Intellectual Property Law

NYT Launches Baghdad Blog. Will Air Force Block It?

By Cynthia Brumfield

The New York Times has launched a very interesting blog called Baghdad Bureau, Iraq from the Inside, written by current and former NYT reporters. The paper has 7 to 10 Western reporters, photographers and videographers who work with a large staff of Iraqi reporters in the city and throughout Iraq.

The blog features first-hand accounts of what's happening inside Baghdad, including videos and podcasts made by the reporters. It's not your usual fare. This item by former newsroom manager Ali Adeeb opens with this sentence:

"Hurry up, Mom, we don?t want to be late," I called my mother after I heard the sound of an I.E.D., an improvised explosive device, blowing up.

Let's just say that most Western blogs rarely feature first-hand items about a family fleeing the devastation of war. Let's also hope that the Air Force sees fit to keep this blog off its list of banned blogs.

Wired's Danger Room reports that the Air Force is cutting off personnel access to many blogs, including those with the word "blog" in its web address. The Air Force Network Operations Center under the service's new "Cyber Command" is using software to block access to all blogs that are not "primary, official-use sources."

Not only is this new policy "utterly stupid" according to an anonymous Air Force official cited by Danger Room, but it could also be potentially dangerous. A lot of blogs, such as the banned Counterterrorism Blog, can be great sources of intelligence for tracking insurgents and other potential foes.

One former Air Force officer who writes a now-banned blog called In From the Cold using the pseudonym Nathan Hale told Danger Room

If knowledge and information are power -- and no one disputes that -- then why not trust your people and empower them to explore all sides of issues affecting the service, air power and national security?

Full post as published by IP Democracy on February 27, 2008 (boomark / email).