Saturday, March 10, 2007

U.S. Military: Censorship was justified

The U.S. military asserted that an American soldier was justified in erasing journalists' footage of the aftermath of a suicide bombing and shooting in Afghanistan last week, saying publication could have compromised a military investigation and led to false public conclusions.

Compromising an investigation sounds like a reasonable reason, but this is followed by this strange statement by Col. Victor Petrenko, chief of staff to the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan:

"When untrained people take photographs or video, there is a very real risk that the images or videography will capture visual details that are not as they originally were," he said. "If such visual media are subsequently used as part of the public record to document an event like this, then public conclusions about such a serious event can be falsely made."

"there is a very real risk that the images or videography will capture visual details that are not as they originally were" is a very odd way of describing it.

Read more here.

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