They Hate Us For Our Freedom

The soldiers fighting to protect and defend our basic freedoms are blocked from using them.

The U.S. Army is tightening restrictions on soldiers’ blogs and other Web site postings to ensure sensitive information about military operations does not make it onto public forums.

Soldiers in war zones are already subject to restrictions on blogging and public posts. But the Army’s new regulation could affect service members who have returned from war zones and started blogs about their combat experiences.

Under a new directive issued in April, soldiers must consult with their immediate supervisor and an officer responsible for what’s known within the military as operational security, or OPSEC, for a review of planned publications.

Reviews will be needed for Web site postings, blog postings, discussions on Internet information forums and discussions on Internet message boards, according to the Army directive.

E-mail that will be published in a public forum is also subject to review under the regulation. But Army officers said personal e-mails will not be reviewed, calling that impractical.

Oh good, at least they're not breaking into their personal e-mail. That'll wait until they get back stateside, I guess.

Anyone who thinks this is about making sure soldiers don't give away troop movements are not being hoenst. This is about making sure no unfiltered information gets out from the battlefield. It is the nature of war to clamp down on information and control the message. That's true if the "Information Minister" is Donald Rumsfeld or Baghdad Bob.

Milibloggers provided a valuable service, and lots of them didn't share my opinion on the war. But I'd rather hear from them than a DoD press release. People need good information to understand what's happening in Iraq, to make good judgments on its conduct. This crackdown is positively un-American.