Silencing Soldiers

[The Sushi Bandit]

New army regulations aim to censor military bloggers and others

http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2007_298/news/12557-1.html

When the US Army released its new Operational Security regulations in April, a deeply engrained tension between military security and public information was on full display. According to the new regulations, Army personnel should not "publicly reference, disseminate, or publish" information in emails, letters, or blogs without checking with a superior first. "Taken at face value," writes Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists blog Secrecy News, this "would spell the end of military blogging and would severely curtail military participation in public life."

Noah Shachtman of Wired News first uncovered the new regulations on May 2, and since then, Shachtman and Aftergood have unearthed a variety of Operational Security (OPSEC) documents that expose the rift between the military and the press. One particularly telling document presented different "categories of threat" to security -- foreign and domestic, traditional and nontraditional. Among the nontraditional threats listed were al-Qaida, drug cartels, and, surprisingly, the "media," (including blogs).

The Army has tried to control the leaked documents by silencing Aftergood. Soon after these documents came to light, Aftergood received an email from the Army informing him that the OPSEC documents were posted "illegally," and that "there are only five Official Army Publications Sites. You are not one of them." Aftergood has responded by posting the Army's email on his site, along with his response: "Our publications are not illegal nor in violation of any applicable regulation."

[The Sushi Bandit]

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