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Defense Secrets Safer With Bloggers Than Brass

I've noted before the mistrust that top military leaders have of bloggers within their ranks. As it turns out, the bloggers appear to be less of a threat to national security than the brass in charge of Defense Department Web sites.

Wired News reports that audits performed by a special Army Web unit, and released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act, found 1,813 violations of "operational security" policy on 878 official military sites. But the 10-man unit discovered at most 28 breaches on 594 individual blogs.

"It's clear that official Army Web sites are the real security problem, not blogs," Wired quoted EFF staff attorney Marcia Hofmann as saying. "Bloggers, on the whole, have been very careful and conscientious. It's a pretty major disparity."

An Army spokesman said: One "factor that contributes to fewer violations being found on blogs is that in general the blogger is conscientious about their duty to not provide information that could be considered an [operational security] violation. Often these bloggers are stationed in the combat areas, and they more than anyone understand the importance of security and the potential impact any OPSEC violations could have on themselves and their fellow soldiers, airmen and Marines."

Posted by Danny | 06:59 AM

Comments

A particularly interesting story given the British Ministry of Defence's recent decision to ban the use of email, blogs and forums. Read more at http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/08/mod-blog-ban-too-little-too-late.html

Admittedly, the MoD's ban appears to be a reaction to a specific case, but interesting nonetheless. Seems like the MoD were just looking for an excuse. How long will it be before the Pentagon finds a similar excuse?

Ed Trelinski | 08.17.07 04:19 PM

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