Is the Army Gagging Its Warrior-Bloggers?
Yes, says Wired. The new rules go farther than simply to require advance clearance prior to posting on Blogger, though. They also cover internet message board posts, and even “resumes and letters back home.”
For real? This is - pardon me - bogus. Is it really a problem of military security? I can’t fathom soldiers acting so blatantly in disregard of their own self-preservation interests as to disclose confidential information on a blog - even anonymously, as we all know nothing’s really and truly anonymous on the web anymore. Identities can always be uncovered, especially with the tools of the US Government backing you up (I’d think the IRS would be at the top of that game, but you have a veritable alphabet soup of likely entities who can suss you out - CIA, FBI, ICE, TSA …)
So what gives, really? Is this simply another attempt to control the damage? Are the PTB (powers that be) finally waking up to the fact that more and more, Americans simply aren’t buying the whole “you have to support the war if you want to support the troops” message, and its corollary “criticism from back home about the war makes our soldiers cry” - it would seem to me that soldier blogs would pretty effectively put the lie to that.
But regardless of the political ramifications, the truly serious issue here is one of First Amendment protection smacking headfirst into military secrecy interests. It seems to me that there must be a better way of reconciling the two than to bog down field commanders with yet another job - acting as line-item editors for every written communication the men and women in their command put to paper, or screen. Don’t they have IEDs to disarm, or insurgents to rout, or something?
wired, army bloggers, first amendment, censorship of blogs
