After speaking to a journalist-colleague earlier today who expressed some doubts that the Army would order the blocking of casualty sites, I got some of my own and called Capt. Karns, the Centcom spokesman I had spoken to last week. He said I had misconstrued his earlier statements. (He had written earlier: "If a web site is not an official DoD web site or if it is not required to perform official government functions it can be blocked. In this case, it is important to ensure consistency and accuracy when dealing with causalities.")
While the sites were blocked at some local levels (as are other some other unrelated, sites), Capt. Karns said there is "no policy on casualty sites. The only policy is that sites allowed not be offensive in nature." Implementing that guideline is left to the “discretion of installation commanders.”
My apologies to Capt. Karns--and to readers.
Note: I've added this correction to the top of the original post.
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