About the Department of Defense and DefenseLINK

On behalf of the Secretary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Defense, we welcome you to DefenseLINK. DefenseLINK is the official web site for the Department of Defense and the starting point for finding U.S. military information online. The home page for this site is located at http://www.defenselink.mil/.

The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country. The department's headquarters is at the Pentagon.

This page summarizes this web site's mission and the DoD Principles of Information under which this information is made available to the public. 

You'll also find a bit about the following items:

• DefenseLINK history
• security and privacy notice
• disclaimer for external links
• Government Information Locator Service (GILS)
• web policies
• information for military webmasters
• information about viewer programs needed for some documents available for download

Mission

The Department of Defense is responsible for providing the military forces needed to deter war and protect the security of our country. The department's headquarters is at the Pentagon.

The mission of DefenseLINK is to support the overall mission of the Department of Defense by providing official, timely and accurate information about defense policies, organizations, functions and operations.  Also, DefenseLINK is the single, unified starting point for finding military information on-line.

This mission is consistent with the DoD Principles of Information, which outline the Department's policy for providing information to military members, DoD civilians, military family members, the American public, the Congress, and the news media.  The information you find here is cleared for public release in accordance with the DoD web policy.

DefenseLINK also hosts the Department of Defense part of the Government Information Locator Service (GILS), which is intended to help citizens identify, locate and retreive information about their government. More information about GILS, is available on the GILS Demonstration Server.

Principles of Information

It is the policy of the Department of Defense to make available timely and accurate information so that the public, Congress and the news media may assess and understand the facts about national security and defense strategy.

Requests for information from organizations and private citizens will be answered in a timely manner. In carrying out the policy, the following principles of information will apply:

The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs has the primary responsibility for carrying out this commitment.

These principles were signed by the Secretary of Defense on April 1, 1997.

History

DefenseLINK first went on-line in October 1994, and is a cooperative effort between the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) and the Defense Technical Information Center.  Its initial purpose was to simply publish and distribute, in electronic form, the news releases from the DoD.  Since that time, the mission of DefenseLINK has expanded as more information has been published on-line that is of interest to the general public and other specific audiences.

Security and Privacy Notice

1. DefenseLINK is provided as a public service by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and the Defense Technical Information Center.
   
   
2. Information presented on DefenseLINK is considered public information and may be distributed or copied unless otherwise indicated. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.
   
   
3. For site management, information is collected for statistical purposes. This government computer system uses software programs to create summary statistics, which are used for such purposes as assessing what information is of most and least interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas.
   
   
4. For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.
   
   
5. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with National Archives and Records Administration guidelines.
   
   
6. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.
   
   
7. If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, please forward them to us using the DefenseLINK Contact Us page.
   
   

Disclaimer for External Links

The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the United States Department of Defense of the linked web sites, or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities such as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) sites, the United States Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations.

All links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this Department of Defense web site.

Please let us know about existing external links which you believe are inappropriate and about specific additional external links which you believe ought to be included.

Government Information Locator Service (GILS)

The DoD Resource Locator hosts the DoD part of the Government Information Locator Service (GILS), which is intended to help citizens identify, locate and retrieve information about their government. GILS includes an index of abstracts of official government web sites, major documents including FOIA processed (a)(2) records) and Automated Information Systems, with pointers to the referenced web site or document. This is a fast, text-based search system, and is part of the government-wide GILS system. More information about GILS, is available on the GILS Demonstration Server.

SEARCH | BROWSE | REGISTER GILS records.

Web Policies

Current DoD Web Policy - as a web page or in .pdf format (300k), with Amendments included

• DoD Web Site Administration Policy, 1998
• Amendment, released 26 Apr 2001
• past guidelines from 1997
• past guidelines from 1995

• Military Service Policies

• Army
• Navy
• Air Force

• Other Web Policy Documents

• DISA Web Policy
• DoD Instruction 5120.4, "Electronic Newspaper Policy"
• DoD Directive 5230.9, "Clearance of DoD Information for Public Release"
• DoD Instruction 5230.29, "Security and Policy Review of DoD Information for Public Release"
• DoD Policy for Clearing Electronic Information for the Public

• Other Related Documents

• AFIS Web Story: Internet Presents Web of Security Issues

• Information Vulnerability and the World Wide Web - Deputy Secretary of Defense Memo, Released 28 Sept 1998 (in .pdf format)

Information for Military Webmasters

Register your official, publicly accessible military web site with DefenseLINK and GILS.

Join the DoD Webmasters electronic mailing list.

1. Send an email message to:
        listserv@listserv.5sigcmd.army.mil
2. Leave the subject line blank.
3. In the body of the message type:
        SUB WEBMASTERS yourfirstname yourlastname

Policy Governing Domain Registration in the .mil Domain

Example: OASD(PA) Policy for Acceptable Use of Government Automation Systems for Personal Use

Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs)

Netscape DOD Client/Server Agreement

DefenseLINK Research - This research on DefenseLINK was prepared by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications under a research project for the Federal World Wide Web Consortium.

• Heuristic evaluation (MS Word 6.0 format)
• Usability evaluation (MS Word 6.0 format)

Viewers

Documents on DefenseLINK and other military web sites are made available in several formats, based on a combination of factors, including the format of the original document, whether the look of the original document needed to be preserved, the availability of visitors to open different formats, and accessibility for those with physical limitations.   This does not constitute endorsement of one commercial product over another. Note our disclaimer for external links.