US Marine Corps Bans Social Networking Sites

Q-Hack! writes "Citing security concerns, the United States Marine Corps has issued an order banning access to social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter on its network for the next year. The Pentagon is now reviewing its social networking policy for the entire Department of Defense, which should be completed by the end of September, according to a report from CNN. The policy for the entire military is somewhat fragmented, as the Army ordered military bases to allow access to social media sites in May."

You can shoot people, son, but don't blog!

[elrous0]

My grandfather was a Marine in Korea and moved up the ranks from enlisted to officer very quickly. When I asked him once how he got to be an officer so fast he joked (I *hope* he was joking, anyway) that any Marine who could read and write was immediately promoted to officer. On the other hand, considering the level of discourse on most social networks, maybe modern Marines are better off not refining their writing skills there anyway.

However, it does seem bizarre that guys who are entrusted to carry loaded automatic weapons around (and use them), aren't trusted to write a tweet to their buddies back home. A guy is given the power to shoot people, but not to blog or buy a beer (if he's under 21). Seems like a mixed message.

Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog!

[DrgnDancer]

Such Battlefield promotions are very rare outside of major theater combat wars. They generally occur when a unit has lost so many officers that it cannot function well. Usually the men (or women now I suppose, though that hasn't happened to my knowledge. No women have been allowed close enough to combat in any of the wars where such things occurred) are expected to complete all the schooling and training that would normally be required for their rank after things settle down. My wife's grandfather had to go to college after WWII in order to be allowed to keep the field commission he'd been given while fighting in France (He was Army, but I'm pretty sure the concept is the same).

Re:The devil is in the details...

[DrgnDancer]

It's blocked on their network. Let me just tell you the kind of Hell you'd get if you plugged your personal laptop into a DoD network. Twitter will be the least of your worries. Since most DoD networks port lock all access (if no computer is currently authorized for that port, it's turned off. When a computer is authorized for that port, its MAC is registered at the switch and no other machines will work) it wouldn't much matter any way. You couldn't go anywhere even if you did plug in your laptop, but it would still get you in trouble if they found out you did it.

Internet in barrack, apartments, and base housing is normal ISP provided Internet with no funky DoD stuff involved. That is not blocked in any way (unless, you know, your ISP is blocking p2p or something). We even had satellite service set up in our housing in Baghdad to give us unfettered civilian access to the 'Net during downtime. We paid for it from a local company and split it among enough people to make it reasonable. I would not have wanted to play WoW across it, but it did fine for IM, web browsing, and e-mail.

Re:Do not talk to somebody in a bar about the army

[Darth_brooks]

One of the more fascinating things coming out of intelligence circles today is how much we are learning from those minute details, and how much of that data we are releasing to the press. Things like being able to tell how old video of Kim Jong Il is by looking at foliage in the background, or what time of day a Bin Laden tape was filmed (notice that those videos are all against a white sheet, or in windowless rooms now). I bet you could even identify a particular camcorder model (or even unit) by the noise it introduces into a tape.

Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog!

[Em Emalb]

(Disclaimer: I served in the Corps)

The funny thing about all this location secrecy is that the majority of the time, if anyone wants to know where (for example) a particular Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is, all they need to do is read one of the trade rags that follows the Corps.

Seriously, my family knew where I was deploying to before I did.

But yeah, this is a non-issue, this is regarding only DOD computers.

Mini-rant: Back in my day, on board ship we barely had email access, and it was used strictly for ship to ship or command to command communications (along with the sat shots, etc). They'll get along fine. Nothing wrong with staying in touch via email, or hell, cell phone.

Re:YRO

[jackal40]

It's just a fact of defending the Constitution, you are bound by the regulations of the service you joined; very few service people realize that your rights are suspended when they join up. Given they are citing security concerns, I don't see the problem. If they were trying to ban total access to social networking sites on and off-duty, they can do it.

Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog!

[tcopeland]

> any Marine who could read and write
> was immediately promoted to officer.

These days, though, Marines are different. Check out the Marine Corps reading list [militarypr...glists.com], especially the "Private to Lance Corporal" section. "Ender's Game", "The Ugly American", etc...

Also banned: raping Japanese schoolgirls

[Rogerborg]

You can put the law on the books, but enforcing it is another matter.

Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog!

[Cajun Hell]

It's about judgment, not power. Deciding whether or not to shoot someone might not always be easy, but at least the short-term consequences are clear: they die. (And it hardly ever starts World War 1.) But when you tell your girlfriend exactly when you'll be coming back from your Daiquiri storage depot bombing run (coming in from the north below their radar), you might not realize that she might mention your return time to someone, with the info eventually getting back to the enemy.

And that's just the cover reason. There's also the problem of soldiers saying "it sucks here and it's clear that we're not actually serving our own country's interests by being here; I joined to serve my country, not harm it, and I don't want civvies treating me like a Vietnam vet when I get back," which in turn could result in political pressure and a president deciding to stop spending so much money. That can be bad for contractors' business. If I were a contractor, I would pressure the military to shoot any soldier who voices any opinions or posts any of their torture videos to MySpace. The public needs to stay uninformed about the [lack of] utility of the mission or the plug could get pulled. And then nobody wins except the taxpayers. Can't have that.

Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog!

[morgan_greywolf]

They're only allowed to shoot people on command.

In a war zone? They give the command "fire at will" maybe once. Maybe. Usually if there's jihadist waiving a machine gun around and coming at you, you fire, command given or not. I know of no soldier who has ever been criticized for defending himself and his platoon.

Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog!

[laejoh]

Neal Stephenson puts it like this:

This "sir, yes sir" business, which would probably sound like horseshit to any civilian in his right mind, makes sense to Shaftoe and to the officers in a deep and important way. Like a lot of others, Shaftoe had trouble with military etiquette at first. He soaked up quite a bit of it growing up in a military family, but living the life was a different matter. Having now experienced all the phases of military existence except for the terminal ones (violent death, court-martial, retirement), he has come to understand the culture for what it is: a system of etiquette within which it becomes possible for groups of men to live together for years, travel to the ends of the earth, and do all kinds of incredibly weird shit without killing each other or completely losing their minds in the process. The extreme formality with which he addresses these officers carries an important subtext: your problem, sir, is deciding what you want me to do, and my problem, sir, is doing it. My gung-ho posture says that once you give the order I'm not going to bother you with any of the details-and your half of the bargain is you had better stay on your side of the line, sir, and not bother me with any of the chickenshit politics that you have to deal with for a living. The implied responsibility placed upon the officer's shoulders by the subordinate's unhesitating willingness to follow orders is a withering burden to any officer with half a brain, and Shaftoe has more than once seen seasoned noncoms reduce green lieutenants to quivering blobs simply by standing before them and agreeing, cheerfully, to carry out their orders.