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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."
We don't want the stable-hands still inside to see that the horses are gone.
*insert pithy sig here*
So the ONLY people willfully kept in the dark are the soldiers meant to protect us? Are the very people who are the most likely to know the dirt anyway?
F$%^ing brilliant. Next up, weapons ban limited to the army.
Hey soldier, this dam is broke, please fix it... here's a spoon
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Perhaps the need to realize that material on a major newspaper's web site cannot by any stretch of the imagination still be considered to be "classified". Or is this just some pencil pusher trying to follow the rules are written?
Shit! Only 10 more years backwards and we'll get back to 1984! Somebody blow up the flux capacitor!
...caused a lot of the ugly chapters of history. Being part of an organisation makes you responsible for it's actions.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Most of the guys at the top making these decisions are old and don't understand how the internet works. It's kinda cute, really.
Similes are like metaphors
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the press
The military is, of course, under control of the Executive branch, which is bound to enforcing the law, not creating or ignoring it (even the little bit of autonomy, such as treaties and appointments, is subject to Congressional approval).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It's like confiscating matchbooks but not lighters from the stable boys after THE ENTIRE TOWN HAS BURNED DOWN !
Yet considering what I saw when I was in the military I'm not that surprised. A plane buff I knew on base wrote to the Library of Congress (as a normal civilian using his civilian address) asking for info on the SR71 Blackbird. They sent him some cool media materials which included a poster sized drawing of the plane, all standard and unclassified press packet stuff. During an inspection of the barracks a stupid officer saw it and wanted him arrested for spying and stealing classified material.
Because of things like that, do I get surprised when some military moron goes off half-cocked and without bullets? No, I've become convinced that most of them don't even understand the security rules or pretty much anything else that exists outside their egocentric imaginations. (And I'm pretty sure that 3 of the 5 generals I actually met were senile at the time. 4 of them were also complete assholes, but that's a different issue.)
True. Most of the USAF pilots I've talked to are pretty stupid. They are really good at flying their planes, but other than that, most of them are dumb as bricks. And they tent to have egos larger than their multi-ton planes.
Right. Think about it. If a government system was serving up classified documents to anyone that asked, it would be a major scandal. People would rightly want it shut down or disconnected. You certainly would not want classified stuff leaking out into the world, or crossing into systems it doesn't belong in.
OK, so now we have WL serving up classified documents. So what does the government do? Disconnect from the systems doing the leaking. Can't shut down WL itself, legally, but you can minimize the leakage into places the information doesn't belong.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/library/airforcepersonnelstatistics.asp
Average age of enlisted Airmen is 29, officers are 35
Average age of the United States military is 28, Army and those would be your soldiers is 29 and the Marines are younger, 25.
Speaking as a federal employee, we've already been told that we are not to access the classified documents leaked on Wikileaks unless we already have clearance and authority to view such documents (which I don't, of course). On the other hand, we were also told that we're not restricted from viewing independent reporting about the leaked documents; that is, if the NYT talks about what's in a classified diplomatic cable, we can read the article no problem, but if they serve up a copy of the document, we're supposed to avoid it.
This applies extra in cases where we're using government computers, because it creates a problem having classified documents on a system not authorized to have classified documents on it. I don't know whether they'd press charges if someone did this anyway, but at the very least it could cost someone their job, so I'm happy to steer clear.
Ah, so you block the New York Times and Washington Post for posting 'traitorous' documents, but are they still rebroadcasting 'patriotic' Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity in Iraq for the troops?
The military has a special TV and radio service called AFRTS that replays shows for troops overseas, but there's been accusations of bias for years (eg all conservative shows but no liberal ones)
posting anon on purpose
Executive Order 13526 Section 1.1(4)(c) is why you can't read wikileaks as a government contractor or a Government employee and why its being blocked by some AF networks (not all). We would lose our jobs and possibly be fined and/or prison time.
Section 1.1. Classification Standards. (a) Information may be originally classified under the terms of this order only if all of the following conditions are met:
(1) an original classification authority is classifying the information;
(2) the information is owned by, produced by or for, or is under the control of the United States Government;
(3) the information falls within one or more of the categories of information listed in section 1.4 of this order; and
(4) the original classification authority determines that the unauthorized disclosure of the information reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security, which includes defense against transnational terrorism, and the original classification authority is able to identify or describe the damage.
(b) If there is significant doubt about the need to classify information, it shall not be classified. This provision does not:
(1) amplify or modify the substantive criteria or procedures for classification; or
(2) create any substantive or procedural rights subject to judicial review.
(c) Classified information shall not be declassified automatically as a result of any unauthorized disclosure of identical or similar information.
(d) The unauthorized disclosure of foreign government information is presumed to cause damage to the national security.
Julian Assange is the first true dissident, prisoners of conscience of the English civilization.
I remember how the similar phenomena appeared in the former Soviet Union from the blue sky. Any structured society is based on certain set of generally accepted lies. And it is not always bad. For example, we say to each other "you look great", even in cases when it is not so.
These people however want to bring the truth come hell or water high. But the truth is often destructive. No matter what state did to frighten them, to silence them, it did not work. These were Anatoliy Scheranskiy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natan_Sharansky , Elena Bonner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Bonner , Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Solzhenitsyn and some others.
These people had no fear of death, some aberration of nature. For the state based on organized violence it was a major glitch, which finally brought it down.
The Air Force is in a way right, that it recognized the potential danger of such seemingly soft spoken people. Julian Assange is a thing which may bring down the whole state. He may be stronger than all the ministries, army, fleet, police, etc. taken together. That is exactly what happened with the USSR. It is not possible to scare such people, not possible to execute them, and even less possible to silence them.
This is one of the things that would be properly identified and probably even avoided if English language had an equivalent of the Russian word "dolboyob".
It's a word that describes this very combination of stupidity, blind adherence to the rules in situations when it causes nothing but harm, and being a massive asshole about it.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
People cleared sign the SF-312 non-disclosure agreement:
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/security-forms/sf312.pdf
The FAQ provided has a relevant Q and A:
Question 19: If information that a signer of the SF 312 knows to have been classified appears in a public source, for example, in a newspaper article, may the signer assume that the information has been declassified and disseminate it elsewhere?
Answer: No. Information remains classified until it has been officially declassified. Its disclosure in a public source does not declassify the information. Of course, merely quoting the public source in the abstract is not a second unauthorized disclosure. However, before disseminating the information elsewhere or confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of the SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not, further dissemination of the information or confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure.
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/training/standard-form-312.html
Be they the CIA, FBI, **AA, police, DHS, the armed forces - every single one of them. Because then, all each of us has to do is include some of the Wikileaked documents on our personal sites, blogs, etc, and then none of the US authorities will be allowed to read our sites, thus protecting us all from their pathetic attempts to classify the entire world's population as dangerous terrorists. Result! Wonder if it would also stop the likes of Hillary Clinton from ordering for the illegal bugging of senior members of the UN? Opps, Wikileaked there...
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
...but this directive was never intended to apply in the case of such a massive breach. The context doesn't change the necessity of following rules though. There are a few issues that make the military's decision ot block the press sites laughable.
First, just because there might be classified information available, you do not ban members from a resource or location in it's entirety. This would be like banning military members without a top secret clearance and a need to know from Fort Meade or Fort Huachuca. Just as there are justifiable things to do in these bases that do not involve reading elint, there are justifiable reasons to read the New York Times.
Another issue is the fact that this policy does nothing to solve the source leak. As a former COMSEC NCO, I have to question the logic. Just putting a sticker on the phone that says "Ivan's listening" isn't going to solve this. Assange is not the spy. His organization is the vehicle by which military members and other government employees have used to break their vows to the government and American people. These are the people who need to be found and punished, because these are the people who have broken the law.
Finally, if unclassified military controlled computers are the only machines on the planet which do not have access to our secrets, are they still secrets or something else?
... when they get told that they're fighting for freedom.
Check your premises.