From the Monterey Herald:
The Army admitted Thursday to not only restricting access to The Guardian news website at the Presidio of Monterey, as reported in Thursday's Herald, but Armywide.
Because we wouldn't want the Army ITSELF unwittingly compromising National Security, now would we:
Presidio employees said the site had been blocked since The Guardian broke several stories on data collection by the National Security Agency.
So it's time for a scrub-down:
[Gordon Van Fleet, NETCOM spokesman,] wrote it is routine for the Department of Defense to take preventative "network hygiene" measures to mitigate unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
Don't forget to wash behind your ears:
Presidio employees described how they could access the U.S. site, www.guardiannews.com, but were blocked from articles, such as those on the NSA, that redirected to the British site.
And since we wouldn't want to run the risk of wasting taxpayer's money, it's better to be safe than sorry:
[Presidio of Monterey spokesman Jose] Campos wrote if an employee were to accidently download classified information it would result in "labor intensive" work, such as the wipe or destruction of the computer's hard drive.
Well, at least we've got this reassurance:
[Van Fleet] added that it would not block "websites from the American public in general, and to do so would violate our highest-held principle of upholding and defending the Constitution and respecting civil liberties and privacy."
Apparently they felt we needed reminding that the Army was not blocking the ENTIRE COUNTRY'S access to certain websites. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry on that one, actually.
Kossack thereisnospoon, aka @DavidOAtkins, sums up my feelings on the matter quite well with this tweet:
.........
(All emphasis mine)