Army blogs need approval

[yendi]

Army policies now require approval of all blog entries (although, in fairness, the enforcement might vary).

I just want to know if this also covers Twitter.

"Sarge, is it okay if I write I'm getting kinda sleepy on my Twitter?"

five minutes later. . .

"Sarge, is it okay if I write Going to bed now on my Twitter?"

Comments

[crystalsage.livejournal.com]

They're worried about soldiers leaking sensitive material to the enemy, and to the public at large. Things like "We shouldn't be in this war and we're not winning." Because god forbid the public should see something like that coming directly from the mouth of a soldier in the midst of it all...they might actually think its true.

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

A fellow minion and I (both of us Army contractors with active online lives, neither of us anywhere near Iraq, both of us smart enough to not blog about what we do at work) were discussing this today, very annoyed. We've seen no sign of any enforcement yet, and this story on Wired was the first we'd heard of it. We both plan to just lay low and not mention anything to anyone and hope it goes away.

If it starts to come up, well then, we'll be forced to fully and completely comply. I believe each photo I upload to my photo sharing site will require a separate request for permission (I didn't see anything specifying the details, so I may as well make it as aggravating as possible), and I tend to post a lot at one time, so 100 emails for 100 photos... that should take up an entire work day. And then when I want to blog about my upcoming annual gynecological exam, I'm sure my supervisor and OPSEC officer will love to approve that for me. Let's see, I'll need to email my mom to see what she wants to do for Mother's Day, so I'll have to run that past them. And I'm trying to get help for an upcoming lesson I'm teaching in church, and I'm using an online community I frequent for that, so I'll have to get a couple dozen posts for that approved. And that's just one day.

Ah, the Army. So efficient. So full of wisdom.

that's beautiful...

[happypete.livejournal.com]

because the posting, that's on your time--but the asking for permission, that's merely complying with a regulation.

Of course, you know that after a handful of such messages your COTR or GPOC would either say "cut the crap; go forth and blog no more" or send you an e-mail saying that you were free to blog to your heart's content.