Military blocks some Web sites
WASHINGTON – The Defense Department began blocking access on its computers to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other Web sites Monday, severing some of the most popular ties linking U.S. troops in combat areas to their far-flung relatives and friends and depriving soldiers of a favorite diversion during overseas duty.
The banned Web sites include some of the Internet’s most popular destinations for social networking and sharing photographs, videos and audio recordings. Soldiers and their families frequent the sites to exchange notes, swap pictures and share recorded messages – a form of digital communication that, along with e-mail, has largely replaced the much-anticipated mail call of previous wars.
Senior officers said they enacted the worldwide ban out of concern that the rapidly increasing use of these sites threatened to overwhelm the military’s private Internet network and risk the disclosure of combat-sensitive material.
“The idea behind it is to have the bandwidth available to mission-critical areas,” said Navy Lt. Denver Applehans, a spokesman for U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the task force that designed the restrictions.
In computer rooms on bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, soldiers crowd around rows of monitors, lining up to glimpse news from home or leave their boot print in cyberspace. Some postings on YouTube are grainy battle videos shot with small cameras recording the brilliant flare of roadside explosions and crackle of gunfire set to rock music. Others are more melancholy depictions of loss, showing struggling medics and fallen comrades. Entries on MySpace pages are often more personal, running from reflective to vulgar.
Mitchell Millican, of Trafford, Ala., said he had relied on My- Space, a popular social networking site, to stay in touch with his son Pfc. Jonathan M. Millican until he was killed Jan. 20 in an attack on his compound in Karbala, Iraq. “If it wasn’t for the Internet, I wouldn’t have been able to talk to him three days before he died,” Millican said.
Under the policy, troops will still be allowed to access the sites from nonmilitary computers. But few soldiers in combat areas carry private computers. They will continue to have access to the sites through Internet cafes that are not on the military computer network, officers said.
The Defense Department barred access to the Web sites even as the military has stepped up its campaign to upload official videos to the Web, including on YouTube, to help portray U.S. combat efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan in a favorable light.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said these offerings would not be affected by the restrictions because they aren’t posted through the military’s network. Though many U.S. forces would no longer be able to view these videos, Garver added, “They don’t need to. They live them every day.”