US bans camera phones in Iraq

As a number of us predicted earlier this month (including Bernie Goldbach) ...

News.com Australia: US bans camera phones in Iraq.

Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, it was reported.

Quoting a Pentagon source, The Business newspaper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

"Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works.

This is a travesty, but hardly surprising, given that the Pentagon's aim is to manage the news -- and quash the truth of what's happening on the ground. If participatory media occurs in the military from now on, it will have to take place in the underground, under the threat of court-martial.

Additionally, it prevents families of U.S. troops from keeping in close contact with their loved ones.

Prediction: Almost no one in the mainstream media will raise an objection to this. First, because to do so risks incurring the wrath of the jingoistic right, which has never had a problem with military censorship, even when it turns into a tool of coverups and disinformation. And second, because such examples of citizens media threaten to undercut the news media's traditional role as information messengers and intermediaries.

Later: Sheila writes about it and rightly concludes: "Ban the torture, not the evidence of it."

Well, looks like I'm partly wrong. At Fox News, Greta Van Susteren is troubled by the ban. "I am a bit distressed since I was having the troops send me photos -- great pics -- from Iraq that I have shown you at the end of the show. I am hoping to get around this somehow, since I love showing the many good things our troops are doing in Iraq."

BoingBoing points to this 10-day-old Clarence Page column: Yes to weapons of mass photography.

And Xeni Jardin today updated her entry yesterday on the subject:

This morning, I asked a Defense Department spokesperson whether or not the reports of a phonecam ban were true. This spokesperson said that these reports were technically inaccurate -- that the Pentagon is not issuing a new ban on camera phones per se, but that a Directive 8100.2 was issued on April 14 establishing new restrictions on wireless telecommunications equipment in general. The text of this directive is available online here in PDF format.

On the lighter side, Sheila points to the Daily Farce's report, Donald Rumsfeld Prohibits Use Of Camcorders During Wedding Ceremonies.