As the son of a Marine, the grandson of a Marine killed in the South Pacific, and an ardent supporter of the Marines--real support, the kind of support which goes beyond wishing them safety and includes praying for their swift victory-- I find this a bit perplexing......

Please, someone say this isn't so. I'd love to hear that it was some kind of a glitch in the system, of some error only affecting this particular Marine at his particular work area.

A Marine sent it to me with the following letter of explanation. The letter has been redacted to help keep him anonymous:

Yesterday I emailed Rusty at the Jawa Report because I thought this only affected him. But today I discovered that all MuNu sites are now blocked by NMCI (Navy-Marine Corps Internet). As far as I can tell this has only been in effect since the beginning of this week.

This means that Marines (and Sailors) cannot access your blog from any NMCI DoD computer system in at least [part of the U.S.] and likely the whole country.

For deployed systems, this is not uncommon, as bandwidth is at a premium. But here in [place X], that's an honor usually reserved for NSFW websites, and stuff hosted out of China or North Korea. Typically, if HQ doesn't want us to get to something (Hotmail, YouTube, etc) the site times out or we get an error message. As you'll see from the attachment [see above photo], the MuNus were specifically denied. I've only ever seen that twice over the last year, and I ride a desk, so I'm on the computer all day.

For those of you who have satire or "personal" blogs I suppose this is no big thing. But for others who cover news, politics, and current events, your blogs are great search engines for those of us in the military. You have active, engaged readers who bring your attention to hard to find stories, and then you expose that information for the rest of us. For someone like me, it's like having 500 people sift through the news for me and filter out the noise until the good stuff comes up. Some of this info I would never come across without the contacts that you all have established as bloggers.

I know you are all great supporters of the military, and some of you former soldiers or sailors. I'm not sure if any of you are in a position to inquire with someone from Marine or Navy Public Affairs about this, but I figured you ought to know that the United States Naval Services have declared you off limits. I'm sure some of you will wear that as a badge of honor...

We have a lot of .mil readears, and I'd love to hear some logical explanation for this.

PS--and Vinnie was in the Navy, so maybe he'll chime in.

UPDATE: Could this just be a localized problem??? Brian the Sailor drops this in the comments:

Rusty, I was just on your site on an NMCI computer not two hours ago. Can't watch the vids, especially if they're YouTube embeds, but I just make a note to myself and watch when I get home.

Posted by: Rusty at 01:20 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
Post contains 564 words, total size 3 kb.

1 I may be wrong but I thought i heard on the news that the military was blocking access to websites if using their computer. Personal computers are not affected.

Posted by: allahakchew at June 22, 2007 02:58 PM (m2p07)

2 Do I smell a mass e-mail newsletter in the works? Some pointy headed lib in Washington must have seen the link to the piggy posing with the quran pics and freaked. And we all know that offending the enemy is out of bounds (SARCASM ALERT.) If it wasn't for sites like this and Michelle Malkin's site, our troops would eventually return home to find their houses occupied by 18 illegal aliens, undocumented immigrants, employment seeking refugees or whatever the fuck we're calling them nowadays. If Harry Reid had his way, the troops would only be able to access the Huffington Post, NY Times, and Moveon.org.

Posted by: Rome at June 22, 2007 03:04 PM (/GrlO)

3 Rusty,
I was just on your site on an NMCI computer not two hours ago.
Can't watch the vids, especially if they're YouTube embeds, but I just make a note to myself and watch when I get home.

Posted by: Brian the sailor at June 22, 2007 03:20 PM (JPB1U)

4 HA HA HA HA HA HA, Rusty got pwned again. Just like when he got demoted on Infovlad for trying to have Wilenski become a moderator.

Posted by: None of your business at June 22, 2007 03:50 PM (TmLg9)

5 I noticed this yesterday.     NMCI touting net-centric warfare for the Dept of Navy  ..has caused more delays and headaches for everyone then can be imagined.  Retired Marine of 27 years I will send an e-mail to the IT folks on this one but NMCI answered to a higher calling...

Posted by: Stoney at June 22, 2007 03:59 PM (ffX31)

6 It could be a te,porary glitch... I tried to comment a second ago, and got this.                                                                             
        




You are not authorized to view this page

You might not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials you supplied.

If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page, please try to contact the Web site by using any e-mail address or phone number that may be listed on the
Homepage();
jawacomments.mu.nu home page.

You can click Search to look for information on the Internet.

HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden
Internet Explorer
Then I tried again                                                                      
Still it wouldn't surprise me if some turd somewhere took exception to the Jawas. Maybe they think this blog is to radical, or maybe it's 'penis envy' on the part of some moonbat.  In any case, I'm sure there are ways to get around this. Link more to blogs that arent blocked maybe ... I'm no expert, but I know this can't stop the mighty Jawas!                   USA, all the way!

Posted by: Michael Weaver at June 22, 2007 04:52 PM (2OHpj)

7 My doesn't that look messy?                         USA, all the way!

Posted by: Michael Weaver at June 22, 2007 04:53 PM (2OHpj)

8 I'm sure they'll even block the Jawa Report at my company soon along with some of the other blog sites I read daily. They already blocked Liveleak so I can only watch vids from Liveleak that are embedded in the blogs. I'm sure YouTube will follow eventually. And then, all I'll be able to watch is the sheeple news from CNN and MSNBC.

Posted by: DrTheopolis at June 22, 2007 05:16 PM (9ZqGe)

9

All the DOD computers at Ft Hood block many blogs. I can get Captian's Quarters and Power Line but can't get LGF or Jawa. I can't access hotmail or yahoo mail. I think it's more of a virus security risk thing than politics. I can't pull up many lib sites either.

Posted by: Chief at June 22, 2007 07:16 PM (q0OTH)

10 I can access the Jawa Report as well as LGF on the USAF computers at my
squadron. Might be what the particular LAN shop blocks for each base,
as they're not global.

Posted by: Airman at June 22, 2007 07:20 PM (AGQTk)

11 Michel. That's the same message I have received when trying to access some muslim terrorist hugging sites.

Posted by: greyrooster at June 22, 2007 08:36 PM (k0DWG)

12 I can't access this site from a State Farm computer. This has happened only recently.
 
Hmmm.

Posted by: furren leejen at June 23, 2007 08:57 AM (N1oPW)

13 Hey, is it possible that the military might be clamping down prior to the start of a certain operation? You know...Loose Lips Sink Ships.

Posted by: Macker at June 23, 2007 09:43 AM (Wfjwm)

14 Fwiw..

You were blocked up to 2 weeks ago on Army-networked computers in a BRAC'd  fort in NJ (you guess which one) and I gave up trying from work over a week ago.

My semi-educated guess as a Network Admin for said facility, it had to do a lot with the embedded/streaming videos you serve up hot n' fresh, which are a complete no-no these days to watch on Govt. PC's as per AR 25-2.

If just one person actually watched one, it flagged the IP and it was subsequently put on the naughty list.

Posted by: Olaf at June 23, 2007 09:46 AM (Zi4EW)

15 Marine computers should be used for work. Reading Jawa is not work. Well sometimes it feels like work. My point is unless the access is blocked in the baarracks or in base housing, this is the appropriate thing to do as long as they are not targeting specific sites. Internet access unless work related access should be banned especially if you are at work,  particularly if your work is protecting the US and her allies.
 
Sorry Rusty, even propaganda for the good guys is less important than what a jarhead should be doing otherwise.

Posted by: SeeMonk at June 23, 2007 02:08 PM (yKwZ2)

16   
Apparently the Marines want their people to read something other than serious bullshit.

Posted by: Joe at June 28, 2007 01:00 AM (ip8b4)

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