According to a new policy released on Friday (view it here), the Department of Defense is now lifting restrictions on the use of social networking and collaboration tools such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter on their non-classified computer networks.  A good posting about the announcement appeared on the New York Times' military blog.

This certainly has positive implications for deployed troops trying to keep in better touch with their friends and families, as well as for more open communication between the DoD and the public, in America and abroad.

During a briefing we held at the National Press Club in the fall, there was a robust discussion about the increased use of more open sources of information to enhance national security itself - you can view some of the discussion on our YouTube channel.  It will be interesting to see if this new embracing of social media will also further our real-time and open intelligence gathering capabilities, sharing and coordination.