Milblog guidelines relaxed? BUMPED/UPDATE: Senators get milbloggers’ back
posted at 3:15 pm on May 4, 2007 by see-dubya
Share on Facebook | regular view
Regular commenter Jane of SeeJaneMom has received a notice clarifying the Army’s position toward bloggers. I’m not sure who is saying this to her, but if this statement is accurate and authoritative then it represents a most welcome change. A couple of key excerpts:
Army Operations Security: Soldier Blogging Unchanged
Summary:
o America’s Army respects every Soldier’s First Amendment rights
while also adhering to Operations Security (OPSEC) considerations to
ensure their safety on the battlefield.
Details:
* In no way will every blog post/update a Soldier makes on his or
her blog need to be monitored or first approved by an immediate
supervisor and Operations Security (OPSEC) officer. After receiving
guidance and awareness training from the appointed OPSEC officer, that
Soldier blogger is entrusted to practice OPSEC when posting in a public
forum.
Again, I haven’t seen an official copy of this document or an official source, but I’ve no reason to think it would be false or inaccurate.* I also don’t know what motivated this reconsideration, but I’m very glad it happened.
As I explained here, I’m very sympathetic to the military’s need to control operational security, but the sort of warning and training laid out in these new guidelines seems like a fair compromise, especially since blogging troops are far more invested in preserving their own security than the regular media is. Stifling the milbloggers seemed like a case of the Army cutting off its nose to spite its face.
UPDATES: Jane breaks more on this story. Norm Coleman, Tom Coburn, and Jim DeMint have written to Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressing their support for milbloggers, urging that the guidelines be drafted to permit them to continue to post. Here’s some language to put on your sidebars, fellas:
While the Army’s new regulations rightly address the vulnerabilities created by this new medium, we are concerned the regulations may also inadvertently weaken what has proven to be a significant asset in our new media age: the firsthand accounts of American military men and women on the ground.
Full thing, and even a screencap, at Jane’s.
I also asked Jane to clarify whether she thought the directives above represented a shift in policy:
SEE-DUBYA: Do you think this is a genuine shift in position based on the outcry, or that it’s a clarification that the policy was never that restrictive to begin with and we just freaked out over nothing?
JANE: The policy has always been tight, but they just FLASHED it a bit in everyone’s face to remind we military trash that Big Brother is still watching.
My take is that they “tightened” it PRECISELY SO THEY COULD LOOSEN IT. (Like the British hostages were taken so they could be released.) The average Active Duty knows PRECISELY what it means. As I said in yesterday’s post, the old addage…never say what you can write, never write what you can nod and never nod what you can wink.
Hmmm…so as much as I would like to claim another blogospheric victory, this may have been a pre-planned jerk of the chain all along. In any case, the affirmation from three solid conservative Senators is gratifying.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages:
The loons on the left at PoliticalPlace.com are losing their minds over this. They didn’t think about the OPSEC angle.
“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH??? WHAT IS BUSH HIDING! THEY ARE’NT IN PRISON! IS LIFE THAT BAD OVER IN IRAQ THEY HAVE TO STIFFLE THE SOLDIERS’ FREEDOM????”
Black Adam on May 4, 2007 at 7:19 AM
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/05/army_to_blogger.html
Bradky on May 4, 2007 at 7:42 AM
here’s the thing, the Army didn’t increase restrictions on blogging such that they needed to be relaxed. Cdrs had this authority previous to this particular update. All this update did was add a single provision that mentioned blogs and has an obligation to “consult” with a supervisor and OPSEC officer.
The Army didn’t back down or relax anything. The reaction was overblown to begin with. The Army just said “No, we never meant any such thing.”
armylawyer on May 4, 2007 at 8:12 AM
Exactly how is a soldier supposed to use non-government equipment to blog? It’s not like there is an internet cafe on every corner in Afghanistan or Iraq. You can’t just drive over to a Starbucks in Baghdad to blog. Even if you happen to have your own laptop, the bandwidth is going to be provided by “government equipment”.
This pretty much outlaws milblogging.
E L Frederick (Sniper One) on May 4, 2007 at 8:14 AM
Good points.
The reaction was typical – the far left saw some kind of conspiracy and the far right saw their version as well. As you are probably well aware the aggregation of certain unclassified information can lay out a classified picture.
The military is over there to get a mission done – not be sources for bloggers who don’t have the stones to go report themselves.
Bradky on May 4, 2007 at 8:17 AM
But only while they are in theater. Nothing stops them from keeping a journal and blogging to their heart’s content once they rotate back to the US.
Bradky on May 4, 2007 at 8:20 AM
My concern is that this is going to stop the flow of “good news” we get from the milbloggers. Instead we will be stuck with the doom and gloom of Harry Reid and the MSM.
E L Frederick (Sniper One) on May 4, 2007 at 8:22 AM
Nothing stops them from writing and mailing their observations to friends and loved ones. The only difference is that there may be a week to ten day lag time to make it there.
All news should be reported I agree but the medium is the real debate not the idea that military personnel be allowed to report their experiences.
Bradky on May 4, 2007 at 8:25 AM
DOD is LOCKING OUT blogs, they are locking out any sort of personal email sites (I can’t get to Gmail, earthlink or anything like that from work any more AT ALL).
The policies used to be that “Personal use of government systems was ok as long as it didn’t interfere with work”. My use does not, I still accomplish my job and then some, but they have decided to completely lock out a lot of things.
One example is “MySpace”. It’s nothing more than a lot of personal blog sites, where people chit chat, but they locked it out.
So far, I can still get to my own, this one and a lot of others, but when they lock them there will be a lot of protesting from a lot of workers, because MOST of us get our news from places like Free Republic, here, LGF and other sites.
Rick Donaldson on May 4, 2007 at 9:08 AM
DOD has the right to block sites. The commercial email is blocked due to the many viruses and trojans that are brought in via these sites. (Brought in not through malicious intent of the mil user but introduced to the networks all the same)Unless you work in the Info Ops and Cyber Ops areas this is not always easy to understand the magnitude of the threat — don’t take my word for it ask any of your Cyber or IT folks and see for yourself.
The military has to protect its networks. If they can do that and still allow personal use as you described they would. But you should expect that the restrictions on non mil sites will likely increase rather than decrease in the near term.
As for news sources – you can have people at home send you printed or electronic file copies of the sites you mentioned. Old time military vets can tell you about “what it was like” before the internet, Mars stations to call home, and AFRTS programming before cable was allowed on bases.
Bradky on May 4, 2007 at 11:14 AM
Sniper One–that #3 you cite is only in the special case of a blog that has nothing to do with the military–and therefore needs no permission at all.
The second excerpt I quoted is pretty clear: once you tell your CO and OPSEC officer and get the OPSEC lecture, you no longer have to get permission to blog.
see-dubya on May 4, 2007 at 12:27 PM
compromised works well
Defector01 on May 4, 2007 at 1:23 PM
The only thing that bothers me about the senators getting involved is that, well, as Vietnam and Iraq have more than proven, good things never happen when politicians stick their noses into military issues…
Doghouse on May 4, 2007 at 3:32 PM
Well said. My client uses Websense to monitor and restrict traffic for exactly the same reasons as the DOD does.
While it is a pain for me to get to my companies webmail, VPN etc when I am on-site, they do it for security reasons not censorship, the DOD is not any different.
F15Mech on May 4, 2007 at 3:49 PM
When I was the Instapundit’s Afghan Correspondent (and Allah’s in the House, too!) I simply mailed my stories and pics. A quick heads up and an admonition not to reveal anything that broke OPSEC was all I needed.
If/when I deploy again, I don’t foresee many problems with my blogging or reporting through Professor Reynolds or Allah. Granted, I am a field grade officer, but still…
major john on May 4, 2007 at 11:11 PM
I find this discussion very interesting.
In the civilian world, the caselaw is clear: If you use a company’s equipment or network, they have the absolute right to control your access, monitor your access, read your emails, even record your keystrokes. This applies to your use of their phones as well as their internet connection.
So, knowning how this works in “the world,” I am not surprised that the army or DOD, even, would have a policy of deciding that certain access to certain blogsites or if the content of individual emails were unnacceptable, and that this policy would to civilians as well as servicemen and women.
I’m not even considering the operational security issues as it seems obvious to me of the need to protect the mission and the lives of the troops. This isn’t even new to the military, as every letter home from “the front” was usually censored before being delivered during WWII.
When my son was in Iraq, he was very careful to make sure that he didn’t divulge anything that might be of use to the enemy in his emails home. And I was careful not to even ask.
I share the sense of some that this policy reminder probably originates by a complaint by some Congressional Democrats who are unhappy that some military personal are speaking out at the open sabotage of the war by the Democrats. Letters objecting to the comments of Dirty Harry, Damascus Nancy, and Traitor Johnny Murtha from individuals soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen, are getting wide distribution via blogs. I even know that there are articles in the UCMJ that prohibit serving military from publicly denigrating the chain of command or members of the government. Google “patricia schroeder miramar” sometime.
So, while I understand all this, I am saddened that this is happening, especially as this appears to be an attempt to stifle serving individuals who are correctly exposing the treasonous behavior of some Democrats in Congress. But, given WHO the Democrats are, and their penchant to silence all criticism, it does not surprise me that they intend to punish serving military who dare to speak out and expose them.
georgej on May 5, 2007 at 2:59 AM
I don’t really agree that this is some Democrat sourced push. As I mentioned a couple of times the debate is not really about their right to tell their stories, it is about the medium they use to do this.
The concerns about bandwidth and impact on operational traffic as well as the security aspects are real concerns. Two things could happen in my opinion (1) Encourage service people to write their experiences or record on tape/cassette and send those back home (2) More private citizens go to the war zone and report independently of the “MSM” — there are no restrictions on what is reported in this manner
As to the conduct of the service members, not being able to speak out publicly regarding their political view can be frustrating, but it is well briefed from the beginning and we know what we are getting into. When Clinton was in office this would surface periodically with someone getting disciplined for the jokes sent on official channels. Others silently protested by delaying their retirement until after he left office so they would have a different President’s signature on their retirement certificate.
Bradky on May 5, 2007 at 9:37 AM
Comment pages: