Author of OPSEC reg says it is not a big change
This is buried in a Washington Post story on milbloggers.
Quote:
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... Army OPSEC Program Manager Maj. Ray Ceralde, who helped author the revision, said bloggers shouldn't be concerned.
According to Ceralde, the new regulation does not require bloggers to have each post approved by officers, but rather instructs bloggers to alert commanders and OPSEC officers when they initially create a blog. This is similar to the policy already put in place in Iraq, he said. "Soldiers have the right to express themselves as long as they don't reveal information that will subject their unit or personnel to harm," Ceralde said.
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This is just a small part of a very long article and there still appears to be a great deal of uncertainty caused by the new reg. If Maj. Ceralde is right then the regulation as written is not a model of clarity based on all the educated people who thought it was a big change.
Are Bloggers Journalists?
You cannot imagine the difficulties surrounding that issue as it concerns civilian bloggers, before you even get into the distinctions between military and civilian law. I don't myself buy into the argument that bloggers are de facto journalists, although it is possible that on occasion they may be performing or engaging in a process that is akin to journalism. This has primarily come up as concerns shield laws (do bloggers have the same protections afforded journalists -- to the extent they have them -- when it comes to the right to not reveal sources or give up documents, video tape, etc. to govt. officials.) Here's the problem with that one: if everyone is a potential "journalist," then how does a society enforce some kind of norm that says everyone has an obligation to testify when called upon to do so?
Well, if military members are journalists, what does that do to their obligations to not publish information, footage, photographs, etc? Wouldn't their first amendment protections trump any other obligations?
Don't think so.
Bloggers, it seems to me, are press critics involved in a larger community conversation.
For all sorts of reasons, the larger military benefited from having its members' voices being heard, even when those voices were critical, in part because those voices were sometimes critical, because it was precisely the fact that those voices were sometimes critical that gave them credibility.
Credibility in the political battle
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rob Thornton
From Zen Pundit:
Get the word out through the chain of command about an awesome opportunity and start issuing some rewards for effective IO operations by individuals - could be recognition (AAMs, ARCOMs - depends on the effect believed to have on a target audience) - could be monetary. This way you get a three-fer - you get reporting, you get self-policing and you get massive IO by talented individuals relatively cheap that adpats faster then the enemy.
Nice idea. I spend a lot of time reading milbloggers on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with a lot of Iraqi bloggers. It's astonishing sometimes how different the picture is between the folks on the ground and the reporters sitting in the Green Zone.
It'll be a huge loss in the political battle back home if the milbloggers are shut down, given how shaky public support for continuing the venture in Iraq is already. Those guys (and gals) are the best PR the military has ever seen, partly because its much more trusted than anything that comes from a news release. Even reading the really critical ones, I come away with a feeling of confidence that the troops on the ground are doing everything they can to make it a success in Iraq. The credibility level for that is far higher than any political pronouncements I've seen from behind a podium in DC.
This ain't new... it comes and goes, but...
When I was a young officer woking Army current intel, nothing would anger me more that the tendency to overclassify. Things that should never have been classified were, and those that should have been were classified often at levels higher than necessary or desireable. There was also the pernicious tendency (see current rules) to try to use FOUO - an administrative protection designed to protect privacy or FBIS violation of copyright laws :confused: - as a cheap substitute for proper classification. As Dr. Jack's post shows, this is still the case since some of the examples of FOUO he lists fall under the formal definitions of CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and TOP SECRET.
Then there is the ludicrous briefing posted by Marc - FOUO for no good reason other than it is embarrasssing ... often another improper reason for classification - that he, an obvious foreign security risk from that oh so foreign country (is it our ally?) Canada, found openly published on the web in violation of its stupid administrative protection.
Note that classification and administrative protections derive from Presidential Executive Orders and are not (unless things have changed more than I am aware) matters of legislation but only of regulation. Indeed, there is only classified material and unclassified for national security purposes. Sensitive (formerly SBU) is another attempt to get around the rules for clasification. Nevertheless, Article I, Sec 8 of the US Constitution vests Congress with the regulation of the land and naval forces of the US. This seems to me to be one of those moments when we, as individuals who range from liberal to conservative, can call on our elected representatives to do their duty and change, by legislation or its threat, a totally idiotic regulation. Ike Skelton and Carl Levin and our individual Reps and Senators would love to hear from us. I will be writing my Rep, Tom Cole (on the Armed Services Committee) along with his sole Democratic colleague from Oklahoma, Dan Boren (also a committee member).
Terrorists Not Countered On Web
STORYhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...s-report_N.htm
Quote:
WASHINGTON — Government and community leaders aren't doing enough to counter multimedia-savvy terrorists from using flashy websites, provocative video games, hip-hop music and gruesome images of bloodied Muslim children to recruit young people online, according to a new report that says the Internet may be extremists' most powerful frontier.
"There's only one side on the battlefield, and it isn't us," says Frank Cilluffo, director of George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute, who will testify on the institute's Internet-Facilitated Radicalization report in the Senate today. "We've created this global village — the Internet — without a police department."
"The Internet is a weapon in the hands of our extremist enemies," says Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which investigates ways to combat radicalization at prisons, universities and on the Internet.
Among Web-based tactics terrorists use, according to the report:
•Hacking into legitimate websites and posting training manuals deep in subdirectories where no one is likely to notice them.
•Developing video games that spread "a simple but seemingly compelling message: Islam is under attack and young Muslims have a personal duty to fight."
•Using hip-hop and rap musicians "whose catchy, melodic messages contain calls to violence."
The content is typically developed abroad, but it is being placed on U.S. servers and is targeting domestic audiences, Cilluffo says.
Terrorist tactics on the Internet:
•Downloadable video games, such as Quest for Bush, in which players can advance to levels called "Jihad Growing Up" and "Americans' Hell."
•YouTube and MySpace videos, such as underground rapper "Sheikh Terra" singing with a gun in one hand and a Quran in the other, set against images of Iraqis being killed by U.S. troops.
•Graphic images on websites that show injured Muslim women and children, depicted as victims of Western attacks.