It also appears that OrangeMarlin was quoting an outdated version of the
Army regulation. An excerpt from the linked 2005 revision follows:
http://docs.usapa.belvoir.army.mil/jw2/xmldemo/r25_1/head.asp
*e. Authorized uses of communication systems. Authorized use includes brief
communications made by DOD employees while they are traveling on Government
business to notify family members of transportation or schedule changes.
They also include personal communications from the DOD employee's usual
workplace that are most reasonably made while at the work place (such as
checking in with spouse or minor children; scheduling doctor and auto or
home repair appointments; brief Internet searches; e-mailing directions to
visiting relatives). Such communications may be permitted, provided they — *
*(1) Do not adversely affect the performance of official duties by the
employee or the employee's organization. *
*(2) Are of reasonable duration and frequency, and, whenever possible, are
made during the employee's personal time, such as during lunch, break, and
other off-duty periods). *
-Durova
> From: Florence Devouard <anthere(a)anthere.org>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] My 10 wishes list for 2008
> 2. Promotion of lesser known projects
> Whilst Wikipedia has probably reached the top of its fame in the press
> of many nations, and enjoys the largest communities, other wikimedia
> projects are being increasingly successful. Commons has now over
> 2.000.000 free objects and is a unique case of multilingual
> community-based project. The largest Wiktionary is not english speaking,
> but french-speaking, a unique situation in wikimedia project and
> probably a showcase for the francophony. Wikibooks now hosts several
> high quality books, and also receive as donations, books originally
> under regular copyright protection and released under a free license,
> again, showcases of the interest of the educational world for the free
> movement.
> I would like these projects to be shown more attention by the
> Foundation, including more promotion efforts in conferences, press
> release and promotional leaflets, more interest to their specific
> technical needs, and more representativity of their communities.
One can add de.Wikisource which is a project making historical Public
Domain texts in German available with high quality standards. These
standards are NOT (yet) shared by the other Wikisource projects, see
also
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#The_huge_leap
Only de.Wikisource demands scanned texts (or digital photos) for
contributions, most other Wikisource branches have a lot of texts
which are unsourced. De.Wikisource has notes commenting the texts for
lots of texts.
Klaus Graf
I'm probably missing something, but it doesn't seem to me to be a
legal threat if one editor notifies another editor that the latter's
participation may raise UCMJ or regulations problems. This is not the
same thing as threatening to sue. Nor does it strike me as a legal
threat to note that some members of the armed forces may be compelled
by UCMJ or related regulation to report on-wiki activity that looks
like a serviceman (or servicewoman) violating regulation or policy.
To me, a legal threat would look something like this: "If you don't do
X (or cease doing Y), then I'm going to report you to the authorities
and get you in trouble with your CO." It would *not* look like
this: "I'm just letting you know that your participation in this way
may create problems for you under the UCMJ or regulations, especially
because some of us are obligated by that legal framework to report
apparent violations."
--Mike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_e…
This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including
in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work
for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to
report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because
that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is
true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue?
Nathan
It is not irrelevant if the most up to date AF regulation permits some
personal use of the government resource.
******
Agreed: it's quite relevant to see what the current AF regulation is. It
would also make sense to determine whether that branch of service provides
recreational computer labs. If it does then it's probably safe to assume
the editor was using one unless specific evidence indicates otherwise. Edit
time stamps aren't necessarily indicative because military working hours can
be variable.
The editor who made these allegations cited an outdated version of an Army
regulation, misidentified it as UCMJ, and supposed that a member of the Air
Force was in violation. I really think the obligation rested with that
editor to research the matter better before making statements that worried
the rest of us.
-Durova
Let us try to cut out the [Wiken-l] from our subject if we are posting on
foundation-l and vice versa. I am not sure of anyone else, but for me, it
confuses my filters and I get duplicates at every mail destination. That is
to say, I get a copy of the mail in my wikien, foundation, otrs0l, and so
on, folders. Thank you all for the consideration.
Best regards,
Mercury.
I don't know if its important to this discussion, but the UCMJ is a
class apart from standard criminal and civil law. I imagine they have
some class of civil remedies (fines, surrender of wages, etc.) in
addition to criminal penalties (as opposed to having a type of legal
action that is categorically not criminal), but not being an expert in
the UCMJ at all 'crime' or 'violation' are probably the most accurate
terms.
Nathan
******
Did anybody read my last post? This passage isn't in the UCMJ. It's an
Army regulation. Videmus Omnia is in a different branch of service.
-Durova
Nathan asks:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_e…
>
> This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including
> in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work
> for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to
> report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because
> that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is
> true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
>
> Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue?
My professional opinion is that we are under no obligation to either
(a) enforce the UCMJ as to editors who happen to be in the military,
or (b) categorically bar those who are subject to the UCMJ, which
probably includes but is not exclusive to those with .mil addresses,
because the they have professional obligations to report (purported)
violations of the UCMJ.
We know to a reasonable certainty that there are editors with ties to
law enforcement, military, and anti-espionage agencies. I don't see
how we can reasonably police their engagement with our services in a
categorical way. Obviously, we may choose to bar particular users
based on their behavior, which may include violation of Wikimedia's
privacy policies. But I could not endorse any measure that
categorically barred anyone with a .mil address from editing.
--Mike
Has anyone mentioned what portion of the UCMJ this is under? At least
reading it might give us a better idea instead of shooting in the
dark.
Chad
*******
I didn't recall seeing that in the UCMJ so I did a little basic research.
OrangeMarlin appears to be mistaken about the source. He states:
*UCMJ makes no distinction between using the internet on or off duty. It
specifically states that ''D-2. Users will employ Internet access for
official, unclassified U.S. Government business only.**''*
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Orangemarlin&diff=18147…
I located that statement along with the D-2 article designation not in the
UCMJ but in the official Army Internet Policy.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:iB5a-rJWcL8J:www.fas.org/irp/doddir/ar…
Here's the UCMJ for comparison: no mention of the Internet.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm
So since Videmus Omnia says he's a member of the U.S. Air Force, the Army
regulation wouldn't apply to him. It's entirely possible that the Air Force
might have a corresponding policy; I really couldn't say.
When I was in the Navy it certainly wasn't a safe assumption to suppose that
personal use of Navy computers was improper. It was commonplace for bases
to operate computer labs for that very purpose - they were often in
recreational centers or base-run coffee houses. A ship of any size at all
generally had a crew library with several computers. We signed an
agreement that forebade us from downloading pornography and some other
obviously problematic activities, but otherwise we were free to do what we
wanted online during off-duty hours.
-Durova