i sure understand the need for security

i know any AND every thing can and will be hacked. i know military computers should NOT be used on social networking sites. it's probably a good idea if they're not used on anything other than official military bid-nez.

however, i say give the men and women access to (not just enlisted either. i'm talking officers) some non-military computers. they can use them to blog or bitch or tweet or socialize. put 'em on totally different NON military servers. the interwebs have become such a part of our everyday lives now. in viet nam or before it took a WHILE for contact between a military person and their friends and family. these days INSTANT contact is possible. let's give the women and men of our military every option and every little gift we can spare. they deserve it


Pentagon Keeps Wary Watch as Troops Blog

By JAMES DAO

Over the course of 10 months in eastern Afghanistan, an Army specialist nicknamed Mud Puppy maintained a blog irreverently chronicling life at the front, from the terror of roadside bombs to the tyrannies of master sergeants.

Often funny and always profane, the blog, Embrace the Suck (military slang for making the best of a bad situation), flies under the Army’s radar. Not officially approved, it is hidden behind a password-protected wall because the reservist does not want his superiors censoring it.

“Some officer would be reviewing all my writing,” the 31-year-old soldier, who insisted that his name not be used, said in an e-mail message. “And sooner or later he would find something to nail me with.”

There are two sides to the military’s foray into the freewheeling world of the interactive Web. At the highest echelons of the Pentagon, civilian officials and four-star generals are newly hailing the power of social networking to make members of the American military more empathetic, entice recruits and shape public opinion on the war......

you can be sent to a place

where you don't understand the language. where the customs are very different from your own. where you don't know who is friend or who is foe. where you may be killed at ANY moment. where you have no business being because the citizens of 'that place' have never attacked you (until you attacked them that is), have never done ANYTHING to you as a matter of fact. you were sent there by a madman and his lunatic friends.

you can be a very young, inexperienced man (or woman). you can be loyal. you can be a patriot. you can be a hero. JUST DON'T YOU DAMN F**KING WRITE ABOUT IT

Silent Posting

With His Blog Kaboom, a Young Soldier Told of His War. Last Month, the Army Made Him Shut It Down.

By Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD

There was a boy who went to war, like many other boys before him. Maybe it made him a man, maybe it didn't. Maybe he already was a man, maybe he wasn't. Maybe it doesn't matter, maybe none of it does, maybe it all does. Maybe.

-- Lt. G, March 4

He was an unlikely warrior, this scrawny boy from Reno, Nev., the son of two lawyers, raised in the suburbs.

He had a way with words, this boy. When his Stryker unit deployed to Iraq last winter, he was a rookie platoon leader who had never seen combat. And like many other soldiers before him, he decided he'd chronicle the war on a blog. Intending to keep family and friends abreast of the follies and pitfalls of soldiering in a five-year-old war that now relies less on gunfire and more on diplomacy, this boy, under the pen name Lt. G, launched "Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal."............

army of dude

do stop by and say hola!
U.S. Soldier’s Controversial Blog Receiving International Attention
Written by: Jonny Glines
A U.S. soldier’s controversial blog is receiving international attention for its alternative perspective on the war in Iraq. The blog’s creator, Alex Horton, has been both praised and accused of treason for his writing. Horton spoke with KUTV.com to explain why some people are angered at his sincerity. Today’s blogosphere is an overwhelming sea of opinions. “Army of Dude” is a blog that stays afloat of most, winning second place for “best military blog” in the 2007 Weblog Awards. ........


Army of Dude
Reporting On Truth, Justice And The American Way Of War

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

i think no one is surprised to learn soldier's personal blogs are NOT giving away state secrets (unlike novak and rove and on and on and on). it's the STATE itself

Army Reports Brass, Not Bloggers, Breach Security

By Noah Shachtman
For years, the military has been warning that soldiers' blogs could pose a security threat by leaking sensitive wartime information. But a series of online audits, conducted by the Army, suggests that official Defense Department websites post material far more potentially harmful than anything found on a individual's blog.
The audits, performed by the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell between January 2006 and January 2007, found at least 1,813 violations of operational security policy on 878 official military websites. In contrast, the 10-man, Manassas, Virginia, unit discovered 28 breaches, at most, on 594 individual blogs during the same period.
The results were obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, after the digital rights group filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act.
"It's clear that official Army websites are the real security problem, not blogs," said EFF staff attorney Marcia Hofmann. "Bloggers, on the whole, have been very careful and conscientious. It's a pretty major disparity."
The findings stand in stark contrast to Army statements about the risks that blogs pose. ............

my war

i read about colby's blog (now a book) in an article in the guardian

i checked it out and found a wicked cool

link (make sure you REALLY read what pops up)

my war killing time in iraq by colby buzzell

in their own words

which of course we may not be able to hear and read any longer

ah, but we won't let that happen will we? our soldiers have voices and they should NEVER be silenced

we all know they are NOT worried about troops giving away 'sensitive information'. they are indeed worried about the troops feelings about the fiasco that is iraq


Tighter restrictions on military blogs anger US soldiers· Ban aimed at curbing critics of Bush, say troops· Pentagon moves to stop spread of intelligence

Ewen MacAskill in Washington

US troops in Iraq have reacted angrily to Pentagon restrictions aimed at curbing internet postings from war zones.
The Pentagon cited the risk of providing sensitive information to insurgents. Blogs and emails from troops in the field can often be extraordinarily vivid and indiscreet. One last weekend from a soldier in Iraq advised a trooper in the US who was about to deploy in Iraq on ways to watch for and detect explosive devices planted by insurgents.


The Pentagon said blogs had to be cleared first with officers, and that soldiers would be punished if they publicly revealed troop movements, planned raids, travel itineraries, photographs of casualties, new technology or material that could compromise their location.
Reacting to the ban, soldiers said the real reason for the curbs were their negative comments about the war, including scepticism about George Bush's claims about progress. Soldiers in the field and former soldiers, in blogs posted on sites such as Black Five, an unofficial site run by former paratrooper Matthew Burden, said the regulations would be inoperable with most troops obeying the rules but dissidents finding ways round the ban..........

White House Weighs in on Milblog Flap

In a press conference this afternoon, White House spokesman Tony Snow called our story about the Army's new information regulations "overreported." But then, immediately afterwards, Snow said he wasn't sure he knew what he was talking about. Here's the exchange, with the Washington Times' Jon Ward:........