PoliticalWarfare.org

Military public affairs sites are bigger security risk than bloggers

When the Army issued a censorship policy against bloggers last May, it cited "operational security" reasons. Fair enough - as long as the reasons were legit. But we knew at the time they weren't, and now an Army investigative report confirms it.

Wired magazine is reporting that internal Army investigations appear to show that "official Defense Department websites post material far more potentially harmful than anything found on a individual's blog."

The Army Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC) monitored 878 official military websites and 594 individual blogs between January 2006 and January 2007. According to an AWRAC report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the cell found 1,813 operational security violations on the official military websites, and only 28 breaches on the individual blogs.

Official military websites are generally run by public affairs officers (PAOs).

Statistics are unclear because of an apparently contradictory way in which AWRAC presents its methodology. But even the Army agrees that the milbloggers are more security conscious than the public affairs people.

Army spokesman Gordon Van Vleet (of the public affairs shop) says in the Wired story that one "factor that contributes to fewer violations being found on blogs is that in general the blogger is conscientious about their duty not to provide information that could be considered an OPSEC violation."

"Often these bloggers are stationed in the combat areas and they more than anyone understand the importance of security and the potential impact any OPSEC violations could have on themselves and their fellow soldiers, airmen and Marines," Van Vleet said.

He didn't explain why the military's highly trained PAOs don't share that same OPSEC concern.

Welcome to the land of bad grammar

The big TV screen talks down to us as we wait in the passport control line: "You've traveled a long way. And we know you're tired." It's the message of the good people at US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC. The message tells us to be patient as we undergo a three-step process to get our "ticket" to pass through customs.

Actually, our flight from Latin America was not very long - only four hours in a nice new plane with pretty stewardesses who made the trip enjoyable - and few of us appeared tired. And the CBP process wasn't bad, either. But that's not the point.

The video and the accompanying gung-ho posters are an embarrassment to all educated Americans. "Your attention and cooperation is required," the announcer says on the screen. "Attention and cooperation is required"? Since when is "is" plural? Where did the CBP scriptwriters, editors, producers, announcers and officials learn their English?

And then there's the split infinitive on the CBP posters that decorate the passport control officers' booths. A "Pledge to Travelers" proclaims, "We pledge to cordially greet you."  Again: Poor English. There is no reason why CBP publicists can't say it properly: "We pledge to greet you cordially."

More relaxed people might say that a split infinitive is no big deal, that it's part of our everyday language. But thousands of well-educated foreigners, who learned English as a second language, pass through the line every week and know that the sign is wrong. The fact is, it's a serious thing when United States government can't even use proper English in the video and signs that welcome visitors to the new, showcase international airport at the nation's capital.

Finally, on the same poster series, CBP brags that it is "A world class law enforcement agency." 

What useless boasting is this? Isn't this something that most people would presume without being told? Would travelers expect anything less at the gateway to the capital of the United States of America? Would any law enforcement agency of the US government not be "world class"?   

We might expect such silly chest-thumping in, say, Managua or Ouagadougou. But in Washington, DC?

Come on, folks. The CBP officers work really hard to keep all of us safe. Ineptly prepared welcome messages don't befit them. It's better to have no message than the foolishness on parade at Dulles.

Smith-Mundt does NOT apply to DoD

Attention all Information Operations personnel: The Smith-Mundt Act does not apply to you!

Next time a Public Affairs Officer or JAG tells you that you can't run a good IO against the enemy because you might be "propagandizing the American people," tell her to read the law.

Time and again I've seen it in writing where military PAOs and JAGs sabotage wartime info ops by invoking the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act.

The law, which established US public diplomacy and international broadcasting as we know it today, contains a provision that bans the State Department and the former US Information Agency (USIA) from releasing information to Americans that is designed for foreign audiences.  USIA was an independent agency under the State Department.

The Smith-Mundt Act is officially known as Public Law 402. See Title 22 of the United States Code. The part that military public affairs officers and lawyers wrongly invoke is Chapter 18, Subchapter V,  "Dissemination Abroad of Information About the United States." The operative language appears in § 1461. The "Secretary" in that clause, as the rest of the law specifies, is the Secretary of State.

Smith-Mundt and its amendments in the 1972 Foreign Relations Authorization Act, the 1985 Zorinsky Amendment, and the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring act of 1998 refer only to the State Department and USIA. The law is written very narrowly. There is no mistaking that Congress did not intend for the law to apply to the Department of Defense.

If Congress wants the law to apply to DoD, it can amend the law. Until then, the Pentagon should stop acting like it's bound to Smith-Mundt. The Secretary of Defense should instruct all PAOs and JAGs from using the law as a pretext for shutting down IO, and should discipline those who fail to comply.

Operational absurdity

The Army is making it rough on those of us who advocate a stronger military role in the war of ideas. As if it wasn't hard enough already to get the truth out about the war effort and generate public support for a truly noble effort, the Army is making it even harder.

"Operational security" is the supposed reason behind the latest brilliant stroke in the war on terror: A total ban on emails, blogging and other electronic communication from the troops in the field. Unless, of course, those messages are censored first.

There's a lot to be said for cracking down on the sending of messages, images and other electronic data that harm the war effort. And certainly there's a huge security concern about undisciplined disclosure of information. But World War II ended before many of our generals were even born, and it's time for the military to understand the age of the wired grunt and adapt accordingly.

And implement far more rigorous counterintelligence procedures and practices, which is a crux of the real problem.

With few exceptions, the military's IO and public affairs policies are primitive enough as they are, even though we have all the technology and human talent we need. Mindless, blanket censorship of all electronic communications isn't going to help things.

State Department's new Website is a great improvement

Better late than never - the State Department has begun upgrading its notoriously stodgy and unappealing Website, and the first iteration looks great!

The homepage is busier, makes better use of graphics and overall is more pleasing to the eye and interesting for the mind. It gives people a reason to keep coming back to the site. Check out http://www.state.gov/.

Effectiveness of stability operations assessed

An Army War College Strategy Research paper discusses stability operations in post-invasion Iraq.  Col. Paul F. Dicker USAR, writes in "Effectiveness of Stability Operations During the Initial Implementation of the Transition Phase for Operation Iraqi Freedom," studies how the military, State Department, US Agency for International Development (USAID) and others fared in trying to bring order and recovery to the civilian population of Iraq. Publication date: July 2004.