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:"But last March, a directive came down reaffirming the banning of cameras, likely in anticipation of the sheer volume of casualties being repatriated. ... At Dover, Lt.-Col. [Jon] Anderson says the policy is strictly in place to respect the privacy of the families, although he is well aware that there are those who think it was a political decision. ... 'The administration has clearly made an attempt to limit the attention that would build up if they were showing Dover every day,' says Joseph Dawson, a military historian at Texas A & M University. ... The White House policy works -- to a point. ... If there are no pictures of caskets being delivered to U.S. airbases, citizens don't think of them, analysts say. ... Dawson says television pictures of the wounded at Walter Reed would be a jolt to Americans as they head out to dinner or are thinking of the week's NFL matchups."
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== Background on Photograph Ban ==
The <i>Seattle Times</i> Ray Rivera writes April 22, 2004, that [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001909526_coffinside22m.html "Images of war dead a sensitive subject"]:
:"The Pentagon has banned the media from taking pictures of military caskets returning from war since 1991, citing concern for the privacy of grieving families and friends of the dead soldiers. The Bush administration issued a stern reminder of that policy in March 2003, shortly before the war in Iraq began."
:"Military censors instituted a virtual blackout of such photos in World War I. That ban continued until nearly the end of World War II. ... Images of war dead proliferated in Vietnam, and throughout the 1980s, the government regularly allowed the media to take pictures of coffins returning from Lebanon, Grenada and Panama to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the primary arrival point for returning American soldiers killed overseas.
:"But in 1991, as the United States embarked on its first major war since Vietnam, the policy shifted. In January of that year, the administration of the first President Bush began prohibiting media outlets from taking pictures of coffins being unloaded at Dover. It instituted a total ban in November of that year."
:"In 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., upheld the ban after media outlets and some other organizations sued to have it lifted. Citing the need to reduce the hardship and protect the privacy of grieving families, the court held that the ban did not violate First Amendment guarantees of [[freedom of speech]] and of the press."
=== <i>Seattle Times</i>' Coffins' Photo, April 18, 2004 ===
*Hal Bernton, [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001909527_coffin22m.html "Woman loses her job over coffins photo,"] ''Seattle Times'', April 22, 2004: "A military contractor has fired Tami Silicio, a Kuwait-based cargo worker whose photograph of flag-draped coffins of fallen U.S. soldiers was published in Sunday's edition of The Seattle Times. ... Silicio was let go yesterday for violating U.S. government and company regulations, said William Silva, president of Maytag Aircraft, the contractor that employed Silicio at Kuwait International Airport."
*Gene Johnson, [http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-photo23.html "Cargo worker fired over photo of soldiers' flag-draped coffins,"] ''Chicago Sun-Times'', April 23, 2004: "Maytag Aircraft Corp. fired Tami Silicio, 50, and her husband, David Landry, because they 'violated Department of Defense and company policies by working together' to take and publish the photograph, company president William Silva said in a news release Thursday. ... The firing was first reported Thursday in the ''Seattle Times'', which published the April 7 photo on Sunday. ... The picture shows several workers inside a cargo plane parked at Kuwait International Airport securing 20 flag-draped coffins for the trip to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Silicio, who took the picture, told the newspaper she hoped it would portray the care and devotion with which civilian and military crews treat the remains of fallen soldiers."
*Hal Bernton and Ray Rivera, [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001910594_pentagon23m.html "Air Force adds to controversy with its own coffin photos,"] ''Seattle Times'', April 23, 2004: "The week before Kuwait cargo worker Tami Silicio lost her job for releasing a photograph of soldiers' coffins, the Air Force made its own release of several hundred photographs of flag-draped coffins to the operator of an Internet site. ... The Air Force photos were shot by personnel at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and released -- reluctantly -- in response to a [[Freedom of Information Act]] request submitted by a 34-year-old First Amendment activist. ... Release of the more than 360 photographs further erodes a 13-year-old ban on the [[media]] taking photos of the transport of coffins from overseas battle zones to Dover, site of the military's largest mortuary."
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