Someone finally finds a use for Facebook
Al Qaeda tracks Canadian squaddies
CANADIAN soldiers fighting in Afghanistan have been warned that terrorists might be attacking them through their Facebook notworking sites.
According to CBC, the Defence Department is telling soldiers not to post personal photos and information on Facebook because they have proof that Al Qaeda operatives are monitoring the site.
They are worried that terrorists will look at a soldier's friends and family, find them and use them as soft targets.
Apparently solders are also posting snaps of the battlefront which the insurgents could use the information to determine their success or their lack of it.
But Sunil Ram, a professor of military history and land warfare at American Military University, told CBC that the military's warnings were just censorship and nothing else. µ
L'Inq
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facebook and military censorship
"But Sunil Ram, a professor of military history and land warfare at American Military University, told CBC that the military's warnings were just censorship and nothing else."It's called INTEL professor. In another day we would be mindful of the slogan "Loose lips might sink ships".
This was one of the
slogans used in a campaign called “Careless Talk Costs Lives.” This is history Professor so you should not only be familiar with it but have learned something from it as well.
So, Professor, the question that I have for you is why would you want Canadian soldiers to continue to provide INTEL to the enemy?
Google Earth pulled ALL of their current Iraq maps when it became clear that it was a tool for indirect fire. The internet can be a source of information and information is what gets people killed.
Hardly Intelligent
Seriously, this is "intel"? Surfing soldiers facebook/myspace profiles is pathetic.And while the military should be mindful of what they post on the site, it shouldn't be censored. If anything they should post more, but make it inaccurate to mess with the terrorists.
Most likely it is censorship in an unpopular war.
Innocents abroad
Whatever you think of these wars -- and I personally think they're crap &tc &tc -- you do have to use some common sense when putting information out. Most intelligence is derived from collating little pieces of information, usually information that's generally available like news sources.This was illustrated in the WW2 training movie "Resisting Enemy Interrogation", a movie that was nominated for an Academy Award. This movie is obviously dated but its worth renting to see how even then you could put together a mission picture from a load of seemingly unrelated trivia.
Typical brainwashed drivel
There's a stark difference between OPSEC violations and posting personal photo's online. Be that as it may, soldiers should have private profies on facebook, making this a non-issue.RV, wake up and smell the bullshit you've been fed.
The other side of the coin.
If our soldiers are posting pictures of the way the war is going, the "people" of the nations of Canada and Afghanistan need to have a "non-filtered" view into the daily happenings of the events. I'm pretty sure they aren't posting events as they happen, I'm sure they wait a few weeks before posting all this INTEL.Facebook is used for more than just that. It's a way for soldiers/sailors and airmen to communicate back home with friends and family. Our net connections are not that good and we can't have everyone online at the same time. Trying to group all that with 1% of "somewhat/maybe/possibly useful-to-the-enemy" is just an excuse to block the site totally and plug up some bandwidth.
Yes, Bin Laden, in his cave on the Pakistan/Afghan border has a generator and a computer and a team of lads scouring the annals of facebook over their 64k Satellite hookup, looking for juicy tidbits. They have better things to do than that.
Never mind the videos posted on youtube or anything like that.
What?
RV - it's all subjective. It depends if you think the USA are the "good guys" or not!Face Book?
If one person gets killed by the info put up on that site it is one to many.I really hope some of your countries you are from do not have to depend on you to defend it.
Nothing is being stopped from reaching the people.
response to RV
To your comment RV, of 26 February 2008given that many of my American soldiers are directly impacted by the use of IO and IW it is clear you have no idea about what is Intel and what it is not. For that matter many of my pals from my mess in Canada are heading in on the current ROTO-- so this is very close to me.
Granted, the various insurgent/terrorist groups out there are very good at IW and IO, however, the CF is not. Therefore, one must be careful-- but in reality what the military of any nation does not want its civilians to see is the raw horror of war--its not good PR. This is the real motivation... not nice seeing the devastation caused by our (mainly US) heavy weapons.
That said, if reality was what the military wanted then we should be asking why are we still fighting in Afghanistan? Why is the opium produced now over 12,000 MT (this is industrial scale production), why are we supporting Karzai (a UNOCOL and CIA goon)? Why is it that most NATO countries do not really want to be in Afghanistan, and for that matter the fact that the NATO charter per say has been ignored vis-a-vis Afghanistan. And ultimately, the war was never about saving the Afghans, that is the BS spread to continue a pointless war. Having been directly involved against groups like al Qeada -- my opinion is not that of a pointy headed academic sir! It is stunning how naive people like you are.