Is This What the Army Thinks of Us?
May 9th, 2007Via: cjrdaily:
It looks like it’s official: the United States Army thinks that American reporters are a threat to national security. Thanks to some great sleuthing by Wired’s “Danger Room” blogger Noah Shachtman, the Army’s new operational security guidelines (OPSEC) hit the Web in a big way yesterday, and the implications they have for reporters — who are grouped in with drug cartels and Al Qaeda as security threats to be beaten back — are staggering.
Make no mistake, this is a very big deal, and every American citizen, not just reporters and soldiers, needs to understand the implications of the Army’s strict new policy, because it directly affects how citizens receive information about their armed forces: information that it has every right to get.
Shachtman reproduces a slide from the new “OPSEC in the Blogosphere,” document, which lists and ranks “Categories of Threat.” Under “traditional domestic threats” we find hackers and militia groups, while “non-traditional” threats include drug cartels, and — yes — the media. Just to put that into some perspective, the foreign “non-traditional threats” are listed as warlords, and Al Qaeda. In other words, the Army has figuratively and literally put the media in the same box as Al Qaeda, warlords, and drug cartels.
Related: U.S. Plans to ‘Fight the Net’
and by “media” they mean independent bloggers not fox. they WILL limit the ability to use webspace ala fcc style “frequencies” being sold for high dollar to state run, err, large corporations. leaving the little guy out in the cold.
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Yes, only those propaganda sources who play ball and dispense the pre-approved party line will have access to either the news or the masses. All others will be shut out, enemies of the state.