Milbloggers’ Rules

American gen­er­als in Iraq have handed down their rules for mil­i­tary blog­gers. They seem sur­pris­ingly fair.
It wasn’t that long ago that Spc. Colby Buzell was banned from patrols and con­fined to base for what he wrote on his blog. Today, that might not hap­pen.
“Personal web sites and web logs pro­duced in a per­sonal capac­ity and not in con­nec­tion with offi­cial duties need not be cleared in advance,” the new rules read. “However, it is the respons­bil­ity of MNC-​​I [Multi-​​National Corps Iraq] per­son­nel to ensure that any per­sonal web sites and web logs do not con­tain pro­hib­ited infor­ma­tion” — clas­si­fied and for-​​official-​​use-​​only mate­r­ial, basi­cally.
Commanders are sup­posed to review the blogs on a quar­terly basis. “Risk of release of the infor­ma­tion must be weighed against the ben­e­fits of pub­lish­ing,” the chiefs warn. What’s more, “ser­vice­mem­bers in vio­la­tion of this pol­icy may be sub­ject to adverse admin­is­tra­tive action and pun­ish­ment under the UCMJ [Universal Code of Military Justice].“
Phil Carter, who passed on the rules to me (and oth­ers) thinks “this pol­icy strikes a pretty good bal­ance, espe­cially to the extent that it refrains from ‘prior restraint’ [pre-​​publication review]. However, a lot con­tin­ues to depend on the will­ing­ness of com­man­ders to allow these blogs, and the extent to which they exer­cise their law­ful author­ity to quash them.“
(Big ups: Argghhh!)
THERE’S MORE: Milblogger CDR Salamander ain’t too happy, however.

Having your Chain of Command have com­plete knowl­edge and access to your webpage/​blog and/​or post­ings on other inter­net based pub­lish­ing media will put a damper on pri­mary source report­ing, opin­ion, and infor­ma­tion flow we are used to in the quick, hon­est, unvar­nished man­ner we have become accus­tomed…
Let me tell you what this means to me: If/​when I go to the MNC-​​I AOR [Area of Responsibility], CDR Salamander will go cold iron. That is the only way I can keep CDR Salamander anon and brash as it is and not vio­late a law­ful order. No other option.
On a macro scale, sim­ple Freakonomics will tell you that this bur­den will result in fewer blogs and diluted content.

June 13th, 2005 | Blog Bidness | 164051 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2005/06/13/milbloggers-rules/Milbloggers%27+Rules2005-06-13+21%3A35%3A18noahmax You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.