same is true of most courthouses and other government buildings.
* Third Amendment - The government cannot force quartering of troops in your private residence. A bunk in the barracks is not a private residence, that's owned by the government. Just like a dorm room is owned by the college. If you have your own house or apartment off-base (as most military members do), no one can force you bunk up with anyone.
* Fourth Amendment - The military can only search your personal effects on base. And they can search any civilian's personal effects on base too. If you happen to live on base, then you do not have any private areas. Off-base, it appies the same as with anyone else. It's not like the MPs can search your private home for no reason.
* Fifth Amendment - You do have due process, the process is simply different in a military court than in a civilan criminal court. You are protected from self-incrimination. Double jeopardy cannot occur.
* Sixth Amendment - The number of people on the panel trying the case depends upon the severity of the case. For offenses like murder, it is not at all unlike a jury trial. For minor offenses it may be only a judge (or commanding officer, in the case of NJP). You are provided with counsel. You are allowed to call witnesses. You are allowed to cross-examine witnesess against you.
"Those photos were real photos."
The United States has actively been deploying new satellites above the Middle East since the Fall of 1996. In January 2003 the USA replaced a 10-year-old GPS satellite station above Iraq, which was no longer working, and thus wasn't able to take photographs. Images sent from the live satellite would be in color, not black and white, as Powell shows. It is therefore unknown when the pictures Powell shows us were taken. The Poker bluff. The USA couldn't let the world know they were madly deploying new satellites above Iraq, therefore discrediting their claims Iraq held weapons.
Furthermore, the USA does monitor live images. Why didn't Powell show this? If you recall, the Bush administration claims against Iraq predates these images by one year. Powell and the Bush administration claim they had proof of Iraq weapons in January 2002, but via satellite, they fail to marry images with claims.
Sorry, that doesn't wash. He told the inspectors he had no WMD. To any rational person it appears that this was correct. The inspectors certainly didn't think he had any. As they stated at the time, hauling things out in convoys, repainting, etc. would not have been enough to hide a weapons program if he had had one. So the whole interpretation of the convoys is as "jerking us around" is based on the assumption that he did have WMD but managed to outfox everyone, which is an unreasonable assumption.
Look at it this way: Suppose I'm sunbathing in the buff (as if) and the neighbor kid calls over the wall that he wants to look for his ball in my yard. I say, "well, it's not here, but you're welcome to come look, as soon as I put a robe on" am I "jerking him around on the ball issue" because I put a robe on? Yes, if (and only if) I was hiding the ball in my robe. Otherwise, if his ball really isn't in my yard, and he leads an gang of his buddies over the wall to strip search me, he's just a paranoid nut job.
--MarkusQ
Your give good reasons for justifying blocking in general, and even blocking political sites in particular. I don't object to either per se. But the problem doesn't lie in the general blocking of political sites. The problem is that, assuming the information is accurate (which is admittedly in question), the blocking appears only done on some of the political sites, with a bias in the blocking based on the political lean of the site. That would be a lot harder to justify. Not impossible, but harder.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
The only sites from the list in the article that I can't access from here are "http://www.airamericaradio.com/" and "http://www.alfrankenshow.com/". But I wonder if these sites offer [more] streaming media than the others on the list. After all, here I am posting on Slashdot, so it can't be all that bad. Usually, the only sites that I've noticed are blocked are porn, games, illegal activities, dating/personals, and shareware/freeware. Web mail is intermittantly blocked. Note that these restrictions exist on/from the cemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil domain. In other words, these are computers that are [supposed] to be used for work purposes. Everyone has the option of walking 1/2 mile to the Camp Fallujah Internet Cafe for unfettered access. Most of us would rather just come into the HQ office (aka the "Combat Operations Center" or C.O.C.) and put up with the restrictions.
First off, to clearly understand the situation there you have to know what the internet there is for. First and formost it is a non secure means of communication and access to programs that run for our administration and command personnel. Secondly it is a means for our Marines to contact their families by email and to do financial/educational buisness. Anything more that that is a bonus. I personally just got back from there and I just so happen to be one of the Sys/Net admins that maintained one of the larger networks out there. The basic idea behind most of the blocking is to provide the best service and the most bandwidth to the users on those networks. Bandwidth is meager at best and excess surfing just makes it harder for people at remote sites to communicate with the rear. There are blanket like policies set out for these things to protect access but if a user with a valid need for a specfic website to do finacial or educational buisness, it is passed to the admins that take care of that and through proper authorization are allowed to view that material. As far as I am concerned there is no freedom of access act any where that applies to a war zone. There are Marines out there that don't get to touch a computer for weeks months even. If when they do have a chance to settle down and send an email after waiting for the other Marines in his unit to get done he/she does not need to wory about some Tard going to his favorite WWW.Ihateevrythingthatisntfreespeach.com website and bringing down the network with a virus or somthing and not being able to tell his wife and kids that he loves them. At no time did I ever find that a person with a valid need was ever told no. Believe me as an admin out there you have so much pressure to provide the best service you can with what you have got. You have alot of people coming in from the states expecting to get broadband like access out there like they get at home. I am just giving my personnel 2 cents worth here