I'm not sure why the media is so fussed about the Canadian military's decision to temporarily shut down a blog being written by a soldier, Matt Austin, in Afghanistan. I mean, he's involved in a dangerous military operation in which dozens of Canadian soliders have been killed. Does it really make sense from an intelligence, morale or strategic perspective to let Austin blog even though - as his mother told the Toronto Star - he was being "pretty careful about what he wrote"? Hey, I'm all for freedom of speech and the power of blogging to communicate but there are circumstances and situations where limitations have to be enforced for the greater good. I'm sure Austin, a University of Waterloo engineering student, is trying to carefully blog but what he may see as non-essential information could be easily regarded by the Taliban as insightful. One of the questions that begs to be asked is why Austin feels he needs to blog when there are other ways (letters, telephone calls, e-mail) to communicate with friends and family. Sure blogs are the new, cool tool (other than, I guess, having a MySpace account) but sometimes common sense needs to come into play. Maybe Austin's just a well-intentioned 21-year-old trying to stand out from the crowd but he needs to ask himself whether blogging in Afghanistan is appropriate.
  Maybe the key lesson to be gleaned from this situation is the Canadian military's need to have a well-defined blogging policy to replace the current rules that gives it "the right to remove any content that puts the safety of personnel of the mission at risk". Instead, there has be rules on whether soliders can blog or not. If they're allowed to blog, then it must be clearly spelled out when, where and how - with proper checks/systems in place to ensure the safety of themselves and fellow soliders.
Update: Austin's blog is back online. You can read his side of the story, which comes across as fairly pragmatic, although I still believe phone calls, e-mail and letters are more viable ways to communicate with friends and family as opposed to a public blog.
Note: For more, check out p2pnet and Blogging Times.