Military Crack Down On Internet Shenanigans

The U.S. Army is warning soldiers that posting photos on their Web logs may inadvertently reveal "vulnerabilities and tactics," and "needlessly place lives at risk." Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker circulated a memo to all Army personnel last week saying that "we must do a better job" at operational security -- "OPSEC" in military parlance."Some soldiers continue to post sensitive information" on the Internet and especially on their Web logs or online diaries, wrote Schoomaker, giving as examples "photos depicting weapon system vulnerabilities and tactics, techniques and procedures. "Such OPSEC violations needlessly place lives at risk and degrade the effectiveness of our operations," he wrote. Schoomaker promised that amendments to Army regulations would be promulgated within a month, and that officers would have access to new training materials on the issue by Sept. 2. In the meantime, he ordered Army staff at the Pentagon to "tracks and report, on a quarterly basis, (such) OPSEC violations." "Get the word out and focus on this issue now," Gen. Schoomaker concluded. "I expect to see immediate improvement." A copy of the memo was posted on the Web by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, who edits the e-newsletter Secrecy News. Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Tracy O'Grady-Walsh told United Press International it was Department of Defense policy that military personnel, "while acting in a private capacity ... have the right to prepare information for public release through non-Department of Defense forums or media" so long as they did it in their own time and with their own equipment, and did not use "information generally not available to the public." But, she added, parts of the military "are permitted to issue additional guidance to their personnel as long as it doesn't conflict with" Pentagon policy. In Iraq, for instance, soldiers already have to register their blogs, as the popular online diaries are called, and are forbidden from revealing classified data, naming casualties until after their families have been informed, or writing about incidents that are being investigated. At least one soldier has already fallen afoul of the current restrictions. Arizona National Guard Spec. Leonard Clark was last month fined $1,640 and demoted to private for violating two provisions of the Uniform Military Code of Justice by posting what the military said was classified material on his blog. Other U.S. military personnel who have Web logs reacted in different ways to Schoomaker's announcement, with some applauding the move and others more cautious, fretting that this might herald a new era of restrictions. The Army intelligence officer who blogs as Blackfive wrote on his site that he had seen little in the way of descriptions of tactics "that could not be found in an Army manual from an Army-Navy surplus store or on E-Bay." Nonetheless, he warned that "Military bloggers must now be very, very aware that one mistake might, at best, get all of the MilBloggers shut down, and, at worst, cost lives," Blackfive concluded, using the shorthand terminology for military online diarists.The retired military blogger who calls himself "John, the armorer and master of Castle Argghhh," advises fellow bloggers to check with senior officers if they have any doubt about posting something. "We can talk all day about the pros and cons of what's more important, the flow of information, or the hoarding of it," John wrote in a post last week, "but the point is that the active duty milbloggers (and those of us who hold clearances, regardless) need to keep an eye on what we post and how it's sourced -- because the Chief just told all our bosses to keep an eye on it...." "Remember," he continued, "the (chief of staff of the Army) just kicked your bosses in the teeth, which means the weaker of them are going to go overboard in erring on the side of caution, which means pressure on you. Maintain a 360 scan guys, and when in doubt - don't post it. Ask," he concluded. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Pierett told UPI that battalion security officers, or in smaller units, the unit commander, had the authority and the training to review blog posts and other communications before they were sent, to make sure there were no violations of OPSEC. O'Grady-Walsh said blogging was only one of the ways that troops were using new technologies innovatively. Others included cell phones with cameras and the establishment of unit Web sites. She said the department was trying to exploit "the communications technologies (that) are changing the very fabric of our societies ... and the way our young people think and interact." She added that the use of official blogs as a "collaborative tool" had "become an integral part of current practices at all levels of the department." But Blackfive suggested that the unprecedented access troops had off-duty to the Web was part of the "experiment in expeditionary force theory" represented by Operation Iraqi Freedom. He gloomily predicted that "in the future, military blogging will be severely restricted" with senior officers deciding that the experiment was "risking much more than they are gaining." A note from Schoomaker's deputy, Gen. Richard Cody, circulated with his memo, spells out that risk. Cody's note says that Iraqi insurgents and foreign jihadists are using pictures -- of roadside bomb strikes, firefights, injured or dead U.S. soldiers or enemy and destroyed or damaged vehicles and other equipment -- "as propaganda and terrorist training tools.""The enemy is actively searching the unclassified (computer) networks for information, especially sensitive photos, in order to obtain targeting data, weapons system vulnerabilities, and (tactics, techniques and procedures) for use against the coalition," he wrote. He gave as an example the fact that "annotated photos of an Abrams tank penetrated by (a rocket propelled grenade) are easily found on the internet." "By showing the effect on a vehicle that way, you are revealing its vulnerabilities," Pierett said. "NETCOM tracks who is on the (military's public computer) networks," wrote John, referring to the Army's Network Enterprise Technology Command, "and the Jihadis are there, reading, sharing, learning."