US Marine Corps Bans Social Networking Sites 202
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! (Score:4, Interesting)
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! (Score:4, Insightful)
They're only allowed to shoot people on command.
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They're only allowed to shoot people on command.
-Soldier! Get down and give me 20 twits!
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It wouldn't be hard to find 20 twits in the Marines.
-ducks-
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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.
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Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:4, Informative)
For each assignment, there will be very specific rules of engagement covering when you can and cannot fire your weapon.
A local approaching you with a visible weapon would certainly be one of the times you are allowed to do so, under almost all circumstances.
A car approaching a checkpoint and not stopping when ordered to do so would be another.
But no, no marine (or soldier, or sailor, or airman) is just given orders to fire at will when they arrive in country.
Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:5, Interesting)
Neal Stephenson puts it like this:
Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:5, Informative)
They're aren't banned completely, the military just doesn't want it being done on their computers.
I think that's completely understandable, those sites are very attractive vector for exploits.
Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure why this is even a news story - plenty of employers, my own included, don't want their employees using company hardware or infrastructure to surf Facebook, et al. And they're well within their right to impose those restrictions.
When you're on the job, you're on the job. Unless you're a professional blogger or some kind of pop culture researcher, chances are Facebook and Myspace aren't part of your job.
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Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a theoretical tweet: "I have to leave at about 10PM to go on recon in Fadullah. Most of the guy in the platoon doing the patrol are okay, but Lt. Jones is incompetent."
So anyone following the tweet knows the time of the patrol, the strength and the name of one officer in the platoon. I was in army intelligence and getting just that much during an interrogation might take hours. To have someone simply give it to you is a dream come true. Some group picks up on this, knows that a platoon is doing recon and when, it is simple enough to set up an ambush, booby trap or whatever.
This is a smart move.
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Mod parent up, this is exactly the reason for doing this.
I was in Communications in the air force for a couple years too. Out in the field, social networking sites are one of the biggest security risks in existence. I imagine it would be even worse for Marines.
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I'm a bit confused. Can't they just train them to NOT put certain information on public sites?
Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:4, Informative)
I'm a bit confused about the need for tech support, can't we just train users to NOT do stupid things that crash their computers?
There's always that guy that ends up making a mistake anyways. Except, as pointed out above, mistakes over what information is and isn't safe to share over the public internet don't just crash computers. They can, potentially, cost lives.
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Define "certain information". I am really not trying to be insulting, but that is a very naive question. Each person would have to carry a 1000 page volume of the things not to talk about. You could TRY to generalized it by saying "no sensitive information", but just what is "sensitive information"? Is the fact your platoon leader is a jerk "sensitive information"? Well, it could be used as a means of gaining your trust when you "just happen" to get in a conversation with one of
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At this point, service in Iraq has become very, very different from 5 years ago. At this point, most servicemen who are not specifically combat arms are likely to have their own laptops. Even a few years ago, people plugging their personal laptops into the network was becoming a problem.
And no, these days, most of the personnel over there are not "on" 24/7.
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Military folks can have their OWN computers, but putting "that crap" on a govt owned military comp would be simply stupid, IMO. And, apparently theirs as well.
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I don't know the particulars of the situation, but I think an employee should be gauged by their productivity and not just acting busy. If people get their tasks done, then go ahead and check your e-mail, play on facebook, read slashdot *whistles* . . .
If there's not enough work to do and he's got time to play on the Internet all day, then your manager sucks at delegating work or you have more staff than you
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Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:4, Insightful)
Does your employer frequently take you to foreign countries for extended periods of time? Where there are no computers other than those owned by the company? Where there is no internet access other than what's provided by the company?
I didn't think so.
When someone is deployed to a combat zone (Iraq, Afghanistan) they should be able to keep in touch with their friends and family. It's a mental health issue. Twenty years ago soldiers/sailors/marines would write letters (delivered by the Post Office) and make an infrequent phonecall to their parents, spouse, or significant other. Those days are gone.
People now expect to be updated via blogs, social-networks, and to a lesser extent email. That's the world we live in and those expectations (social needs) don't go away just because someone's deployed.
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When you're on the job, you're on the job. Unless you're a professional blogger or some kind of pop culture researcher, chances are Facebook and Myspace aren't part of your job.
The military is slightly different than your job. We are often "at work" 24/7 in places far far from home. Contact with the "real world" is one of the things that keeps us sane. That said, in my service branch, the Air Force, these sites have been banned from the official work network for at least 5 or 6 years. However, at deployed locations, there is almost always MWR computers for this purpose.
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While I agree with the decision from an operational and "hey it's my tax dollars" perspective, there's a part of me that says anything that can keep Soldiers, Airman, Seamen and Marines sane and safe is worth it.
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There are some indications its having the opposite effect though. The constant lesser contact causes feelings of homesickness and isolation to persist, and prevents that same time from being spent bonding with the other soldiers on deployment.
Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:4, Insightful)
The military is slightly different than your job. We are often "at work" 24/7 in places far far from home. Contact with the "real world" is one of the things that keeps us sane.
Your job is different from my job in many respects. I and many others appreciate your service.
None of that changes the fact that your employer is still able to make policy on how the hardware it owns is used. More below.
Does your employer frequently take you to foreign countries for extended periods of time? Where there are no computers other than those owned by the company? Where there is no internet access other than what's provided by the company?
I didn't think so.
When someone is deployed to a combat zone (Iraq, Afghanistan) they should be able to keep in touch with their friends and family. It's a mental health issue. Twenty years ago soldiers/sailors/marines would write letters (delivered by the Post Office) and make an infrequent phonecall to their parents, spouse, or significant other. Those days are gone.
People now expect to be updated via blogs, social-networks, and to a lesser extent email. That's the world we live in and those expectations (social needs) don't go away just because someone's deployed.
I've been sent out of town for up to two weeks at a time for business, and my work computer still blocks Myspace and Facebook. Instead of going on about how it's my God-given right to use the company's computer however I damn well please to keep in touch with my family, I did things that were within the bounds of what my employer requires; I used email, instant messaging, my cell phone, and/or my own computer.
I wouldn't have any intention of forbidding deployed military personnel from keeping in contact with folks back home. I do, however, support their employer's right to maintain their own hardware and networks as they see fit. As far as I'm able to tell, the Marines' policy doesn't prohibit email, phone calls, texting, instant messaging, or other means of contact.
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Yeah but when someone in the marines exposes vital information via an IE/Flash exploit, people could *die*.
With your office job, you'd probably never even notice.
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And when someone in the marines has their functionality diminished because of lowered morale brought about by a decreased ability to communicate with home due to a seemingly arbitrary policy, people could *die*.
People aren't mindless machines. There's a reason we have things like facebook, leave, and the USO. It's not just to be nice.
Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:5, Informative)
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.
They're only blocking it at the office, not banishing the marines from using it when they're off duty. Myspace is blocked at a ton of offices, but nobody cries foul. Working for the marines for 9 out of 10 people, is a normal office job, you show up to work, sit in your cube, and do what needs to be done. After that, you go home and can do whatever you want when you're home. This isn't a big deal, they're just trying to keep the marines from twittering their day away.
For the remaining 1 out of 10 who are stationed "over there," they may rely on the military for network access, but unless things have changed from 3 years ago, if you wanted internet over by baghdad, you had to arrange for your own satellite hookup and use your own computers. This connection was shared amongst a group of guys and was not managed by the military. These small hookups also wouldn't be influenced by the pentagon's orders either.
Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:4, Informative)
As a former Marine, I think that your numbers are way off. While for many in the Corps, when they are not forward deployed, they may be able to 'go home' at night (or for most the barracks). I do not think that more then a third would confuse their job with that of a traditional cubical dweller even when off deployment.
Please note that in addition to current combat zones such as Iraq, and Afghanistan, many jar heads are working on deployments to other locations such as Japan and Cuba, where they are likely to be isolated from friends and family.
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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 t
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Yep yep. Lots of them during WWII and Korea. The men who did so were called 'Mustangs'.
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Thinking about this some more I think there are two reasons you don't see it as much anymore. First, and most obviously, you're not seeing anything like the kinds of casualty rates you saw in WWII and Korea. Units are not losing have or more of their junior officers, and being reduced to ineffectiveness thereby. Second though, they just don't need junior officer like they used. Don't get me wrong, junior officers are important part of unit function as a group, and you wouldn't want to eliminate them or
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Well, the joke is that an infantry Lieutenant is just a guy who's in training to be a Captain. The Army's not going to let you make real decisions before then, because let's face it, you're kind of a moron.
That said, yes and no to the parent poster.
I've lead platoons where I had an administrative function more than anything else, for the simple reason that my platoon sergeant was much more tactically and technically proficient than me. Even better, my squad leaders knew their roles and were a pretty good
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Like I said, I wasn't implying that junior officers could just all go away, and life would move on (after all where else would we all learn how to be captains :-P). More of a chain of authority thing. A platoon NEEDS a Platoon Leader, but if the authority required to perform the administrative and logistical functions of a platoon leader can be temporarily vested in a Platoon Sergeant via a filed letter from the commander, they may not need a Platoon Leader this week or this month. In the old Army, there
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Yeah, apparently, I missed a huge chunk of your point when I read it. Gotta work on that reading thing.
Honestly, I'm of two minds of this concept of junior officers. On the one hand, it's kind of a vestigial concept from the days of guys running around with swords. You ever wonder why we had to buy our own uniforms? No good reason other than that's the way we've done it for hundreds of years. Holdover from the days when officers brought their own horses and clothes because nobility had money.
On the oth
Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:5, Insightful)
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(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
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It is very easy to accidentally "tweet" some information that can be used to infer your location.
The simple fact that you are "tweeting" implies that you are in front of a computer, and not out doing other things.
Re:You can shoot people, son, but don't blog! (Score:4, Interesting)
> 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...
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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 co
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I suspect that if the second half were the case they'd have done this a couple years ago. The military doesn't actually NEED what we'd consider a good excuse to put a gag order on those in their service.
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You really, really don't want John Twittering about how Joe was killed in an ambush a few minutes ago, when the military has not had time to properly identify the body, and inform the families the proper way. The last way you want Joe's parents finding out is from following the tweets (I hate that freaking word) of Joe's unit...
Conversely, you also don't want the enemy to get easy access to how many service people were killed in that ambush they did. They
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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.
Don't know about during Korea, but these days the Corps has one of the higher testing/education level requirements for enlistment. http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/genjoin/a/asvabminimum.htm [about.com]
We just like to joke about strong back, weak mind sort of things.
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Only stupid people carry loaded automatic weapons, and we have already enough of them on the net.
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"A guy is given the power to shoot people"
No.
They're given orders, and they're expected to follow them.
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Other posts address different parts of your question - some are good, others are ignoramus comments made by people without a clue. I'll address more directly the difference between a firearm, and social networking.
The uses of firearms are covered extensively in boot camp, again in advanced training, and almost daily after a soldier joins his command. Firepower is what the Marines are all about. Or, more accurately, firepower, and it's lawful, efficient use. "Every Marine is a rifleman" There is no aspec
The devil is in the details... (Score:2)
Re:The devil is in the details... (Score:5, Informative)
I lived on a USMC base overseas for a number of years. Overseas, most US Service members live on the actual base. But they can buy internet, cable tv, and telephone service from private ISPs. The private ISPs, generally, don't block anything and the logs are not usually reviewed by US Government representatives.
However, when the Marines are at work, they login to a US Government network. This network is firewalled and proxied at the base level. Base leaders decide what gets filtered here. Outside of the Base proxy, there is usually another Command level proxy or firewall. This is managed by (in the case of the USMC), the MC NOSC.
So, at work, twitter and facebook are directed to be blocked. However, I've never seen a military network where facebook and twitter were allowed. So this order is nothing new; just codifying curreny, unwritten, policy.
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...While the "corporate" network is primarily For Official Use Only, some personal use (email, web browsing while "off duty") has always been allowed. All this regulation does it tighten up what is considered acceptable personal use.
The major emails (hotmail, gmail, yahoo) are blocked, and most things that look like a "send" button on blogs are blocked as well. The goal seems to be to prevent DoD users from posting to public places while on the job. Makes a lot of sense, but its really annoying if you need access to a support forum. Or Slashdot.
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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
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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.
Thanks for that. I have a friend that may go back overseas, and his most used point of contact with friends is facebook. I was wondering if this could eventually effect him. He is Air Force, but I am betting the other branches will follow suit if this works well.
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We had that happen a few times while I was overseas. This was before the DoD blanket ban on thumbdrives, so I'd take my unclass drive to my room, download whatever I couldn't get to, bring it back and install it. If it needed to go on a classified system I'd use my unclass system to burn it to non-writable media first.
At the time this was perfectly legal, though I suspect it would get you in a lot trouble now. What a difference a few years makes. I imagine you could still do it that way if you burn to C
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I wonder if Slashdot counts as a social networking site. We have profiles and links to friend's profiles.
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Unless that laptop has its own dedicated satellite uplink, it has to send its traffic through some local infrastructure. Probably the local Marine provided infrastructure. A private machine can have any number of malware threats on board. Which means either: 1. setting up some sophisticated VPN to isolate that machine, or 2. just taking a chance the private laptop won't scan/infect/blab about the local Marine infrastructure, or 3. just banning them. Which is most secure for the Marines?
Re:The devil is in the details... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personal equipment is not permitted on any DoD network by policy, only GFE (Government Furnished Equipment) is permitted. However, depending on the technical solutions in place, it may be possible to connect anything you want, but that could result in severe repercussions should the user get caught.
I can tell you that the major DoD facilities in the Washington DC area use port security and disable all ports by default, only enabling them when needed after the appropriate change request has been made and approved, with justification provided.
As for the original post, it is the Marines network, they can chose whatever to permit or deny at their own discretion, limited personal use is a luxury on government (and even corporate) networks, not a right. If they want, they can remove all outside access, and there is nothing you can do about it, short of quitting (not really an option for some military folks).
Also, as someone else stated, social network sights can result in breaches of security, even unintentional, but at the same time, so can most forums of any type (car, geek, hobby, etc). The ideal solution is of course training your personnel, but sometimes, even the best measures will fail, humans are not perfect, so the best way to prevent disclosure (not to mention that all those lovely facebook apps have access to all your personal info which in of itself could be conceived as a risk depending on your rank or position) or possible infection (how many virus's/trojans have been released due to advertiser sites being compromised, but in that case, it also affects every other site that uses the advertiser), is to remove the potential threat.
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I have to say, thats a big no no as well. In fact most of the facilities in the DC area will confiscate and destroy portable data devices (yes that can include ipods and such).
Military Intelligence... (Score:2, Funny)
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Wow, small world (Score:3, Funny)
Do not talk to somebody in a bar about the army... (Score:5, Insightful)
Irak? (Score:2)
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Where is that?
Next to "Iram".
Re:Do not talk to somebody in a bar about the army (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Loose lips sink ships! (Score:5, Insightful)
a kid who's barely out of high school doesn't want to die, and is nearly cracking under the pressure of killing people in a country he couldn't point to on a map a year earlier.
Uh, sorry, that's really not an accurate reflection of the Marine Corps. More like a form of projection of yourself. Marines are re-enlisting at all-time high rates. This is a volunteer force who signed up in a time of war. They signed up for action and got it. Maybe you'd be pissing your pants in fear, but don't project that on the Marines.
Why are the marines still being stop-lossed? (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't say anything about anyone pissing in their pants. 20% of returning Marines have serious mental health problems [signonsandiego.com], whatever their performance was on the ground. Until now, they have been mostly recycled back into duty without treatment, since there aren't enough people signing up. So much so, Marines are still subject to stop loss. Doesn't sound like a volunteer force to me.
If there's any other propaganda you'd like to regurgitate, though, please feel free. I mean, as long as you have permission to do
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Yes, extremely high unemployment tends to produce that kind of thing. Don't go assuming they're doing it because they're gung-ho supertroopers who eat bullets and shit grenades. A lot of them don't have much of a realistic choice.
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Wow. You totally didn't even look at the article before venting did you? It's people like you that it so Bloody hard to make an intelligent argument against any government policy. Someone will inevitably dig up something like this little rant to show how ignorant and reactionary the other side is.
First of all this is not the Pentagon (yet), it's the Marine Corps. While the Corps is a part of the Pentagon, the article (Hell, the summary) specifically states that the DoD is still working to formulate a co
Amazing! (Score:2)
Not news (Score:2)
Rather vague restrictions (Score:3, Informative)
And then proceed to say that they include
Though it seems that even sites like slashdot could be grouped under that definition. For that matter other sites like wnd.com or the Huffington post could potentially be grouped similarly.
Makes sense to me... (Score:2)
Air Force not shy about blocking critial sites (Score:2, Informative)
I publish www.eDodo.org a humor site for Air Force Academy graduates and cadets. Of course, the Academy blocks us. It's a tricky issue, but the bottom line is that the cadet dorms are gov't property and they use a gov't network, so USAFA gets to filter them.
The original Dodo magazine was an uncensored cadet publication. When the administration started censoring it, eDodo.org was born. I'm hoping more and more cadets get internet enabled smart phones to access the "free" internet.
Back to the topic: The
Also banned: raping Japanese schoolgirls (Score:2, Interesting)
Blackhat Keynote (Score:2)
The ironic thing is just last week we had a military official do a keynote address at Blackhat, and they stressed how important the internet was to the morale and effectiveness of their troops, and not just for operational needs, but social ones.
The official said, (paraphrasing) that they had talked to a carrier Captain and asked him what the most important system on the ship was. He said the internet, and pointed out that the average age of his sailors was 18.5.
I find it ironic that on the heels of this t
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So much for recruitment (Score:2)
"Not only will we keep you in a baking hot desert for years on end, but you won't be able to chat with any of your friends back home."
I guess they are pretty confident they don't need any more troops. They can stop recruiting at high schools then, right?
If only.... (Score:2)
they always blame the marines. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:YRO (Score:4, Informative)
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Indeed.
Army = soldier
Navy = sailor
USMC = marine
Air Force = airman
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As we say, the CNO would never be called a sailor, but the Commandant is proud to call himself Marine. Also, it's the only service where you are not addressed as belonging to that service in boot camp. In Army basic training, you are a soldier. In Marine basic training, you are a recruit and must earn the title Marine on graduation day. If you make it that far.
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Army = soldier
Navy = sailor
USMC = marine
Air Force = airman
The thing that's always bugged me about that is as a result the best generic term the DOD could come up with was "warfighter". Ugh.
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Re:YRO (Score:5, Informative)
Because they signed on the dotted line to uphold and defend the Constitution, they lose part of their free speech. The Uniform Code of Military Justice has clauses in it that make it a prohibit things like participating in rallies in uniform. The military is an extension of the government, therefore its members cannot "make statements." Official statements must come from the Public Relations officers. Anything else can and will be subject to censorship. Any ill spoken of the President is speaking ill of your commanding officer. It doesn't matter if you like him or not, he is your Commander-in-Chief. Don't put a bumper sticker (pro or anti) about a politician on your car if you're in the military either. Note that military service members are not prohibited from writing to their congresscritters. They are also allowed to vote. They are not permitted to run for office other than a local one (same goes for Reserve and Guard members). They are not permitted to campaign for a candidate at least while in uniform... I don't remember about out of uniform.
There shouldn't be a problem with personal blogs or social networking, as long as they don't identify themselves as members of the military and restrict any comments about the government and its officials, the military, and their locations when deployed.
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Restrictions on mobile devices are probably in order as well:
PFC Campbell is approaching the insurgents camp.
PFC Campbell is just a little downwind. They can't see a thing.
PFC Campbell this is going to be good, they have no idea we're here!
PFC Campbell is that a Blackberry that insurgent is holding?
PFC Campbell ohshit
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A service member cannot campaign for a candidate while in uniform, or identify him or herself as a member of the military to drive voters towards a candidate. They can't use their servicemember status to endorse a business either. The real distinction is not just wearing the uniform, as telling people you are a member in such cases is just as much an issue.
Former members certainly regain all their normal rights of free speech. I could, for example, go to a local military surplus shop with the
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I heard someone say on the news story last night (WTOP in the DC area, was listener call in's): "Soldiers are here to defend democracy, not practice it"
Now I do not necessarily agree with that statement, I am just saying its something I heard that provokes some thought on the matter.
Re:YRO (Score:4, Informative)
Two things:
1) They are blocking these sites on GOVERNMENT NETWORKS. This is no different than your company blocking Twitter. These Marines remain perfectly free to use personal Internet connections however they see fit, assuming they don't pass on classified information. You do not rely upon government networks to provide you Internet access in barracks or housing. Even in Baghdad we had civilian Internet connections available to us.
2) Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen do have rights, but not quite the same rights as you and I. When you join the military you contractually exchange your Constitutional rights for the rights granted by a code called the "Uniform Code of Military Justice" or UCMJ. You have most of the same rights as any civilian, but some are modified or taken away based on the realities of military operations. Upon leaving the service or existing active duty, you revert to the normal rights of citizens. The UCMJ is generally fair, and grants MOST Constitutional rights to service people, but one area where it is more restrictive than usual is Free Speech. You simply have more limited speech rights in the military than you do as a civilian. You agree to this as part of signing up.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I find the GPs attitude very common among those who have little/no exposure to the military. Having been an officer in the Air Force, and having gone to college three times now (once for undergrad, twice for advanced degrees), I would say this: If you told me my very life depended upon an utter stranger doing a job properly, and my choices were between an enlisted person in the US military and a college undergrad - and that is the only information I would get - I'm going with the enlisted military. Shit, it
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, so the most advanced military in the world is stupid now? What a revelation! Crazy that you haven't been modded insightful yet, huh?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You really are a poorly read bigot, you know that? A study was recently done on the demographics of the U.S. military, and to the author's surprise, every socio-economic, geographic, racial, ethnic, religious, and gender group was represented in the military to a rough extent to its proportion in American society. Except one.
Northeastern liberals were very underrepresented. Thankfully, people like you probably are, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Your Marine friend is doing what all people do, which is complaining about a problem before he understands it.
Recruiters have always functioned under slightly different rules and in this case, recruiters are specifically exempt from this policy. In fact, many, if not most, recruiting offices of all branches have commercial/dial-up access set up specifically for this purpose.
The reasons for this are simple. One, it's a recruiter's job to communicate with the public at large. This is not your everyday ser