US Army bans soldiers from viewing The Guardian website

US Army bans soldiers from viewing The Guardian website

www.montereyherald.com

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 abThe Army admitted Thursday to not only restricting access to The Guardian news website at the

(visit the link for the full news article)

So, from what I gather, The US army is stopping it's soldiers from viewing the Guardian (a UK newspaper) website in order to prevent any "leaked documents" from being accidentally downloaded onto army computers.

As you probably know, The Guardian has been one of the frontrunners over here with regards to publishing details of the whole Snowden/PRISM/GCHQ mess. I stopped reading newspapers a long time ago (they angry up the blood) but I think the Guardian is one of the few papers in the UK that still get's a modicum of respect from the "thinking" public, and I would certainly hold it in higher regard than the likes of the Daily Mail etc.

So what other reasons could the army have for banning their members from reading the Guardian? A fear that the publication is getting too "anti-authority" and an attempt to quell any thoughts of dissent?

Is the fact that the Guardian supposedly has documents pertaining to PRISM etc really an actual danger to the Army?



www.montereyherald.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This is the freedom the US army is tasked with bringing to the rest of the planet.

reply to post by chebob


Seems most likely this is to try and prevent soldiers from learning how badly the supposed CIC is trampling on the Constitution they are sworn to uphold.

Maybe because they don't want their troops reading about all the snooping their own government does. Here you are an American soldier serving a country that's meant to be bringing peace and love to the world yet the country you are serving is spying on its own people and its allies in secret. They don't want to run the risks that their soldiers might start questioning the way it's government acts and start wondering what cause they are fighting for

That's my take on it anyway

Western governments are a total disgrace. The lot of them should be thrown in jail. Never has there been such widespread corruption since the fall of Rome.

Originally posted by chebob
So what other reasons could the army have for banning their members from reading the Guardian? A fear that the publication is getting too "anti-authority" and an attempt to quell any thoughts of dissent?

Actually its the same reason given when wikileaks was dumping classified documents. People tend to forget military law is very different from civilian law. Even though the documents were released to the public, they are still classified. A military person accessing those documents would constitute a crime.

Sometimes the news is meant for civilians and during those times the military tries to prevent troops from getting the misinfo designed for the masses...believe it or not but there is a profound method to their madness...

Members of the army are not paid to think or have opinions. Reading material like this could lead them into a dangerous area of thinking for themselves.

They are paid to follow orders.

The funny thing about this is that so many other sites are discussing the information. The only way to really stop members of the army seeing this material is to simply ban them from using the internet.
In the future I am sure there will be a special army internet. The guys can go on, play games, chat, and most importantly only read the news the government wants them too.

I play on-line poker, lol, actually win a few bucks too...anyways, a lot of the people that play are military or retired military. I often times will start chats with them at the tables asking their views on various subjects. Most of the times the guys will speak pretty freely and it's very interesting to gain some insight on how these men view World events.

I recently asked at a table that had 3 other players that identified themselves as having military backgrounds, what they thought about Snowden and Syria....overwhelmingly they all said we should stay out of Syria, ok, that was encouraging....but not a word about Snowden ? I didn't push it at the time, but I thought it was strange....actually I thought it was strange that no one at the table commented at all ?

Perhaps Snowden's biggest fear will come true and nothing will change because of the information he risked his life to share. I really find the censorship of the military to be unbelievably bizzare, but then again nothing shocks me anymore....

Cant have the drones wakeing up and thinking for themselfs!

How's that freedom working out for you 'murrica?

Not everyone in the Army is an idiot, someone somewhere is going to do what they are trying to avoid, due to the sole fact they're trying to avoid it.

Human nature is to one up the previous guy, at the same time sticking it to the man!

CNN wasn't blocked by the military, they should hop on that, since soon the two aren't gonna be on the same propaganda page anymore.

if you haven't seen WW3 if not too far away, this is the loose ends falling to the ground before the dam breaks.

The few, the proud, the strong...but not enough so to decide for themselves...please!
These men and women risk their lives and should be 'allowed' to exercise the freedom they are fighting for.~

LOVE

Originally posted by awake1234
The few, the proud, the strong...but not enough so to decide for themselves...please!
These men and women risk their lives and should be 'allowed' to exercise the freedom they are fighting for.~

LOVE

Thats the problem they are not fighting for freedom at the moment.

And the ones in power are most likley scared if the armed forces find out what they really are fighting for they will turn.

reply to post by crazyewok


Exactly, the thing is, how long do they think that will last?
We live in the year 2013, not 1980s anymore, kinda hard to block someone's smartphone, laptop, or their parents, when they don't live on base... What about TDYs? about Leave? Yeah Army Commanders are the one's who aren't the brightest.

reply to post by chebob


Awww, that's sweet, a regime protecting it's cannon fodder from some parts of the nasty media, well the parts of the media that actually tell the truth

Wow, that's completely the wrong thing to do. These men and woman fight for freedom why? to then have theirs taken away. What was the reasoning behind this? What was the speech given by their superiors as to why losing their rights is the right way to go? Asinine!

There is nothing else I can say really, this is just unacceptable.

reply to post by chebob


This is SOP and has happened many times. If something classified blows in the civilian press, it's still classified. If you are not cleared for that info, you cannot have possession of it even if that possession came from a Guardian front page story.

The same thing happened when wikileaks came out with some of that stuff from Manning. Also, and I won't try it at work to see for obvious reasons, wikileaks is blocked on DOD networks from what I recall.

eta: not at work so can't get the exact wording of the memo, but the last round of this they told you while you were forbidden to have it at work, they couldn't stop you from having at it at the house, as long as you did not have clearance, because in that case if they were to inspect your hard drive and found it, you could be accused of having classified material in an unsecured environment. It's not a move to keep servicemembers uninformed, it's a mindless reaction to the material being classified secret. NB: if they act in a doofus manner like this for S material, it seems odd to think that Greer, Corso et al could blow TS/SCI special access material with not a peep of reaction.

reply to post by Bedlam


Buts its basicaly pissing in the wind. If its hit mainstream media its not secret anymore as everbody will know. Unless you isolate the troops completly from family and freinds they will find out.

And the 1st amendment should garrentee that right anyway. Just because there are soldiers should not been they are exempt. Not once the cat is out of the bag and even a snooty noise 12 yearold living in a basement knows its.