Air Force Blocks Access to Blogs

Nearly three years after the Army took notice of Soldier blogs and began insisting the writers register with their chain of command, the Air Force is going in a different direction altogether: restricting which blogs its airmen may read.

"Basically," said Maj. Henry Schott of the command’s plans and requirements section, "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."  CONTINUED

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Holy [PIGEONED]! 

MOGS sent me the originally article, and there's more dope over at Blackfive.

Where do I start... with the fact the Air Force is circumventing all my hard work teaching USAFA cadets about the Constitution they're swearing on, of the fact the Major considers the NY times reputable?

Meh... I'll go in order.  All my students know, to a painful degree, of my willingness to fight and die for Amendment I of the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Indeed, on day one I ask all my students if they had ever read the Constitution in it's entirety.  About half said yes.

Next, I asked them to sign a blank sheet of paper.

Then I asked how many of them would swear an oath to defend said blank sheet of paper.  None raised their hand (well, except for one goofball in the back corner).

Finally, inhaling with all my might and shaking a copy of "Democracy in America" like a old country bible, I swept my eyes across the room and exclaimed, "but you're willing to swear your life on a [PIGEONED] document you've never even read!?"

How do I explain to my students, then, why legitimate speech is now blocked by their own service?

Yes, the volunteering for the military means making sacrifices, to include some of our rights.  However, it's one thing to volunteer knowing what to expect, but a completely different animal when a right is taken away in the middle of one's career.  In 14 years of service I've never had my access to legitimate speech censored.  Ever. 

Or in my particular case, the right to write legitimate speech!

As for the quote regarding the NY Times, I have some bias as a geopolitical analyst:  I treat all unclassified sources with a grain of salt, and if forced to use open source information won't make an assessment off a single source of information.  Let alone a source dripping with bias.

In fact, if I'm looking for raw open source info I prefer small town papers over the big players.  Why?  The smaller papers generally focus on local news and pull national/world news off the wires.  But the national papers cater to a national audience and have distinct slants (the Boston Globe is so bad I remember having to drain a thick film of bias off it every morning like oil from a bad pizza).

OF course bias is hard to avoid, even my own.  The trick is to gather as many facts as possible while avoiding hype, hearsay and innuendo.

But I digress... I'm growing increasingly frustrated with my own service on it's heavy-handed approach to information technology.  Sure, operational and information security are important, but there are smarter ways of doing business. 

Heavy-handed censorship is not one of them.

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Comments

[Tom]

Excellent point - do you sign your credit card slip without reading it?

Actually, I think what the military is more afraid of is compromised security. Perhaps they should try to restrict CNN from given that information to the bad guys rather than pick on our soldiers.

[The Mad Pigeon]

I will concede the potential for OPSEC violations, as well as bandwidth issues. YouTube is a particularly bad bandwidth hog, but at least here at USAFA the communications minions are experimenting with a software "throttle" to allow streaming media while also managing resource usage (perhaps it will become a model for the rest of the AF).

But the average telephone and unclassified email are also potential OPSEC risks. But we're all required to take OPSEC training annually, and at least in my experience it' lack of OPSEC knowlege that's the greater risk, not the tools themselves.

But you're right about CNN... just like I wrote the other day, our OPSEC training pales in comparison to the wealth of open source intelligence available to the average miscreant.

[Sam Tresler]

There is a candidate running for POTUS right now who promises to make a Secretary of Technology part of their cabinet. Presumably, said person in the role of CIC might understand a little more about technology than just to fear it. I'll leave ya'll to figure out which.

I fail to see how our soldiers *reading* more information will jeopardize OPSEC? Although, I suppose even as I write that I can concoct some hypothetical theories. I do understand how our soldiers *writing* might, and why care should be exercised there.

And yes... CNN is ridiculous.