Military access

The military has reversed recent changes to its policy for embedded reporters that prohibited them from photographing troops who have been killed in action, Congressional Quarterly reported on Tuesday.

Confusion remains after military commanders in eastern Afghanistan issued two recent changes to a policy on whether embedded journalists can photograph mortally wounded soldiers, the Associated Press reported.

A revised policy for reporters embedded with the U.S. military command in eastern Afghanistan released Thursday retreats from a more stringent version imposed last month, the Washington Post reports.

The agreement journalists must sign to become embedded with a military unit in Afghanistan now includes a prohibition against any photographic or video coverage of U.S. troops killed in action, according to a copy of the latest agreement.

A reporter for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes has been banned from returning to his embedded post with an Army unit in Mosul, Iraq, on the grounds that he "refused to highlight" good news about the war, according to media reports.

Two months after the military loosened its ban on the media at Dover Air Force Base, the Associated Press reports that 14 of 19 families have agreed to let journalists cover the arrivals of their slain loved ones' caskets at the base.

The Washington Post and many other news outlets were on hand Sunday night to witness, for the first time in 18 years, the arrival of a slain service member's remains at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. 

In clear rejection of an 18-year-old military policy, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Thursday that photographers will once again be allowed at Dover Air Force Base to document the return of fallen troops' caskets from war.

So long as the families of the dead agree, Gates said, the news media will be allowed in to document the solemn arrival ceremonies at the Delaware base. A Pentagon spokesperson wrote in an e-mail to the Reporters Committee:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday ordered a review of a military policy that bans the media from taking photographs of U.S. soldiers' caskets as they're flown into Dover Air Force Base. His announcement came less than 24 hours after President Obama spoke on the issue at his first prime time press conference. 

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion Friday to stop the censorship of torture and abuse allegations that have arisen during the prosecution of five high-profile Guantanamo Bay detainees.