By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

THE U.S. Department of Defense has blocked access to many popular Internet sites from department-owned computers due to bandwidth issues. (See related story on page 20)
Joint Task Force Global Network Operations, which directs the operation and defense of the Defense Department’s global information grid, has blocked 12 popular Internet sites, including myspace.com which is very popular among overseas military personnel.
Aside from MySpace, other online sites blocked by the Pentagon include youtube.com, pandora.com, photobucket.com, live365.com, hi5.com, metacafe.com, mtv.com, ifilm.com, blackplanet.com, stupidvideos.com and filecabi.com.
So far, the Pentagon said the popularity of the sites has not affected operations yet, but blocking them prevents the sites from causing such a problem.
“It is a proactive measure. We do not want a problem with demand for these sites clogging the networks,” Jim Garamone of the American Forces Press Service quoted a U.S. Strategic Command official as saying.
According to the AFPS article, the Pentagon blocks affect only Defense Department computers and local area networks that are part of the department’s global information grid.
The department has more than 15,000 local and regional networks and more than 5 million computers in the grid.
According to AFPS, department officials have stressed that they are not making a judgment about the sites and that blocking the sites “is in no way a comment on the content, purpose or uses of the Web sites themselves” as it is solely a bandwidth and network management issue.
However, offices with a need to access these sites from government computers can request exceptions to the policy and global network operations officials will continue to assess the stresses and strains on the global information grid, adding or subtracting sites as needed.
MySpace has become a popular online site for military personnel assigned on Guam and other overseas bases who use the Web site to meet new friends and keep in touch with loved ones back home.