Patterico's Pontifications

2/25/2006

Patterico Blocked by the Military??

Filed under: Blogging Matters — Patterico @ 9:33 am



I just got this perplexing e-mail:

I am currently doing a stint in Iraq and the military is blocking access to your web site. They allow Michelle Malkin, Captain’s Quarters, Ace of Spades, and Protein Wisdom though.

If they allow Protein Wisdom, then it’s not an issue of language. (I generally refrain from profanity anyway — though when I do have a reason to use it, I don’t usually bleep it.) I love Jeff Goldstein, but he is not known for shying away from the “f” word.

I can’t begin to imagine what other reason the military might have for blocking my web site.

What’s going on here?

Anybody know who I should call or write to ask?

11 Responses to “Patterico Blocked by the Military??”

  1. First, confirm your site is being blocked. If it turns out to be so, try to find out if the block applies only to Iraq or if other military posts are also involved.

    Then, write a letter to your local representative, it’s the best place to start. Include the email and ask for an explanation. Be polite, but direct. If you don’t hear back in 10 days, send another letter registered mail.

    Black Jack (d8da01)

  2. That’s kind of odd, because the other sites that do get through have done a lot more on Able Danger than you have.

    Dana (9f37aa)

  3. Probably just a temporary DOS. Any spikes on your site meter? Up or down?

    nk (ca8012)

  4. Patterico, they must have found out that you’re a Californian. 🙂

    Andrew (08ba2c)

  5. I can’t be certain since I don’t know what they use, but sites get seemingly randomly blocked by the content filters they employ. During the 2004 election, my base decided to block anything listed as “politics.” The irony is the military has a huge get out the vote program, but didn’t want anybody to apparently make an informed decision. It could be that the content filter that they use just tagged your site as something that gets blocked.

    Jim Barnes (7f9027)

  6. They think “pontification” is a dirty word?

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  7. Easy on blaming the leviathan “they” or “the military”. Just as each service has it’s own particular flavor of stupidity, each service has it’s own infosec standards and policies. For example, the Navy blocks all webmail portals, but not the blogs, while the Army blocks many of the blogs but not the webmail sites.

    I’m posting this comment from FOB Speicher using my Navy network on my Navy satellite shot, so I can get through to you (thank god). I also have a few army network drops in my camp and they have you blocked by lumping you into the “Message Boards & Clubs” category of Websense.

    Patrick, I don’t think that the Army is intentionally blocking your, or anyone else’s, site. They’ve simply bought into lazy mans security by buying a blocking package from a vendor and implemented the defaults.

    Christopher Horner (234f5f)

  8. I am on a Navy ship at sea and behind a pretty hard core firewall and going through a lot of filtering and blocking and I have never had any problem accessing Patterico’s website.

    Arnie (a7ef17)

  9. I can read you here on an Army Base in Korea. Meanwhile, however, one of my favorite blogs “Ace of Spades” is blocked (. . .though I suppose it *would* be difficult to assign any official reason to read that one). In any case, I believe it is all a matter of fairly local policy.

    John H (11e006)

  10. I have it on good authority that this site was blocked because of posters like me undermining morale and causeing anti american sentiment among the troops..

    Charlie (8ea405)

  11. Well, then, you’re banned.

    Kidding!

    Patterico (8ccd07)


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