A US Navy chief was relieved of her duties after installing an unauthorized Starlink satellite dish on a warship to access the internet for social media, sports scores, and movies while deployed. The chief, Grisel Marrero, had the dish secretly set up on the USS Manchester in April 2023 before deployment, despite internet access being restricted at sea for operational and cybersecurity reasons. The installation cost $2,800, and signal amplifiers were purchased during a stop in Hawaii to improve coverage on the ship. The network was exclusively used by Marrero and over a dozen other chief petty officers, who paid the $1,000 monthly bill using the Chief Petty Officer Association’s debit card. The unauthorized network was kept hidden from rank-and-file sailors, with Marrero going to great lengths to conceal it, including renaming it as a printer and intercepting comments about it left in suggestion boxes.
Marrero, a former information systems technician, faced a court-martial in March where she admitted to dereliction of duty and providing false statements to commanders, resulting in her demotion to a chief petty officer. The Navy relieved her of her command due to a loss of confidence in her leadership abilities. According to Navy spokesperson Cmdr. Cindy Fields, senior enlisted leaders are expected to maintain high standards of responsibility and reliability, and are held accountable for any shortcomings. This incident comes in the wake of another Navy officer being relieved of duty after a photo emerged showing him firing a rifle with a backward mounted scope, leading to mockery on social media.
