The U.S. Army is cracking down on soldiers' blogs for fear of intelligence leaks, but noted blogger Matthew Currier Burden says security measures — while necessary — shouldn't stifle important eyewitness accounts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"They're going overboard," says Burden, a former Army major who is now an information technology executive in Chicago. His book "The Blog of War" collects front-line dispatches from American soldiers, and his site blackfive.net is a clearinghouse of military-related information.

asap spoke with Burden about ways to balance sensitive information with free speech.

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asap: Broadly speaking, what are your views on government efforts to shut down or censor soldiers' blogs?

Burden: The communication in and out of a war zone should be monitored. I'm a former intelligence officer. I agree that there could be potential danger in having some of that information out there. ...

(But) what's happening is, commanders whose very careers could hinge upon one mistake are saying: We are not having any bloggers in the war zone in my unit. So they're just shutting down blogs when they don't need to.

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asap: Is there middle ground? Do you see, possibly, former military bloggers helping the military go through some of this material, since you understand the blog world and you understand the military?

Burden: They really need to learn to leverage the information resources that they have. So, yes, there is a group of military bloggers, myself included, that are trying to work with the Pentagon to allow blogging and to leverage the blogging for the Pentagon's benefit and for the soldiers' benefit — for everybody's benefit — to understand what's happening in the world, lessen the restrictions on the bloggers, but also be able to take advantage of the good things that they produce. ...

Where you're going to get in trouble from op-sec (operations security) is not from one single blogger, but probably from three bloggers who are blogging about an event — say, an attack — and they're registered bloggers and they're following their chain of command and they're not violating op-sec. But let's say they witness an event and their colonel reviews it and it's three separate colonels and they're reviewing three separate blogs. Separately they're probably not violating op-sec, but if you take a look at all three you might be able to triangulate information. And, that's where the problem is. So, one thing you'd want to do is (take care of) that.

The other thing you'd want to do is: Engage bloggers, get interviews, tell stories, get them out there in the press ... and have the units start sponsoring unit bloggers.

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asap: War-zone videos are all over video-sharing sites like YouTube.com and some are quite graphic or disturbing or show U.S. servicemen behaving badly. How do you view this development?

Burden: My biggest fear in what is going to happen — and I'll guarantee it: If we keep restricting military bloggers, all you will have left are the people who don't give a damn anymore about getting caught, getting busted. ... And, they are going to put up stuff about how they threw a bottle at an Iraqi kid's head or they did something stupid or they spit on somebody or their commander's an idiot or whatever. ...

On a percentage basis, not everybody's going to be perfect and you're going to have some problems. And, those are the people that are going to get all the attention of The AP, of The New York Times, of CNN, because there's not going to be a counterbalance to that. There's not going to be an alternative source. ...

If you restrict bloggers, especially the positive ones that are following the rules, you're going to have a big problem.

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Stephanie Hoo is an asap reporter.

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