US Army soldiers can't email without permission

UPDATE: Now it seems this is being revised into some kind of don't-ask-don't-tell we-won't-enforce-it ambiguity (HT: Carpetbagger Report).

Sucks to be in the Army these days:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

Via VLWC. Seems a bit harsh. First their tours get extended to 15 months. Now they can't email home without clearing it with a superior officer? Don't our officers have more important things to be doing than vetting every single email and blog post from every single soldier? It's not as though we're swimming in personnel over there.