Lawmaker asks Defense not to block YouTube, MySpace

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The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee on Tuesday asked the Defense Department not to block access by military personnel to a dozen Web sites, including the YouTube video-sharing site and the MySpace social network.

The military said the new policy is designed to reduce strain on its Internet networks.

"While I understand concerns about bandwidth strain on the network," panel Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, "I fail to see how blocking these particular sites is consistent with achieving network efficiency."

Markey said it would be better for the military to ration scarce Internet resources. The congressman also expressed surprise that bandwidth-consuming videogame sites were not on the department's list.

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