WASHINGTON – Lt. Daniel Zimmerman, an infantry platoon leader in Iraq, puts a blog on the Internet every now and then ‘to basically keep my friends and family up to date’ back home. It just got tougher to do that for Zimmerman and a lot of other U.S. soldiers. No more using the military’s computer system to socialize and trade videos on MySpace, YouTube and nine other Web sites, the Pentagon says. Citing security concerns and technological limits, the Pentagon has cut off access to those sites for personnel using the Defense Department’s computer network. The change limits use of the popular outlets for service members on the front lines, who regularly post videos and journals. ‘I put my blog on there and my family reads it,’ said Zimmerman, 29, a platoon leader with B Company, 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment. ‘It scares the crap out of them sometimes,’ he said. ‘I keep it as vague as possible,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty responsible about it. It’s just basically to tell a little bit about my life over here’ he said. He’s regularly at a base where he doesn’t have Defense Department access to the […]
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007
Pentagon Limits Troops’ Web Access
Author: LOLITA C. BALDOR
Source: The Associated Press
Publication Date: Monday 14 May 2007
Link: Pentagon Limits Troops’ Web Access
Source: The Associated Press
Publication Date: Monday 14 May 2007
Link: Pentagon Limits Troops’ Web Access
Stephan: This is nakedly censorship designed to keep the friends and families of service personnel stationed in Iraq from finding out just how bad it has gotten there. That's bad enough, and wholly political. What is worse is that now, in addition to everything else they are being asked to endure, those same families and friends, will be cut-off from the ones they love, which is... so unbelievably callous and rude.