ARMY DOCUMENTS POSTED "ILLEGALLY," ARMY SAYS
A U.S. Army official told the Federation of American Scientists that Army documents on the FAS web site had been published by FAS "illegally" and must be removed.
"There are only 5 Official Army Publications Sites," wrote Cheryl Clark of the U.S. Army Publications Directorate in a May
4 email message. "You are not one of them."
"You can link to our publications, but you cannot host them,"
she wrote.
Furthermore, she indicated, a recent Army Regulation on "Operations Security" (first published by Wired News and mirrored on the FAS site) was "not intended for Public release."
"Please remove this publication immediately or further action will be taken," Ms. Clark warned.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2007/05/sa050707.html#req
"I have considered your request that we remove Army publications from the Federation of American Scientists web site," I responded today. "I have decided not to comply."
By law the Army cannot copyright its publications, the response explained. Nor is FAS, a non-governmental organization, subject to internal Army regulations on information policy.
"Accordingly, our publications are not illegal nor in violation of any applicable regulation."
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2007/05/sa050707.html
To eliminate potential confusion, we added a disclaimer to our Army doctrine web page indicating that the FAS collection of Army records is not an official Army source, and directing readers to several such official sites.
THE EVOLUTION OF ARMY OPSEC
The recent evolution of Army operations security (OPSEC) policy can be traced from the 1995 regulation on the subject--
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ar530-1-1995.pdf
to the 2005 revision--
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ar530-1-2005.pdf
to the latest iteration of April 2007--
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ar530-1.pdf
In response to reporting by Noah Shachtman of Wired News and the Danger Room blog, the Army issued a Fact Sheet on May 2 asserting that Army OPSEC policy on military blogging was
unchanged:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/army/blog050207.pdf
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Comments: 10
Stacey: I didn't like the way Vegas uses that slogan, just another degeneration of the moral standards in our society, and I SURE DON'T LIKE IT IF IT WERE TO APPLY TO IRAQ! Wow! and "well-put!"
Put Steven Aftergood in the Brig
Gabriel Schoenfeld - 5.8.2007 - 9:36AM
"The men and women who are defending our country, whether in the field or in the Pentagon, deserve our gratitude and respect. But sometimes the U.S. Army does things that are wrong, and sometimes it does things that are dumb".
"The trouble is that the OPSEC document is now widely available on the web. Published first by Wired News, it was then replicated by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the Left-leaning advocacy group which runs a website that is one of the world's best private repositories of documents pertaining to U.S. security and secrecy" (emphasis mine)
What will happen next? I do not know. But Aftergood, who is a thoughtful critic of government secrecy—he and I have debated issues of secrecy and government leaks in the pages of COMMENTARY—would seem to have the law on his side.
If the U.S. Army is serious about operational secrecy, it would do well to keep its secrets truly secret and not let them slip into the hands of the Federation of American Scientists. Trying to recall a secret once it is out only compounds whatever damage has been done. Even before the advent of the Internet, it was impossible to squeeze toothpaste back into the tube.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/contentions/index.php/schoenfeld/408
ABC News: Army Threatens Critic Over Blog Policy
May 09, 2007 12:01 PM
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/05/army_threatens_.html