A chilling new op-sec directive handed down by the Army, AR 530-1, which not only shuts down soldier-blogs and ALSO their e-mail, but affects FAMILIES as well, AND soldiers no longer serving in Iraq or who are even out of the military, threatens federal prosecution to violators on the grounds of "operational security."

According to Wired online magazine:

"The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest reduction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs...

"Active-duty troops aren't the only ones affected by the new guidelines. Civilians working for the military, Army contractors--even soldiers' families--are all subject to the directive as well."

Even worse, Big Army Brother will be watching all of us, in the form of the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell, which will scan blogs for "information breaches."

And if you think they'll just be reading blogs with a .mil designation, think again. Over on Daily Kos, an Iraq vet posting as MotleyPatriot, who has experience in opsec matters, breaks down the new directive, explaining that this new security crack-down doesn't just apply to classified material, or just to material which we all know makes common sense, such as, posting an entry in which you mention a soldier, his rank, his unit, and their current location, or otherwise discuss any kind of missions they may be on. Most of us understand that.

No, it ALSO applies to so-called "critical information," and the definition for that is ridiculously broad, to include, say, posting photographs of your soldier--even photographs of soldiers who have been killed--or:

"ANY information that could be used, in whole or in part, that gives the enemy the ability to determine operational capability, strength, tactics, or intent. It could be something as large as a classified battle plan, or as small as a soldier's picture posted over the internet that shows the compound in which he lives, or the types of vehicles they have..."

Furthermore, if information considered "critical" HAS ALREADY BEEN PUBLISHED ANYWHERE, and it is LINKED or otherwise RE-POSTED--that is considered an opsec violation under this new directive.

It poses, "unnecessary exposure of the compromised information and may serve to validate it."

So I guess when the President posed for television news cameras standing in front of a map SHOWING WHERE EVERY NEW ARMY POST IN BAGHDAD WAS CONVENIENTLY LOCATED, well, we can't post that video now because it would compromise security.

I guess Bush didn't get the opsec briefing.

Spelled out in the new directives are such family-friendly sites as Family Readiness Group pages, unofficial Army web sites, Soldiers blogs, and "personal or unpublished works related to the Army."

Not only that, but a soldier's personal e-mails home must now be approved by a superior officer before he can press "send."

(By the way, this is an ARMY directive. I do not believe the Marine Corps has adopted such draconian measures as of yet. But we've got both branches in our family.)

Failure to adhere to the new rules could result in:

(a) Systems administrators being ordered to remove material deemed by the Army to be violating opsec rules--

And if that doesn't shut you up--

(b) It will be considered a "law enforcement" matter and will be turned over to the U.S. attorney's office for criminal prosecution.

That's right. You could find yourself hauled in front of a "loyal Bushie" and prosecuted for breaching national security because you posted a picture of your kid wearing body armor that could, according to this, be helpful to the enemy in figuring out more creative ways to kill the troops.

The most insidious part of the new rules, as I understand them, is that they apply to material that COULD BE PIECED TOGETHER BY THE ENEMY and thus ostensibly be used to put together a picture of troops' weaknesses and strengths or tactics.

Geez, I hardly know where to start with this one, but I will take the Army's side on one part of the directive, which is soldier's blogs.

The Army has never had to deal with such instantaneous war-coverage by their own troops before. Certainly, in World War II, troop mail home was censored, and there is good reason for that. Even now, when our men and women in Iraq receive a snail-mail letter from home, they have to cut off the return address and burn it, or else burn the entire letter. Families at home have actually received threatening phone calls from overseas, or, as one family I know of--who received a call with a thick Arabic accent claiming that their child was dead.

So there are all kinds of good reasons to be cautious. And a lot of these kids posting blogs, in their zeal to show the folks what they're doing--maybe embellish their feats just a bit--or, if not, then maybe to process the horrors they've seen in what has become a modern-day journal.

And they don't always think it through. It didn't take long, for instance, for the entire military to learn to shut down all phone calls or e-mails home after a unit member was killed, because the guys were e-mailing their parents, and the parents were talking about the KIA on parental support boards--BEFORE the families had been notified.

So now, for 24 hours, no contact home. That is fair and sensitive.

But a lot of these kids, like I say, they inadvertantly give away too much sensitive information about their locations and the enemy action they've seen. In this MySpace culture, young people often don't stop to think that when they are posting the most intimate and personal information about themselves, that such info becomes available to ANYONE IN THE WORLD and not just their close friends.

So I can understand requiring, at least, that a superior officer check a blog content from a combat zone before it is posted.

But this new directive goes so much farther than that, that it effectively shuts them down. And the Catch-22 of it is that many of these blogs are very pro-Army and very pro-war, which in a sense, is the best Army commercial they could come up with.

Whatever.

Most families on most support-group websites are acutely aware of opsec--to the point of outright paranoia, in my opinion. I can't count the times I got opsec'ed out on the MarineParents website for saying such scandalously classified things as:

"Every letter we get home from Dustin, he says how much he'll miss being home for Christmas."

Wow. That's pretty sensitive stuff!

So I bugged out of there--Most of us combat parents eventually form a little posse of like-minded combat parents to huddle with--but even then, we're all careful.

But what these new rules do is effectively terrify family members into not saying ANYTHING from fear of getting hauled off to jail.

Not stated, but hovering in the background is the implicit threat that, if you speak out against the war, you might all of a sudden be breaching "opsec" rules.

For instance, according to the new rules, I guess you could go through my posts here and over at my blog at tpmcafe and consider some of what I've written about my family as "parts of a whole" that could be assembled by some lurking terrorist or at least an Army computer geek working for AWRAC.

If they want to challenge me on it, I might point out that all I have said about my nephew is that he is in the Army and in Baghdad.

Along with 20,000 other troops.

Unlike our brilliant commander-in-chief, I have not provided a handy map as to his location. I have never mentioned his rank, or his duty assignment, or his unit, or his specific location which might or might not actually be IN Baghdad.

I don't even think I've ever actually mentioned his name.

But see, what happens when they play these Big Brother games is that they scare you into hunkering down and submitting, from fear that even if YOU don't get into trouble--your loved one will.

Will they get hauled in to their CO's office and get an ass-chewing because of something you said? Will they get into more serious trouble?

You wouldn't believe what a chicken-shit institution the Army is. It could happen.

So you get all riddled with doubts and back off, thinking, Well, it's best just to say nothing.

BINGO.

I have a friend who asked her deployed son if he would mind if she spoke out against the war online, and he said, "Mom, one of the things we fight for is freedom of speech.  Go for it." 

Ahhh...Freedom of speech?  Remember that? 

Here is what I'm looking forward to: An ACLU challenge of some of these bullshit rules.

Like, not posting links to previously published materials. As MotleyPatriot pointed out, when he linked to a typical soldier blog that had revealed WAY WAY too much information as in illustration--he was opening himself up to prosecution. Or at the very least, to being shut down by the systems administrator.

I would love to think that the Big Army Brother will ONLY be cruising the 'Net looking for military blogs to censor, but I know better.

Don't TELL me that they won't start hanging out in places like Huffingtonpost.com, Daily Kos, or Talking Points Memo, looking for subversives like me to shut down, shut off, and shut up.

So if I should suddenly vanish from sight, well, I gave you fair warning.

But if that happens, I'm calling the ACLU and the fight is on.

(cross-posted at:  http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/deanie_mills)