{"id":31599,"date":"2013-01-05T13:47:50","date_gmt":"2013-01-05T11:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=31599"},"modified":"2013-01-05T13:47:50","modified_gmt":"2013-01-05T11:47:50","slug":"pentagon-censored-gay-lesbian-sites-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/pentagon-censored-gay-lesbian-sites-us-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon censored gay – lesbian sites \/ US News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Only recently has the Pentagon been willing to let lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans openly serve in the military.<\/h1>\n

AmericaBlog, a self-described progressive journal of news and opinion, has published an article discussing how the US Department of Defense has blocked internal computers from accessing a number of websites that are categorizes as \u201cLGBT.\u201d<\/p>\n

ohn Aravosis of AmericaBlog writes this week that a handful of gay-friendly websites, including one for an association of actively-serving LGBT military personnel, has been blocked from Pentagon computers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bad enough the United States Department of Defense censors Towleroad and AMERICAblog \u2013 banning the gay civil rights Web sites from being accessed on DOD computers \u2013 and it\u2019s even worse that the Pentagon has no problem permitting their computers to access Ann Coulter\u2019s and Rush Limbaugh\u2019s hate-filled Web sites,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Aravosis writes.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the blogger includes a screen shot alleged to have been made from a computer connected to the US Air Force\u2019s computer network that shows Towelroad, a website that specializes in politics and gay culture news, has been blocked. On the \u201cAccess Denied\u201d screen he includes in his blog post, he highlights the line that shows towelroad.com has been blocked because it has been categorized as being \u201cLGBT.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outserve.org, the website for an organization with 4,000 members and deemed\u00a0\u201cone of the largest LGBT employee resource groups in the world,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>is also inaccessible through the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

Outserve describes itself as working to support\u00a0\u201ca professional network of LGBT military personnel and create an environment of respect in the military with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Aravosis adds that Outserve has also been an active opponent of the military\u2019s Don\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell policy, the ban on openly serving that has only recently been lifted. According to AmericaBlog, the communications director for OutServe-SLDN confirmed through one of their military members that their site is indeed blocked by the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder if the Pentagon has a censorship category titled Jewish, African-American, or \u2018Latino,\u2019\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Aravosis asks. Although all Americans are now open to serve in the military, the Defense Department seems to be rather selective with what kind of content \u2014 even content geared towards its own personnel \u2014 can peruse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe LGBT filter existed before the repeal of Don\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell, but still has not been fixed.And the Pentagon was notified of the problem as early as last summer, 2012.Yet no one\u2019s gotten around to doing anything about it,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he writes.<\/p>\n

The screenshots published on AmericaBlog reveal that the Pentagon relies on California-based Blue Coat Systems, an Internet security company, for its Web filtering. Investor\u2019s Business Daily notes in a 2009 article that Blue Coat has at one time or another provided services for major corporations, governments and telecom companies, including AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. They are perhaps best known, however, for a 2011 expos\u00e9 in the Wall Street Journal that revealed that products distributed by the billion-dollar IT company had made it to Syria, where the government was implementing those tools to spy on citizens. A trade embargo between the US and Syria would have prevented Blue Coat\u2019s products from being used, but company executives nonetheless confirmed that at least 13 devices were being used in Syria at the time of the article.<\/p>\n

On their website, Blue Coat has published a statement that advises their clients that websites branded as \u201cLGBT\u201d do not necessarily warrant censoring.<\/p>\n

\u201c[S]ome of our customers may be blocking the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (\u201cLGBT\u201d) category in the belief that the websites in this category contain sexually explicit content,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0the statement reads.\u00a0\u201cIn an effort to further clarify that the LGBT category is not intended to capture sexually explicit content, we have updated the category’s description.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Per Blue Coat\u2019s updated criteria, sites are categorized as LGBT if they\u00a0\u201cprovide reference materials, news, legal information, anti-bullying and suicide-prevention information and other resources for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (“LGBT”) people or that relate to LGBT civil rights.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe websites included in this category were selected because they do not contain sexually explicit content and are generally suitable for viewing by all age groups,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0adds Blue Coat.\u00a0\u201cCustomers \u2013 including schools, libraries and other public institutions \u2013 do not need to block the LGBT category to prevent users from accessing sexually explicit content, whether LGBT-related or otherwise.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The fact that the Pentagon wound censor servicemen from accessing content categorized as LGBT contradicts a statement from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last year in which he said, \u201cGoing forward, I remain committed to removing as many barriers as possible to make America\u2019s military a model of equal opportunity, to ensure all who are qualified can serve in America\u2019s military, and to give every man and woman in uniform the opportunity to rise to their highest potential.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2011, the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to take legal action against the Prince William County School Board in Virginia after they became aware that students within the district were unable to access LGBT sites. When the Board responded by honoring the ACLU\u2019s request to remove the filter, ACLU Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis said,\u00a0\u201cWe commend Prince William school officials for removing this discriminatory LGBT filter, which serves no purpose but to deprive students of important educational materials and resources.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, if the software company the school used had not provided them with the tools to specifically censor LGBT websites this might never have occurred,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0added Willis.<\/p>\n

Blue Coat categorizes the Web into dozens of sections for filtering purposes, which include \u201cadult\/mature,\u201d \u201cinstant messaging,\u201d \u201cchild pornography,\u201d \u201chacking\u201d and \u201centertainment,\u201d as well as \u201cLGBT\u201d and \u201cAlternative sexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only recently has the Pentagon been willing to let lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans openly serve in the military.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,80,63,1,118,14],"tags":[42978,42975,42974,20643,14137,42972,42976,10035,37672,42973,11225,30023,42977,39673,2057,6022],"class_list":["post-31599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-general","category-hot","category-world","tag-alternative-sexualty-us-army","tag-americablog","tag-bisexual-pentagon","tag-information-technology","tag-internet","tag-lesbian-gay-pentagon","tag-lgbt-military-personal-us","tag-military","tag-pentagon","tag-pentagon-censored-gay-lesbian-sites","tag-sex","tag-transgender","tag-us-deparment-of-defence-blocked-websites","tag-us-pentagon","tag-usa","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}