Pentagon Acknowledges Blocking Casualty Sites

CORRECTION:
I spoke to a journalist-colleague earlier today who expressed some doubts that the Army would blocking of casualty sites actual policy (rather than leave the call to individual units). So I 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.
====

Last week, I received an email from a marine in Iraq who said his network was blocking him from visiting icasualties.org, a site that compiles casualty figures for Americans Iraq, as well as CNN’s page on servicemembers killed in the war. That was the second time I’d read of the military censoring a casualty-related site. Memoryhole.org, the site that first showed photos of flag-draped coffins being shipped back from Iraq, said in June that one of its readers had a similar experience. GIs trying to visit that site were greeted with:

Access Denied (content_filter_denied)

Your request was denied because of its content categorization: "Extreme;Politics/Religion"

I assumed this wasn’t policy, but rather an overzealous sys-admin with too much time on his hands. I was wrong. An Army spokesman has now explained to me that it is indeed the Army’s intention to block service-members from viewing non-Pentagon casualty sites. (Other services apparently have similar policies and do use filtering software.) Captain Chris Karns, a spokesman with Centcom, explained:

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.

The Armed Forces takes great care to ensure whenever there is a casualty the family receives the information first. Non-DoD sites reporting casualty figures can lead to inaccurate information being distributed. [Note: I've put Capt. Karns’ full response is the previous post.]

Karns’ concerns are understandable—and irrelevant: Icasualties.org and CNN compile their figures from the Pentagon’s own press releases. Nor are names attached to them—unless it’s a link to a previously published article. And even if the problem did exist, isn’t the purported solution just a wee heavy-handed?

P.S. To its credit, the military has started to do the job it once left to icasualties.org: It now posts daily casualty tallies.

UPDATE
Since most people seem to be accessing this post directly, here's some further detail from other posts:

In case it's not already clear, there are other sites blocked besides casualty count sites. Karns goes into more detail in another email: "Certain sites are blocked if access is not required to perform the individuals official duties. Components may be more strict if they deem it appropriate." When I asked what qualifies as an appropriate site, he said, "If it’s tied in to be able to have a greater understanding of world events and it’s a legitimate news source than chances are service-members will have a chance of seeing it." Of course, as I mentioned, icasualties.org and CNN rely on the Pentagon's own announcements. In fact, icasualties.org does such a thorough job that active duty officers have written in praising it.

Comments

[anonymous]

DoD's daily casualty tallies are nothing new. They have had them available for months now. For example, GlobalSecurity.org keeps an archive of them going back to November 2003.

[Paul de Rooij]

Hi; Perhaps of interest:
I compile this weekly datasheet on military fatalities. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/DeRooij_Iraq-Coalition-Toll.htm

About two weeks ago my access to DefenseLink was blocked, and now I must use another account to view that website...

Kind rgds
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Please note that there are 43 casualties from South Carolina listed on our website, which is more than the 29 listed on http://icasualties.org/oif/ByState.aspx website. We are searching info. to learn if there are more SC citizens that have died from wounds in hospitals.

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