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Soldiers Can't Blog Without Approval
denebian devil writes "Wired.com has obtained a copy of updated US Army rules (pdf) that force soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages without first clearing the content with a superior officer. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything — from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message boards, from resumes to letters home. Under the strictest reading of the rule, a soldier must check with his or her superior officer before every blog entry posted and every email sent, though the method of enforcing these regulations is subject to choices made by the unit commanders. According to Wired, active-duty troops aren't the only ones affected by the new guidelines. Civilians working for the military, Army contractors — even soldiers' families — are all subject to the directive as well, though many of the people affected by these new regulations can't even access them because they are being kept on the military's restricted Army Knowledge Online intranet. Wired also interviewed Major Ray Ceralde, author of the new regulations, about why this change has been made."
It won't be a popular opinion but all content in a war zone needs to be carefully filtered, while "we shot three arabs today" won't cause my trouble "we shot three arabs in Baghdad today" might do so. Hence anything going in or out in any form must be checked to see if it gives their operations away.
Soldiers are much like prisoners, they have some freedoms, but at the end of the day you're on someone else's time and in a place and they make all the rules, both good and bad. If you sign up (or get sent there) you play by the rules ment to keep everyone safe.
I like muppets.
Military censorship of all troops' correspondence is not exactly new.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I would say this is more than just a "PITA" for the soldiers. No one would argue that soldiers should have unhindered freedom of speech, considering the sensitivity of their job. It's understandable that soldiers (or their commanders) have to censor what they say about troop locations, operations, etc. But this level of control over blogs and emails could potentially be very stifling to the point of effectively eliminating soldier blogs altogether. What about the soldier who happens to disagree with an (unclassified) Army policy (e.g. treatment of gays in the military). Of course their opinion is no secret if they're blogging about it, but the blog does in some situations offer a bit of anonymity. But if a soldier has to clear such blog entries through a superior officer every time they're posted, in essence waiving their opinion in their superior's face, the soldier may decide not to post it at all for fear of internal political/social repercussions.
Couple that with reviewing all of a soldier's private emails, you may as well just ban soldiers from use of the internet altogether.
When I was in the Army we were often told, "We're here to defend Democracy, not to practice it." OPSEC (OPerations SECurity) is vital to both mission success and protecting soldiers lives. I'm an complete nut when I comes to the first amendment, but combat soldiers absolutely DON'T (and shouldn't) have that right.
-Peter
Consider the average soldier. Don't get me wrong, I've served my time too, but let's be honest here, there are more than a few that don't think past the next meal. Can you see a blog entry like "bleagh, again another boring patrol down road $somewhere at 1130 tonight, can't they come up with something new"?
Loose lips and all that.
Of course this will be used to keep them from telling any news of events that don't run so lovely to keep the spirit on the "home front" up. I doubt, though, that this is the main concern. Those news get out, this way or another, because some of those soldiers will and do come home, and there ain't much that could keep them from talking.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Armies which require their soldiers to behave like ants are at a considerable disadvantage against armies which expect their soldiers to behave like well-disciplined people. There's a difference.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
This is not some big conspiracy theory as I'm sure many people here will immediately cry out about.
Far too easy to give away something that could compromise the security of a unit or a mission -- even if unintentionally. Taking this sort of precaution just makes common sense. The military is likely far more concerned with this type of a scenario than some soldier giving away some horrible conspiracy that everyone in the military is in on (in most part because these types of things would be impossible to hide and if they do come out are fringe exceptions rather than the rule). Most of the blogs out there from troops are of a personal nature or in fact shed light on the fact that things are really not going as badly as is portrayed in our media here.
However, as someone else mentioned, it's probably not going to be too realistic to enforce in the long run.
No! You cannot apply the freedoms to the military that you do to the general public. Period. They're in a different league all together. The fact that you can't see that is very disconcerting.
And - damn it! - get rid of the damned Slashdot template of trying to turn this into a political issue by bringing "incumbent party" into it! I read TFA and there is NOTHING in there about politics, so stop trying to inject your own! This is absolutely nothing new and is not uncommon during a time of war.
From TFA:
If fact, if you had bothered to read TFA, which you obviously did not, the one blogger that they specifcally mentioned is a "pro-victory" blogger, hardly someone who goes against the current administration. Having read a bit of his blog, it is clear to me that he supports the idea of victory in Iraq, which IS the view of the political party that is in the White House! So, if anything this article demonstrates how this action goes against the views that are supported by the incumbent, political party! So, your little quip attempting to place blame on discouraging "them from espousing political opinions that are are disliked by the incumbent political party" is just an attempt for you to throw politics into this.
Keep your baseless attempts to make everything political out of Slashdot and move them over to Digg where they belong.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
> I'm curious as to how the US Army plans to stifle the free speech of a civilian family member.
/. about 'censorship.'
/. pissed about this article... that last line. How dare they imply you idiots 'are in this war' or that you are Americans!
Perhaps by the simple expedient of educating them that breaking OPSEC can kill. Which is the whole point of the exercise, despite the deranged ravings already showing up on
Plus if the carrot doesn't work there IS the stick which an AC has already posted about in another reply to your post.
BUt really, just what is the big freaking deal here people? What is NEW? The military has ALWAYS been paranoid about secrecy during wartime, or has everyone forgotten all those over the top posters from WWII? But I think I know what really has most of
Ok, that was flamebait but dammit some of you loons make it all too easy.
Democrat delenda est
No. That's what software is for. We know they're listening to every phone conversation using speech recognition; it is even easier to read every email. You don't live in the condition of privacy you seem to think you do. Soldiers, probably less so.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If you hate free speech so much, leave. Go to some non NATO country.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.