Full List Of Sites The US Air Force Blocked To Hide From Wikileaks Info; Includes NY Times & The Guardian

from the sticking-your-head-in-the-sand dept

Tue, Sep 20th 2011 7:36am — Mike Masnick

When the State Department cables leaked via Wikileaks, some government employees and agencies were put in a tough position, in that they couldn't officially view those documents, since they were still classified. As we've noted in the past, this is stupid. In business, any boilerplate non-disclosure agreement says that if some info becomes public due to a third party, the NDA no longer applies. The US government, for reasons that escape me, refuses to do the same thing for classified info that leaks -- even after the press has run stories on it.

We heard all sorts of bizarre stories about government agencies trying to block access to this content which was everywhere, including reports that any Techdirt article that mentioned "Wikileaks" in the title was blocked from Defense Department computers.

Jason Smathers decided to submit a Freedom of Information Act request (via the awesome Muckrock.com platform) to the US Air Force to find out what sites it was blocking. And while the Air Force initially denied the request, on appeal it just changed its mind and handed over the list, which you can see below. Most of the blocked URLs are to various Wikileaks mirror sites, but it also covers the major media properties that Wikileaks initially worked with on releasing these documents, including the NY Times and The Gurdian.

I'm at a complete loss as to what the Air Force thinks it accomplishes in blocking the entire NY Times website because some stories mention content that everyone already knows about. How does that possibly make sense?

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Filed Under: blocked sites, state department, us air force, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

32 Comments

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A Guy (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 7:53am

It's the military. It doesn't have to make sense. They have complete autonomy to enforce any ridiculous draconian rule they want, and they do so at every chance possible. According to several of my friends whom have served, they cannot even criticize the President of the United States. I understand he's their boss but that seems to against everything this country is supposed to stand for.

Personally, I don't understand why people want to give up their most basic freedoms to serve, but I'm glad they do.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2011 @ 7:54am

I'm at a complete loss as to what the Air Force thinks it accomplishes in blocking the entire NY Times website....

Payback for the Pentagon Papers case?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:05am

Re:
"Personally, I don't understand why people want to give up their most basic freedoms to serve, but I'm glad they do."

Sacrifice your freedoms to 'defend' them ... seems ... non-sequitur. You're fighting to defend the loss of your freedoms to defend your freedoms.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:06am

Re: Re:
"Sacrifice your freedoms to 'defend' them ... seems ... non-sequitur"

I don't think that word means what you think it means.
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E. Zachary Knight (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:09am

Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, that is more irony than a non-sequitur.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:15am

Re: Re: Teamwork
I've many times witnessed the differences between a group of individuals working towards the same goal (as a group) and a cohesive team working towards a goal.

The 'teamwork' effect, when all persons work together as a single unit, is an amazing multiplier of effectiveness.

That being said, military effectiveness is rooted in creating teams--and the first step is shared common experiences. Foremost among these shared experiences is basic training, MOS training, reduced/altered rights, uniforms, etc. It is simply a necessary step in creating an effective military.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:17am

Pretty Clear
Ignorance is Strength
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Ben (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:18am

I happen to agree with leaks to clear out the drivel
One issue is that if "secret" information, once leaked, is no longer considered "secret", then there is an open door to people with clearance to leak those items they want the rest of the world to know.

The government's only recourse then is to hunt down the person who leaked the information to prosecute them, and *that* should act as a deterrent. My only caveat is that if the leaked "secrets" are drivel (i.e. they shouldn't have been secret in the first place) then the prosecution should be required to be dropped.

To the point that if a leaked "secret" should no longer be considered "secret": then the act of announcing it is no longer "secret" confirms that the leak was correct -- and wouldn't that be a security violation in itself?
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Jay (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:19am

Meanwhile...

News had just come in that the officers working military intelligence go home, download the cables, then talk about them over the water cooler.
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Gwiz (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:25am

Re:
It's the military. It doesn't have to make sense.

Military intelligence is an oxymoron.
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:31am

OLPC.com
One Laptop Per Child?

How did they end up on this list? Did I miss them hosting a mirror or something?
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Scooters (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:38am

What the...
The NYT is blocked but FoxNews isn't?

All hope for humanity is now over.
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:43am

If I used a giant "laser" to write the content of these documents on the surface of the Moon, would the Air Force and/or other government agencies be forbidden from looking at the Moon?
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HothMonster, 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:47am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
but not really either
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HothMonster, 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:48am

Re: Re: Re:
inconceivable
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HothMonster, 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:50am

Re:
i believe they would declare the moon a terrorist
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ContradictionInTerms, 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:54am

Searching
Correlating server logs with Defense Department IPs would reveal what leaks the military were really worried about. They may have decided that a simple ban on people searching Wikileaks sites from their desks was not enough of a prophylactic.
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cc (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 8:54am

Re: OLPC.com
Seriously, wtf?! These people can't even maintain a 50-website block list without making such massive errors?
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A Guy (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 9:04am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think the word you're looking for is paradoxical.
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CJ (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 9:08am

kind of stupid
I don't see how blocking helps. If you block it, then it just makes them more curious as to why it was blocked.
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E. Zachary Knight (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 9:24am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That too.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2011 @ 10:36am

typo
including the NY Times and The Gurdian

--> Guardian
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Rich (profile), 20 Sep 2011 @ 10:42am

Network Error (dns_unresolved_hostname)

Your requested host "guardian.co.uk" could not be resolved by DNS.

For assistance, contact your network support team
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2011 @ 11:36am

Re: I happen to agree with leaks to clear out the drivel
"To the point that if a leaked "secret" should no longer be considered "secret": then the act of announcing it is no longer "secret" confirms that the leak was correct -- and wouldn't that be a security violation in itself?"

Of course by going after Wikileaks for posting the "secrets" is saying those "secrets" also confirms that the leak was correct. So confirming them by dropping the "secret" or suing and arresting for posting "secrets" does the same thing, confirms they are legit.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2011 @ 12:29pm

Re:
Weird!
In every war movie I've ever seen, all the soldiers/sailors/marines/airmen do is bitch about everything from the officers to the food.
Yet, the second the shooting starts, it's "all for one, and one for all" and "semper fi" and...well you get the idea!
When did that change?
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S, 20 Sep 2011 @ 12:37pm

Re: Re:
The word you want is 'contradictory' -- or 'bullshit'.

If you lose the freedoms you're supposedly defending, all you're doing is shooting people (and getting shot at) because some dictator told you to.
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S, 20 Sep 2011 @ 12:38pm

Re: Re:
They'd blow up the moon, or try to.
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Terris Linenbach, 20 Sep 2011 @ 4:15pm

Par for this course is -100
They're so intelligent in their intelligence gathering that they know what they're not supposed to know.

Dumbasses - all the way to the Dumbass in Chief.

They've kept us safe, no thanks to them.
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Vic, 21 Sep 2011 @ 12:18am

Well, it's a damn good list! Although very incomplete...
And who says that Air Force is not a good organization to compose and maintain a list of "rogue sites"? As we can see here, they can be perfect at this! If this is not enough, just add block lists from Navy and the Army. That is to complete those lists from MPAA and RIAA.

And then we can ban the whole Internet thingy!
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2011 @ 12:24am

Security Theatre
This website blocking is security theater, plain and simple. The persons doing it are deliberately wasting the US taxpayers' money. As such, they are traitors. They should be charged accordingly.
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PaulT (profile), 21 Sep 2011 @ 2:02am

Re:
Try http://77.91.249.30/ ;)
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nasty, 24 Aug 2012 @ 9:21pm

perhaps the list was to only throw the public off... for there might only be 2 or 3 they were TRYING to block..
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