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Air Force Blocks NY Times, WaPo, Other Media
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Air Force, not content with blocking WikiLeaks and its mirrors, has begun blocking media sites carrying WL documents. "Air Force users who try to view the websites of the New York Times, Britain's Guardian, Spain's El Pais, France's Le Monde or German magazine Der Spiegel instead get a page that says, 'ACCESS DENIED. Internet Usage is Logged & Monitored'... The Air Force says it has blocked more than 25 websites that contain WikiLeaks documents, in order to keep classified material off unclassified computer systems. ... The move was ordered by the 24th Air Force... The Army, Navy, and Marines aren't blocking the sites, and the Defense Department hasn't told the services to do so, according to spokespeople for the services and the Pentagon."
(c) Classified information shall not be declassified automatically as a result of any unauthorized disclosure of identical or similar information. This is the key part of the order. Just because a document is leaked into the public domain does not automatically declassify it. Any viewing of leaked material on DoD (department of defense owned) computers would constitute a security incident causing many man-hours to be spent containing the classified information on the network. The order this article is talking about makes perfect sense. It is so Air Force personnel do not accidentally view classified material on unclassified machines and causing major problems. I would appreciate it if people who obviously don't know what they are talking about wouldn't make ignorant jokes.
Forgot to mention that such rigid over-reactions are exactly the kind of jiu-jitsu that Assange is looking for.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.