Philocrites

Philocrites:

April 9, 2007 08:19 AM | Permalink for this comment

To be clear: I am pointing to a coincidence that a visitor from a Department of Justice server came to this site from a Cheney-related post at Times and Seasons and spent several minutes only a few days before the site became unavailable on at least one Air Force office computer network. It seems unlikely, but possible, that my site ended up on a restricted list as a result.

Philocrites:

April 9, 2007 10:27 AM | Permalink for this comment

Apparently a bunch of liberal blogs were blocked from other Air Force computer last April, which means I'm a year late to the party. This article from Federal Computer Week magazine includes the following interesting material:

Air Force Capt. Gary Arasin, a Central Command spokesman, said systems administrators can request the blocking of specific sites, but officials at the command headquarters level make the final decisions.

“Military computer firewalls and protections in general don’t focus on specific sites but rather filter information by type content,” Arasin said. For example, they might ban pornographic sites or sites that use a lot of bandwidth with streaming audio or video.

But a systems administrator could set up Web site filtering outside the knowledge of senior officials, said a public relations officer at WebSense, which supplies Web-filtering software to the Army.

“We don’t know exactly how they use it,” the public relations officer said. “They can choose the policies however they want to.”

WebSense divides sites into defined categories and allows administrators to block entire categories or individual sites.

Blogs fall under the WebSense category of “productivity categories,” which also includes instant messaging, discussion groups, online brokerage sites and freeware download sites.

Sites representing political groups, such as political parties or advocacy organizations, are categorized as government sites, along with Web sites the military runs.

Is my DOJ visitor vindicated? Could be! But why would the Air Force crack down on websites in April last year and again this year?

("Boutelle: Army not blocking political sites," Josh Rogin, FCW.com 10.26.06)

Philocrites:

April 9, 2007 08:50 PM | Permalink for this comment

Government Executive magazine's "TechInsider" blog is seeking input about other sites that may have been barred from Air Force computers.

Philocrites:

April 10, 2007 08:01 AM | Permalink for this comment

A reader from the Army writes:

I don't think it is anything personal. The different military services and even different commands within the services will be more restrictive on internet access then others. Especially if an operation is going on and bandwidth has gotten tight, they will restrict Internet access to all internet sights that don't end in .mil or .gov just to make sure the system works as fast as possible.

Could be! I'll check with my Air Force correspondent to see how long the block remains active.

Joe:

April 10, 2007 08:44 AM | Permalink for this comment

This website is viewable from an AFB in OK.

leveymg:

April 10, 2007 09:09 AM | Permalink for this comment

If the US Air Force needs to restrict on-line materials it deems unsuitable for its personnel, may I suggest it track visits to web sites that carry messages advocating the inevitability of the end of all human life on this planet.

USAF security might want to include that to their list of suspicious activities requiring investigation, and add the following question to the battery of psychological testing:

"Is it your belief that the End of Times is coming with the Christian Messiah, and that with it will come the End of the World and the Rapture?"

When Air Force personnel attempt to access fundamentalist Christian web sites, they might see the following message:

_______________________________________________
THE SITE YOU ARE TRYING TO ACCESS IS PROHIBITED

Those who indicate by their observed web viewing habits any tendency toward belief in doctrines advocating or endorsing the desirability of the End of the World by fire or ice shall be reassigned to posts outside of the chain of command, control or custody of nuclear weapons.

Such persons thus identified as security risks should may have their status reviewed for suitability for continued government service.

All information, including personal information, placed or sent over this system may be monitored. Use of this DoD computer system, authorized or unauthorized, constitutes consent to monitoring of this system. Unauthorized use may subject you to criminal prosecution. Evidence of unauthorized use collected during monitoring may be used for administrative, criminal, or other adverse action. Use of this system constitutes consent to monitoring for these purposes.
__________________________________________________

Let's see how they like that regulation and surveillance of the Internet in Colorado Springs.

Philocrites:

April 17, 2007 02:56 PM | Permalink for this comment

My original Air Force correspondent says one more Unitarian Universalist blog also brings up the "prohibited" image: Debitage.

Meanwhile, readers have written to say that they can read the site from their government-operated ISP, including a State Department reader, an Army reader, and another Air Force reader. Sounds like a local prohibition to me.

Philocrites:

May 15, 2007 01:59 PM | Permalink for this comment

The Department of Defense is now blocking access to thirteen different social-networking sites, including YouTube and MySpace.

Senior officers said they enacted the worldwide ban out of concern that the rapidly increasing use of these sites threatened to overwhelm the military's private Internet network and risk the disclosure of combat-sensitive material.

"The idea behind it is to have the bandwidth available to mission-critical areas," said Navy Lt. Denver Applehans, a spokesman for U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the task force that designed the restrictions.

In a memorandum to troops dated Friday, Gen. B.B. Bell, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, said the task force had noted "a significant increase in the use of DoD network resources tied up by individuals visiting certain recreational Internet sites," he said. Bell added that the traffic poses "a significant operational security challenge."

"A casualty of war: MySpace: U.S. military blocks popular web sites, cutting ties to home," Alan Sipress and Sam Diaz, Washington Post 5.15.07, reg req'd)