more on Army monitors soldiers' blogs, Web sites

Begin forwarded message:

From: DV Henkel-Wallace <[email protected]>
Date: October 30, 2006 4:11:24 PM EST
To: [email protected]
Cc: Brendan Kehoe <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [IP] Army monitors soldiers' blogs, Web sites

Dave, this sounds fine to me.  During normal wars the military  
censors soldiers' letters (first amendment notwithstanding); what's  
the difference here?

I don't see that the "nation at war" exaggeration should affect that.

Regards,
d

On Oct 30, 2006, at 12:36 , David Farber wrote:

>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Alice Kehoe <[email protected]>
> Date: October 29, 2006 8:53:31 PM EST
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: [email protected], derry <[email protected]>
> Subject: Army monitors soldiers' blogs, Web sites
>
>
> David - for IP, if you wish
> --AK
>
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061029/ap_on_hi_te/military_blogging
>
> Army monitors soldiers' blogs, Web sites
> By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM, Associated Press Writer Sun Oct 29, 1:24 PM ET
>
> RICHMOND, Va. - From the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan to  
> here at home, soldiers blogging about military life are under the  
> watchful eye of some of their own.
>
> A Virginia-based operation, the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell,  
> monitors official and unofficial blogs and other Web sites for  
> anything that may compromise security. The team scans for official  
> documents, personal contact information and pictures of weapons or  
> entrances to camps.
>
> In some cases, that information can be detrimental, said Lt. Col.  
> Stephen Warnock, team leader and battalion commander of a Manassas- 
> based Virginia National Guard unit working on the operation.
>
> In one incident, a blogger was describing his duties as a guard,  
> providing pictures of his post and discussing how to exploit its  
> vulnerabilities. Other soldiers posted photos of an Army weapons  
> system that was damaged by enemy attack, and another showed  
> personal information that could have endangered his family.
>
> "We are a nation at war," Warnock said by e-mail. "The less the  
> enemy knows, the better it is for our soldiers."
>
> In the early years of operations in the Middle East, no official  
> oversight governed Web sites that sprung up to keep the families of  
> those deployed informed about their daily lives.
>
> The oversight mission, made up of active-duty soldiers and  
> contractors, as well as Guard and Reserve members from Maryland,  
> Texas and Washington state, began in 2002 and was expanded in  
> August 2005 to include sites in the public domain, including blogs.
>
> The Army will not disclose the methods or tools being used to find  
> and monitor the sites. Nor will it reveal the size of the operation  
> or the contractors involved. The Defense Department has a similar  
> program, the Joint Web Risk Assessment Cell, but the Army program  
> is apparently the only operation that monitors nonmilitary sites.
>
> Now soldiers wishing to blog while deployed are required to  
> register their sites with their commanding officers, who monitor  
> the sites quarterly, according to a four-page document of  
> guidelines published in April 2005 by Multi-National Corps-Iraq.
>
> Spc. Jean-Paul Borda, who has indexed thousands of military blogs  
> for a site called Milblogging.com, said in an e-mail interview that  
> the military still is adapting to changing technology.
>
> "This is a new media — Blogging. Podcasting. Online videos," wrote  
> Borda, 32, of Dallas, who kept a blog while he was deployed in  
> Afghanistan with the Virginia National Guard. "The military is  
> doing what it feels necessary to ensure the safety of the troops."
>
> Warnock said the Web risk assessment team has reviewed hundreds of  
> thousands of sites every month, sometimes e-mailing or calling  
> soldiers asking them to take material down. If the blogger doesn't  
> comply with the request, the team can work with the soldier's  
> commanders to fix the problem — that is, if the blogger doesn't  
> post anonymously.
>
> "We are not a law enforcement or intelligence agency. Nor are we  
> political correctness enforcers," Warnock said. "We are simply  
> trying to identify harmful Internet content and make the authors  
> aware of the possible misuse of the information by groups who may  
> want to damage United States interests."
>
> Some bloggers say the guidelines are too ambiguous — a sentiment  
> that has led others to pre-emptively shut down or alter their blogs.
>
> "It's impossible to determine when something crosses the line from  
> not a violation to a violation. It's like trying to define what  
> pornography is or bad taste in music," said Spc. Jason Hartley, 32,  
> who says he was demoted from sergeant and fined for reposting a  
> blog he created while deployed to Iraq with the New York Army  
> National Guard.
>
> According to Hartley, the Army had forced him to stop the blog even  
> before the oversight operation existed, citing pictures he had  
> posted of Iraqi detainees and discussions of how he loaded a weapon  
> and the route his unit took to get to Iraq.
>
> Warnock contended that soldiers should not be discouraged from  
> blogging altogether.
>
> Military bloggers "are simply expressing themselves in a wide open  
> forum and want to share their life-changing experiences with the  
> rest of the world," Warnock said. "Giving soldiers an outlet for  
> free expression is good. American soldiers are not shy about giving  
> their opinions and nothing the Web Risk Cell does dampens that trait."
>
> Matthew Currier Burden, 39, a former intelligence officer who wrote  
> "The Blog of War," a collection of entries from bloggers who served  
> in the war, said soldiers' Web sites can go a long way toward  
> portraying positive aspects of the war and other "stories that need  
> to get told."
>
> But he said it's legitimate to fear that some information could be  
> used the wrong way.
>
> "The enemy knows the value of the blogs," Burden said. "The biggest  
> thing that we fear is battle damage assessment from the enemy. We  
> want to deny them that."
>
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