4:38:19 PM  #  

Rumsfeld bans camera phones in Iraq? This terribly brief item is getting plenty of blog commentary, but should it? The source, Agence France Press, starts out with an already third-hand account that should make anyone doubt its accuracy. (See the updated information at the end of this item and here.)

• First, if you trust the punctuation, AFP got the story from a London newspaper named "The Business," which I've never heard of. Or maybe it came from an unnamed "business newspaper."
• Second, the story says the newspaper quoted an anonymous "Pentagon source." (I assume there are written policies about use of cameras and communication devices by members of the armed services that could be cited in such a story, explaining what policy had been issued or changed.)
  
• Third, there's no detail at all, just three sentences before the "background info" starts. Unless this is old news I missed, I'd expect a "smoking gun" memo to have turned up at the Washington Post or New York Times by now.

Comments on the SmartMobs blog, below, and on Joi Ito's blog, suggest someone may have taken a piece of satire as real news. Even if "The Business" is a legitimate newspaper, the story was filed on a Sunday; even at a professional news organization, weekend and holiday datelines always say to me, "Danger! Sleepy part-time second-string staff on duty, possibly under pressure to fill space on a slow news day."


More info (added 5/26) digging backwards for better information:

While the prisoner-abuse photos from Iraq and cellphone cameras are new, and the combination seems like something that might cause the military to impose restrictions, the issue of personal photos and Web publishing have been discussed in military circles in the past. See this 2003 article in an Air Force newspaper, quoting a Lt. Col. Brieuc Bloxam, Air Force operations security program manager, about the risk that personal photos posted to the Web could create security problems or propaganda opportunities for an enemy:


The same 15-month-old article quotes a Lt. Col. Timothy W. Murphy, identified as "chief of the command doctrine and employee law branch in the office of the Air Force Judge Advocate General," saying that commanders with security concerns could curtail Web or e-mail access, or say "no pictures."

Here's a Washington Post story from February on Air Force concerns about photo phones and PDAs.

The BBC covered the spread of disturbing images from Iraq on May 8, including how disturbed Rumsfeld was at people "running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs." The BBC, unlike AFP, actually named its source on the lack of military policy:


Knight Ridder newspapers has a May 16 overview story (free registration required), saying "Yet no official rules have been released in the year-plus invasion of Iraq governing the use of cameras, or restricting specifically what soldiers may or may not photograph. No one reviews the photos before they are filed across the Internet."

Similarly, see Amy Harmon's New York Times piece from May 14, "New technology loosens controls over images of war."

J.D. Lasica also has been blogging on reactions to the original AFP news item, including the Knight Ridder link above.

Meanwhile, Xeni Jardin, whose blog used the original AFP bit on Monday, has updated the Boing Boing blog item, adding a link to a jargon-filled Defense Department PDF file on wireless communication restrictions issued last month, and a comment from an unidentified "Defense Department spokesperson" saying the AFP phonecam ban report was technically inaccurate.

So what really has or hasn't been banned? And has anyone seen that original London story that caught AFP's attention on Sunday?

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4:02:24 PM  #