U.S. military restricts access to YouTube, MySpace
Posted on Wednesday, May 16 2007 @ 00:10 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
The Pentagon announced it has restricted access on military computer systems so soldiers can no longer access popular websites like MySpace, YouTube and more than twelve other sites.
The military says it decided to restrict access to these sites because of bandwidth problems and security concerns.
"I put my blog on there and my family reads it," said Zimmerman, 29, a platoon leader with B Company, 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment.
"It scares the crap out of them sometimes," he said.
"I keep it as vague as possible," he said. "I'm pretty responsible about it. It's just basically to tell a little bit about my life over here" he said.
He's regularly at a base where he doesn't have Defense Department access to the Internet, but he has used it when he goes to bigger bases. He'll have to rely on a private account all the time now.
Memos about the change went out in February, and it took effect last week. It does not affect the Internet cafes that soldiers in Iraq use that are not connected to the Defense Department's network. The cafe sites are run by a private vendor, FUBI (For US By Iraqis).
Also, the Pentagon said that many of the military computers on the front lines in Iraq that are on the department's network had previously blocked the YouTube and MySpace sites.
The ban also does not affect other sites, such as Yahoo, and does not prevent soldiers from sending messages and photos to their families by e-mail.
Internet use has become a troublesome issue for the military as it struggles to balance security concerns with privacy rights. As blogs and video-sharing become more common, the military has voiced increasing concern about service members revealing details about military operations or other information about equipment or procedures that will aid the enemy.
Source: Forbes.