twitter's Journal: Censorship Storm for Military Bloggers.

The US Military claims to have backed off censorship rules which were blasted by many observers and written up by Wired. From the wired article:

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. ... the guidelines are kept on the military's restricted Army Knowledge Online intranet.

The new directive may not actually rescind the rules, so I'm not sure how it helps.