RUMSFELD VS. CAMERA PHONES

First, Donald Rumsfeld clamped down on Defense Department websites, claiming the information they offered was a national security threat. Now, he's going after digital cameras and camera phones, according to AFP.

Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq... 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. (via Boing Boing)

THERE'S MORE: "I spoke to several NJ Army Guard transportation NCOs just back from Iraq and they told me that availability of free email services like YAHOO and HOTMAIL had been shut down on military provided internet computers in theater," one Air Force NCO tells Soldiers for the Truth.

In the ANG [Air National Guard] here in CONUS [the continental United States], wing level communications flights and squadrons are DENYING or removing access to free email services for members of each ANG unit. I LOST my access to both YAHOO mail and HOTMAIL on 5/20/04. Prior to that, I used to make contact using these sites even while at my unit. Now, I can no longer do so...

Many of the folks I spoke to used words like "censorship" and "big brother" because they know that their mil domain email accounts are subject to monitoring. These same folks said they feared saying anything critical on a mil domain computer for fear of prosecution.

AND MORE: The report of a Defense Department-wide camera phone ban is bogus, Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin now says. But there is a new directive limiting the use of commercial wireless technology on the DoD's "Global Information Grid."

AND MORE: Xeni's got a kick-ass round-up of the issue in today's Wired News.