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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Military still coming to grips with blogs

Blogs are all about distributed knowledge and information. The military is all about centralized control. The amount of blogging by soldiers in Iraq and other locations has probably befuddled military powers who not the long ago were still able to censor letters troops mailed home. Today, the Philadelphia Enquirer reports that the military ordered a doctor serving in Iraq to shut down his blog “after Army officials decided his gripping accounts of frontline medicine constituted a breach of Army regulations,” according to reporter Matthew Blanchard.

Maj. Michael Cohen blogged to www.67cshdocs.com, but today that site contains only a brief notice:

“Levels above me have ordered, yes ORDERED, me to shut down this website.  They cite that the information contained in these pages violates several Army Regulations.  I certainly disagree with this.  However, I have made a decision to turn off the site pending further investigation as to whether or not I have violated these Army Regulations.”

According to Army spokesman Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, the Army permits blogging as long as doesn’t “disrupt discipline in their units, make statements on behalf of commanders or the Army as a whole, or reveal operational details that could aid attackers.” Boylan notes that the military is in Iraq defending such rights as freedom of speech, but that sometimes soldiers excercising that right “cross a line.”

 

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