The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Grant D.:

I think what they're driving at is not "digital cameras" per se, but the new communications paradigm. Most of the soldiers grew up swapping electronic files, and anything as salacious as the prison photos has the potential of instantaneously spreading around the globe like wildfire.

According to the BBC story, the Pentagon was caught without a comprehensive policy. That would explain (but not justify) the 90-day Internet ban, a stopgap measure to help prevent images from leaving the theater until regulations can be drafted and promulgated.

Given the seriousness of the controversy and the paranoia of this administration, those regulations are likely to be draconian.

The BBC gets in on the act (but no word on an e-mail ban).

Despite Mr Rumsfeld's concerns, the American military does not have any centrally determined policy on the use of digital cameras by soldiers. That is left to commanding officers in the field.

A spokesman for US Central Command in Iraq, Lt Cdr Nick Balice, told BBC News Online: "Certainly the use of digital cameras and the internet provides methods of communicating that did not exist prior.

"As far as I know, there is not a policy that covers theatre-wide with regards to digital cameras. It depends on what area they are in - there may be restrictions, such as along flight lines or within secure areas."

That'll change mighty quickly, I'll bet.

Here's Rummy's assessment of the situation:

We're functioning in a -- with peacetime restraints, with legal requirements in a war-time situation, in the information age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise, when they had not even arrived in the Pentagon.

And here's an interesting take on digital technology's impact on the war:

The two biggest recent stories to emerge from the Iraq - the administration's don't-show-don't-know policy toward the photographing of military caskets and the puerile abuses by Army reservists inside Abu Ghraib prison - were based on digital photographs not made by journalists but by participants in both stories.

His conclusions are a bit overly techno-triumphalist, but he's right — the most damning stories are not orgininating from the press, but from "people running around with digital cameras." I think the Pentagon was caught off-guard, focusing it's attention on corralling reporters, and is now playing catch-up.

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