(Photo: Flickr/Wikimedia Commons)The U.S. Army is blocking all internet access to press coverage of the NSA spying scandal to prevent service members and military employees from leaking out more information, the Monterey Herald revealed Thursday.
The censorship at Army bases across the U.S. is in place to ward off further leaks and ensure ‘network hygiene,’ said Gordon Van Vleet, spokesman for the Army’s NETCOM network. He told the Monterey Herald:
“We make every effort to balance the need to preserve information access with operational security, however, there are strict policies and directives in place regarding protecting and handling classified information.”
Yet, supporters of whistleblower rights argue that no amount of media filtering from the Army command can stop a soldier or other military employee from acting on his or her own concience.
“The Army is scared of its own soldiers finding out what groups like the army are up to,” said Ryan Harvey of the Bradley Manning Support Network. “If anyone has information about the actions of the u.s. government it is the soldiers themselves. Society has this distorted mythology of what the U.S. does in the world. Members of the military, who are put through hell in the name of U.S. interests, know what’s going on.”
“Bradley manning is part of the army, and there are other Bradley Mannings out there,” continued Harvey. That is what Snowden is showing us now. The military is filled with people upset with what’s going on. The more those service members see people taking meaningful action on these injustices, the more they will want to take action themselves.”
The broad censorship was exposed by the Monterey Herald when people at the Presidio of Monterey Army public affairs base in California were unable to access Guardian articles about the NSA leaks.
While the blocks were at first believed to just shut out The Guardian, Army officials confirmed that the ban is Army-wide.
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Republished with permission from:: Common Dreams