"'This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging,' said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. 'No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has -- it's most honest voice out of the war zone. And it's being silenced.'"
It seems the military needs to create some sort of monitored blogging facility - a soldier writes their blog, but it doesn't go public until after review by the censors. They either don't have the budget (thanks Congress!), or the will to do this. Telling a soldier to get permission from a senior officer before blogging is absurd - ignoring the intimidation factor, those officers a re way too busy to review blogs in a timely manner (and know their superior officer will review the blog will intimidate most soldiers & result in less interesting blogs). The military certainly has a need to control information coming out of a war zone & other areas, but this isn't an effective way of obtaining full compliance - instead people will be finding creative ways to circumvent the policy.
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