I don't know who started the urban legend, but I see almost it everytime I or another service member posts here. Someone will say "I thought Daily Kos was censored on military computers." Well, seeing as how I'm at my work station on a FOB in Iraq right now typing this diary, I'm here to tell you this is not true.
The military does use filters to prevent us from viewing porn at work or at the MWR. Depending on what filter they use, I can see this site getting some kind of "obscene" mark. But I've been able to access DKos from MWR computers at over a half dozen military installations in the States, Iraq, and Qatar. I've also come here from workstations when I have absolutely nothing to do (like this last week). I have never been denied access by a filter.
Its not only the wide world of the world wide web that we have access to (something that requires a bit of computer saavy, not a universal trait) in theatre. We get Stars and Stripes, which is a good combination of military, international, and national news along with sports and entertainment with a local round up kind of like the USA Today page that has an item from every state. The S&S local page doesn't cover every state everyday, but it does cover every region. I'd say its a comparable to USA Today, only better. The opinion columnists and LTE page are fairly balanced, I've seen plenty of letters from soldiers supporting liberal ideas, like gays in the military and recognition of Wiccan symbols to use two examples. The Army Times is also around, not as easy to get a hold of, and they will print stories that cast the administration in a bad light with some regularity, along with "puff" pieces that show some of the things the army is doing over here. I say puff because I read a few that were written in my AO and they were pretty whitewashed and overly optimistic. Not a bad thing, necessarily, since I do think the MSM doesn't do enough stories of on-the-ground events, its all casualties and Baghdad politics. There's lot more going on that the day's biggest explosion and whatever BS Sadr said that afternoon. The stories don't have to be positive, but talking about the failures and sucesses of the provincial and district councils along with the national government and parliment would help inform and educate people about what is going on here.
In the mess halls, the gym, and the MWR we have AFN News (not exclusively, more often its Sports or Movies). I've seen the Situation Room, O'Reilly (well I see that he's coming then I leave), Scarborough, Nightly Business Report, Newshour, ABC Nightly News, various newsmagazines, and the regular news feed from the three main cable stations. When I was in Al Asad one day I saw Gwen Ifill interview Woodward about his new book critical of Bush until some guy put on preseason hockey.
Point is, the military may seem stifling to outsiders or even to some veterans and active duty soldiers. My experience, however, has been one of fairly easy access to all the news and information I desire. I know the tin foil hat crowd will probably always believe the military is prevent liberal ideas from being put forth to service members. Since soonergrunt has posted from Afghanistan and I have and will continue to do so from here, I hope that CW will be slowly eroded to the margins.