The U.S. Army has shut down all possible battle zone milblogging.
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, obtained by Wired News, require a commander be consulted before every blog update.
“This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging,” said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. “No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has — it’s most honest voice out of the war zone. And it’s being silenced.”
There’s much more at The Danger Room, including a note to Reuters for stealing Noah’s story, and of course, not crediting him for it–let alone paying.
Let me add my voice to Noah’s opinion that this is a blisteringly stupid idea. Way to make sure that the good news doesn’t get out, guys.
Well, I’m a veteran, and you have to understand something about the all-volunteer force. Soldiers today really consider themselves a group apart from society. Probably 90% of people in the military just don’t care at all what the civilian populace thinks, good or bad. In fact, the word “civilian” is almost like a mild slur. The bloggers are an exception, but the other 90% really don’t care one way or the other what kind of news gets out. So it’s easy for them to put other priorities, such as security, over blogging.
Bad deal. The troops know the peril of putting operational stuff on line, and reminders are always in order, but if you trust them with guns trust them with keyboards.
Yeah, sadly the Pentagon is located in Washington, D.C. and there never seems to be a shortage of politically astute DoD operatives eager to silence any troops who might embarrass a Congressman. And I fear that Secretary Gates is among the slickest of Free Speech’s opponents.
“Well, I’m a veteran, and you have to understand something about the all-volunteer force. Soldiers today really consider themselves a group apart from society.”
Starship Troopers, anyone?
John, I’ve known military men and women all my adult life, and I really don’t get that sense at all from the majority of them.
But I can see how the higher-ups might get that attitude. It’s no different from the attitude of our own elected representatives.
Or the media elite.
Or, in fact, anyone with more money than the average American. It’s called “elitism.”
Meryl,
Most civilians never have occasion to even MEET anybody in the military, so I wonder if your friends have some unusual circumstance. Were you friends with them BEFORE they joined up? Are they in the national guard or reserves? What was the context that you met them in?
I think the Evangelical Outpost has the right take on this:
http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/003623.html
They were (and are) my cousins’ husbands. Army, Navy, and Air Force. Everyone but the Marines were represented. Both coasts.
One of them was going to stay career Navy, but left early due to the death of my cousin (his wife).
I have also met a few milbloggers.
I’ve always liked military folk. I respect their commitment. I suspect that attitude comes across when we meet.