twitter's Journal: US Military Cracks Down on Front Line Bloggers.

Wired is reporting a new set of rules for US enlisted men that will all but shut down front line bloggers and sharply curtail email and other communications.

The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. ... Civilians working for the military, Army contractors -- even soldiers' families -- are all subject to the directive as well.

The new rules ... require a commander be consulted before every blog update. ... Failure to do so, the document adds, could result in a court-martial, or "administrative, disciplinary, contractual, or criminal action." ... with the regulations drawn so tightly, "many commanders will feel like they have no choice but to forbid their soldiers from blogging -- or even using e-mail," said Jeff Nuding, who won the bronze star for his service in Iraq. "If I'm a commander, and think that any slip-up gets me screwed, I'm making it easy: No blogs," added Nuding, writer of the "pro-victory" Dadmanly site. "I think this means the end of my blogging."

not everybody affected can actually read them. In a Kafka-esque turn, the guidelines are kept on the military's restricted Army Knowledge Online intranet.

So it's not just censorship, it's censorship with secret rules. Today, they claimed the regulations have no force without actually changing them. This just means they will only enforce them when they want to, like when someone writes something embarrassing.