Army crack down on bloggers
Michelle Malkin

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Via Noah Shachtman:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

Bottom line from Matt at Blackfive: ...

As the saying goes, there's a right way, a wrong way, and the Army a wrong way. I can't improve on Blackfive's post so I won't try. Read it.

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Ed Morrissey comments here.

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I just received this sample letter from Russ Vaughn, which he and I both hope you'll modify as appropriate and send to your Congressional representatives:

Dear Senator/Congressman,

I have just become aware of the military’s new restrictive policy on soldier weblogs (milblogs) with the reason for this policy being given that it is in the interest of operational security. While I am all for the highest degree of vigilance in matters of OPSEC, I feel that the new policy is heavy-handed and counterproductive for the following reasons:

1)  Every website created by any service person is readily available for routine scrutiny by military monitoring agencies. At the first sign of misuse, the military has the capability to block the offending site and deal appropriately with its owner.

2)  Milblogs are the 21st Century’s letters home from the war, a means of communicating from the combat zone with family and friends that far exceeds the capabilities, in both time and content, of previous wars. They are a definite morale-builder, both with serving troops and the folks back home keeping tabs on their loved ones.

3)  Milblogs are tools for training and orientation from those who are there now to those who will be. Such exchanges can be highly beneficial for those deploying to combat for the first time. Such “pearls’ from the trigger-pullers to those yet untested can make the transition much easier and perhaps safer for the new warriors.

4)  Under such prohibition, only the dutiful soldiers will be affected. The disgruntled and disobedient will evade this restriction and find ways to use such internet podiums to spew their harsh criticisms. Only one view, that most favorable to the military, will be stifled.

5)  Last but not least, those affected by this restriction on freedom of speech are precisely those who are placing their lives on the line to preserve that very freedom. To deny them that right unnecessarily as is now being done with this new policy sends a very wrong message to the world about our true commitment to our Bill of Rights.

If a soldier wants to have a weblog, fine, let him or her do so after first signing a DoD agreement, making him keenly aware of the consequences of OPSEC violations and the and the penalties that attach to them. By signing that agreement he automatically registers with a central registry, maintained by a DoD agency with the responsibility to routinely monitor content of all milblogs owned by active duty personnel.

I’m not asking for official action here, simply a heads-up call from your office to your connections in the Pentagon to suggest they not throw out the baby with the bath water.

Sincerely,

Russ Vaughn
101^st Airborne Division, Vietnam 65-66
Registered Voter in Your State/District

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Michelle has a great link-rich follow-up to her earlier post here.  (Thanks for the link, Michelle.)

Contributed by Bill Faith on May 2, 2007 at 02:16 PM in Caring about our troops, The American Warrior, US Army | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Anni Fletcher

Blogs depend on what is said. I do see the above Mr Vaughn has a valid complaint, but as military he knows that open communication can cost lives and I bet his medals do not count to what he experienced. So yes, I do agree with censorship.

Posted by: Anni Fletcher | May 18, 2007 12:03:42 PM