The US military is banning and blocking employees from visiting news website The Intercept in what it called an “apparent effort to censor news reports that contain leaked Government secrets”.
A notice has been circulated to units within the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps warning staff that they are prohibited from reading stories published by The Intercept on the grounds that they may contain classified information. The ban appears to apply to all employees—including those with top-secret security clearance—and is aimed at preventing classified information from being viewed on unclassified computer networks, even if it is freely available on the internet. Similar military-wide bans have been directed against news outlets in the past after leaks of classified information.
In an emailed statement, Defense Department spokeswoman Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson said that she had not been able to establish whether the DoD had been the source of “any guidance related to your website.” Among the journalists at The Intercept are Glenn Greenwald, who conducted original interviews with whistle blower Edward Snowden.
