A group of Navy sailors secretly used Starlink to check sports scores, social media and watch movies. They hid it from rank-and-file.

A U.S. Navy chief who wanted the internet so she and other enlisted officers could scroll social media, check sports scores and watch movies while deployed had an unauthorized Starlink satellite dish installed on a warship and lied to her commanding officer to keep it secret, according to investigators.

Internet access is restricted while a ship is underway to maintain bandwidth for military operations and to protect against cybersecurity threats.

The Navy quietly relieved Grisel Marrero, a command senior chief of the littoral combat ship USS Manchester, in August or September 2023, and released information on parts of the investigation this week.

  • @[email protected]English
    21•2 months ago

    First off, not an officer, a high ranking enlisted(E-8) personal was the culprit.

    Typically, anything E-4 or higher is considered a Non-Commisioned Officer.

    EDIT further clarification: from my experience in the Canadian Army, what “Officers” means depends on context. Most often (and what [email protected] probably meant) it means just Commissioned Officers. Other times, it’s anyone in leadership, including NCOs.

    • @[email protected]English
      17•2 months ago

      I totally understand where you’re coming from. It’s absolutely not uncommon to casually refer to high-rank NCOs as Officers (in Canada at least)

      [Source: Family in CAF and RCMP]

      • @[email protected]English
        3•2 months ago

        Very uncommon to refer to NCOs or SNCOs as officers in branches of the US military that I have experience with. Interesting about Canada though, I wonder what other countries do