Military censors troops from reading the News

dmnEPC

dmnEPC

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Dec 23, 2010
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WND has received an unclassified NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) that warns airmen not to look at news stories related to the data-mining scandal.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/military-told-not-to-read-obama-scandal-news/#68G4RlEtrBDWqHq3.99
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The notice applies to users of the Air Force NIPRNET (Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network), which is the only way that many troops stationed overseas and on bases in the U.S. are able to access the Internet.
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The last line of the executive summary states:

“Users are not to use AF NIPRNET systems to access the Verizon phone records collection and other related news stories because the action could constitute a Classified Message Incident.”
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Cindy McGee, the mother of an airman stationed in the UAE, spoke with WND.

“The fact that our government is attempting to censor our service members from the truth of what is happening here at home is truly frightening and disheartening,” said McGee.

Her son received the same notice.

McGee continued, “I am outraged that our government is attempting to censor the information from our military that every citizen in this country is potentially being targeted by our government in a massive overreach of their constitutional powers by unconstitutional surveillance of all Americans and storage of that data.”


Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/military-told-not-to-read-obama-scandal-news/#68G4RlEtrBDWqHq3.99
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The Army admitted Thursday to not only restricting access to The Guardian news website at the Presidio of Monterey, as reported in Thursday's Herald, but Armywide.

Presidio employees said the site had been blocked since The Guardian broke stories on data collection by the National Security Agency.

Gordon Van Vleet, an Arizona-based spokesman for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, or NETCOM, said in an email the Army is filtering "some access to press coverage and online content about the NSA leaks."

He wrote it is routine for the Department of Defense to take preventative "network hygiene" measures to mitigate unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
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"We make every effort to balance the need to preserve information access with operational security," he wrote, "however, there are strict policies and directives in place regarding protecting and handling classified information."

In a later phone call, Van Vleet said the filter of classified information on public websites was "Armywide" and did not originate at the Presidio.

Presidio employees described how they could access the U.S. site, www.guardiannews.com, but were blocked from articles, such as those about the NSA, that redirected to the British site.

Sources at the Presidio said Jose Campos, the post's information

assurance security officer, sent an email to employees early Thursday saying The Guardian's website was blocked by Army Cyber Command "in order to prevent an unauthorized disclosure of classified information."
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Campos wrote if an employee accidentally downloaded classified information, it would result in "labor intensive" work, such as the wipe or destruction of the computer's hard drive.

He wrote that an employee who downloads classified information could face disciplinary action if found to have knowingly downloaded the material on an unclassified computer.

The Guardian's website has classified documents about the NSA's program of monitoring phone records of Verizon customers, a project called Prism which gave the agency "direct access" to data held by Google, Facebook, Apple and others, and more.

The source of the leaks, 29-year-old Edward Snowden, is on the run from American authorities. He is a former contractor for the agency.

Van Vleet said the department does not determine what sites its personnel can choose to see on the DOD system, but "relies on automated filters that restrict access based on content concerns or malware threats."

He said it would not block "websites from the American public in general, and to do so would violate our highest-held principle of upholding and defending the Constitution and respecting civil liberties and privacy."
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Restricted web access to The Guardian is Armywide, officials say - MontereyHerald.com :


Does it make sense to keep the service men and women from reading classified materials that are made public?
 


The U.S. government blows, plain and simple.

But I don't think this particular headline is as insidious as it sounds.

The NIPR networks being referred to are the government-maintained networks that are built for viewing declassified information. If their story is that this was an information leak of classified material, then saying a military member cannot view them on the government-maintained NIPR networks (the computers setup and used for gub'ment work) isn't the same as saying military people can't be at home on their own systems viewing these news outlets.

Just to clarify.

Van Vleet said the department does not determine what sites its personnel can choose to see on the DOD system, but "relies on automated filters that restrict access based on content concerns or malware threats."
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And that is misrepresented. The DOD definitely has a list of web sites not viewable on government-operated machines as well as a filtration system. I've had to update it in the past.
 
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