The U.S. Coast Guard this week listed its criteria for considering individuals or organizations as “journalists” – at least for the purpose of Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, fees. Perhaps surprisingly, at least to some, they take a fairly hard-line approach to the issue, and do not automatically equate “media” with “journalist”. What this means is that – among other things – bloggers aren’t automatically “journalists”, at least to the USCG.

As a blogger myself, you might think this would upset me. You’d be very wrong.
Read the rest of this entry »

A couple days ago, I pointed out some farcical attempts by the USAF to conceal the location of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, who are deployed at “an undisclosed air base in Southwest Asia” – actually Al Udied, in Qatar. I believed – and still largely believe – that this secrecy is a really badly misguided attempt at operational security, or OPSEC. A reader, however, contacted me and suggested an interesting aspect to the whole thing: The Air Force, he or she says, are concealing their presence in Qatar so as to not draw unwanted pressure from other Arab nations onto their host country, who are, perhaps, not as enthusiastic about having a permanent American air base on their soil as they could be.
Read the rest of this entry »