Army Censors NSA Stories on Bases

The goal is to prevent soldiers from seeing classified info
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 28, 2013 7:05 AM CDT
Army Censors NSA Stories on Bases
Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald speaks to reporters at his hotel in Hong Kong, June 10, 2013.   (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)

Anyone in America can read the Guardian's blockbuster reporting on the NSA's surveillance programs—except, apparently, US soldiers. The Army has restricted access to the British newspaper at all of its bases nationwide, the Monterey County Herald has learned. While soldiers can visit the paper's US site, guardiannews.com, any links pointing to the British site—including those to the NSA reporting—are blocked. A spokesman for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) confirmed that the block was on, and that it was "Armywide."

Army Cyber Command—which NETCOM works under—blocked the site "in order to prevent an unauthorized disclosure of classified information," explained an email sent to employees at the Presidio at Monterey base. If the classified documents the Guardian has posted wound up on an unclassified computer, the Army would have to go through a "labor intensive" process to wipe the computer, the NETCOM spokesman said, then whoever downloaded them would face disciplinary action—even though the "classified" material in this case is now public knowledge and widely available. (More National Security Agency stories.)

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