Defense Dept. blocking MySpace, YouTube and other sites

Associated Press ^ | 14 May 2007 | ROBERT WELLER

[subbob]

DENVER - Soldiers serving overseas will lose some of their online links to friends and loved ones back home under a Department of Defense policy that a high-ranking Army official said would take effect Monday.

The Defense Department will begin blocking access "worldwide" to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other popular Web sites on its computers and networks, according to a memo sent Friday by Gen. B.B. Bell, the U.S. Forces Korea commander.

The policy is being implemented to protect information and reduce drag on the department's networks, according to Bell.

[subbob]

Well, now the Department of Defense is following a path forged by Tehran in censorship. (REF: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1749107/posts)

Rather than embracing new media and trying to win in the information battlefield, our leadership continues to try and control access to information.

While the enemy has freedom of action within cyberspace, we continue to cripple our own efforts.

Does anyone still wonder why we continue to lose the information war?

[darkwing104]

Shhh...It's called COMSEC.

The bad guys are watching...

[Pentagon Leatherneck]

COMSEC is important, no disagreement. But senior leadership’s (who, I suspect, have never frequented places like Youtube and wouldn’t know how to) first reaction is to ban it. I would rather see enlightened calls for education and training on what’s permissible and what isn’t.

TC

[DesScorp]

Soldiers can go wherever they want on their own computers...but they shouldn’t be going to places like MySpace on DOD computers.

[sageb1]

“The sites covered by the ban are the video-sharing sites YouTube, Metacafe, IFilm, StupidVideos and FileCabi; social networking sites MySpace, BlackPlanet and Hi5; music sites Pandora, MTV, 1.fm and live365; and the photo-sharing site Photobucket.”

[USMCWife6869]

**Dons flameproof suit**

I think it has less to do with what our military is posting and way more to do with what they are doing on government time. While it does suck that the guys in Iraq or Afghanistan can’t access it overseas as a connection to home, it seems that an all or nothing approach is what they are going for. I am sure that a portion of our military is monitoring the sites for any information that would be helpful. But let’s be honest; there is nothing on Youtube or Myspace, etc that these guys are missing out on that would be imperative to their job performance.

If you want to place blame, place it on the members that abused it to the point where it has come to this. Plenty of private companies ban these sites from their company networks. This isn’t really any different.

[Doctor Raoul]

There’s only so much bandwidth on a connection. YouTube and MySpace won’t kill terrorists. The other stuff will.

[Michael Barnes]

The sites covered by the ban are the video-sharing sites YouTube, Metacafe, IFilm, StupidVideos and FileCabi; social networking sites MySpace, BlackPlanet and Hi5; music sites Pandora, MTV, 1.fm and live365; and the photo-sharing site Photobucket.

Good call, those are band width hogs, they can surf those sites on their own time, on their own hardware and 'net connection.

[darkwing104]

Soldiers can go wherever they want on their own computers...but they shouldn’t be going to places like MySpace on DOD computers.

DOD owns the Internet connections that the Troops use in theater and they can make the rules. I believe is a COMSEC issue the lamebrains at AP are losing their best source of military bashing material.

[darkwing104]

Soldiers can go wherever they want on their own computers...but they shouldn’t be going to places like MySpace on DOD computers.

DOD owns the Internet connections that the Troops use in theater and they can make the rules. I believe it is a COMSEC issue and the lamebrains at AP are losing their best source of military bashing material.

[Doctor Raoul]

Well, now the Department of Defense is following a path forged by Tehran in censorship.

So Senator Turbin, how long have you been posting as "subbob"?

[Doctor Raoul]

Concur. The AP knows next to nothing about the military. Their intepretation of this is a left wing wet dream.

Remember the journalists' creed. Never leave a terrorist's claim behind, it must be published unquestioned. Always put the mission first and the mission is to always cast out military as liars.

[NRA1995]

“We’re here to preserve democracy, not practice it.”....Gene Hackman as commander of USS Alabama in “Crimson Tide”

[Thunder90]

I have called for a total media blackout from Iraq and Afghaninstan. That includes all internet communications, broadcast media, and print media forms, except those authorised by the US government (and Iraqi government).

[Popocatapetl]

The best long term solution will be a private-paramilitary network run much like the USO. Call it the “military entertainment Internet”, and designed for high bandwidth use on off-duty times.

It could be affiliated with the military club system and have a military censor assigned to it, authorized to review any material and make a determination before it is posted, instead of leaving it up to individual commands.

There are very practical reasons for keeping a system like this independent of the DOD network, but it will just keep growing like all other networks.

I can imagine in the future an easy to use videophone so that soldiers can contact their families every day.

[ga medic]

I agree for the most part. But, when soldiers are in Iraq or Afghanistan, they have no access to computers other than DOD computers. They don’t go home at the end of the day, and they need some communication and relaxation with their friends and family back home. (These sites are great for keeping them connected and I am sure it has some positive morale factors)

I would think they could allow it for the soldiers that are deployed in the ME, and maybe put some limits on it. No one who has access to their own computers should be using DOD computers to access those sites though.