Whenever I read about China censoring internet access to its citizens, forcing Google and Yahoo to not show certain sites, I smile a smug, holier than thou smile and shake my head about how a government can do that to its people and get away with it. Why would those people put up with it? So I must say "in a day that will live in infamy" I was very chagrined to read this article in Wired by Noah Shactman, reporting that just about any site with the word blog in it is banned from our troops in the Air Force. From what I understand this is limited to the Air Force and not our other armed services.
I use the term our troops, not their troops, because this isn't some foreign, totalitarian country or despotic dictatorship we are talking about, where the troops have to be watched so they don't cross over to the other side. These are the men and woman who put their butts on the line, risking their lives every day for us all to enjoy the freedom to read any damn site on the internet we want to. The irony of these very same front line heroes who provide the blanket of freedom that we all sleep under, not being able to read any blog they feel like is not lost on me and should not be lost on you either! If they are smart enough and good enough to protect our country they should be smart enough to be allowed to choose what they want to read on line and should have the freedom to read news and commentaries on blogs as they see fit.
The idea that we are censoring the news our service men and woman can read disturbs me on many levels. Besides what it says about a lack of trust in our troops, it also disturbs me that someone actually says "they can still access news sources that are "primary, official-use sources," said Maj. Henry Schott, A5 for Air Force Network Operations. "Basically ... if it's a place like The New York Times, an established, reputable media outlet, then it's fairly cut and dry that that's a good source, an authorized source," Who decides what primary, official-use sources? It gets worse, "Often, we block first and then review exceptions," said Tech. Sgt. Christopher DeWitt, a Cyber Command spokesman. Shoot first and ask questions later, huh? The arrogance of this galls me. If you told me this was some North Korean General or Politburo member from the old Soviet Union, I could see it in a second. But spokespeople of the US Air Force? Where have we gone wrong?
Some make the argument that blogs are not really media outlets. Can the people making policy at the Air Force be that naive? Others say that there is so much BS on blogs that Air Force folks are "baited" into commenting and possibly giving away operational security information. That sounds to me like a social engineering problem, not a blog problem.
Yeah, I know there is a war on. Are we afraid our Air Force men and woman are going to all go to some Arabic-Al Queda web sites and be brainwashed? Is their some terrorist worm they will get by going to a web site that spouts ideas different than "primary, official-use sources? What scares the Air Force so much that they would take such action? If you feel like I do about this, lets do something about it. Lets write to the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congressmen, Senators, whoever, but lets return freedom of the press and freedom of speech to our troops who put their lives on the line so we can enjoy those rights!
