MetaChat - new rules for soldier's blogs

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15 June 2005

new rules for soldier's blogs ...Under a threat of court martial, soldiers must register with their unit commander any blog or unofficial website, including the hosting company, IP address, and the webmaster's name. ...

post by: amberglow at: 21:10 | 17 comments

I can understand them not wanting certain information published as a security concern, but isn't a free press one of the things we're supposed to be bringing to Iraq? It drives me nuts to see my country degrade itself.

posted by jonmc 15 June | 21:20

I can't believe it's taken this long for the military to become afraid of soldier's blogs. The armed forces aren't really known for their fostering of individuality and have always been concerned about the message that gets out there. If anything this is a good sign that blogs are making a difference - if you can make the US military nervous with words you've done something right.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 15 June | 21:27

I with Slack--i'm frankly surprised it took them this long.

posted by amberglow 15 June | 21:30

(oh, i emailed it to insomnia too, since he knows a lot of soldiers who blog)

posted by amberglow 15 June | 21:31

How does the whole IP thing work, anyway? Can you put a cloak over your IP address or something?

also see Blogs of War.

posted by mlis 15 June | 21:31

I wonder how long it'll be before U.S. troops have to use the MSN China portal in order to filter out bad words like "Democrat"...

posted by Smart Dalek 15 June | 21:32

it's not the military's nerve i'm worried about.

and it's not as if "they" don't worry or know, it's when and why and who and why and why--

posted by ethylene 15 June | 21:33

mlis, i think you can anonymize or something, but it's complicated, and they may be logging all the internet stuff from all the bases anyway (or Halliburton is, or whoever has the contract)

posted by amberglow 15 June | 21:51

I'm just glad Skippy got out before all this crap started.

posted by Doohickie 15 June | 21:55

Actually, this makes sense to me - free speech is fine and all, but the old adage that "loose lips sink ships" has a lot of truth behind it. If you are not giving away military secrets, why would you care that the army has your URL?

Anyway, maybe the Unit Commanders are just looking for something to read and can't be bothered googling.

posted by dg 15 June | 22:25

true enough, but didn't Geraldo pretty much prompt the briefing on that? No matter what anyone wants to say, this isn't like WWII with secret codes and rationing. If someone is monitoring ALL information, i doubt it's any one government--
--as swiss as the cheese and just as holey

posted by ethylene 15 June | 22:34

While it is true that there is a lot more information floating around about modern wars than there was in our parents and grandparents times, but the sort of front-line, specific information that soldiers could provide without even realising they are doing it could be valuable to an enemy. Imagine if there were thousands (or even hundreds) of soldiers blogging madly - you could take all those chunks of information which, individually, amount to nothing and crunch them to provide meaningful data that could prove valuable.

posted by dg 15 June | 22:47

i'm not debating that, i don't really want to debate this
but there is no AXIS working together against us as far as has been claimed like when the word was used in the theatre of war before
*chemically incapacitating myself*

posted by ethylene 15 June | 23:07

*sings "1984", sees four lights*

posted by ethylene 15 June | 23:07

OK, so we are probably arguing when we don't really disagree, so let's stop.

*takes a drink and passes the bottle back*

posted by dg 15 June | 23:19

Ok so I was going to jump in but fuck it and pass the bottle.

posted by arse_hat 16 June | 00:43

*sniff sniff*, is that Chivas?

posted by dabitch 16 June | 02:59

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