osama

US Court of Appeals Considers Releasing Bin Laden Postmortem Photos

The debate over whether or not the US Government should release photos of Osama Bin Laden's body has been going on ever since his death at the hands of Seal Team 6 in May of 2011. Last April, it seemed that the book had closed on the matter when a federal judge ruled not to release the photos for various reasons.

But certain parties -- the conservative legal group Judicial Watch in this case -- refuse to take no for an answer, leading the US Court of Appeals in Washington to take another look at the matter.

Dead Bin Laden Shot with an Olympus Point-and-Shoot, Reportedly a Tough

After Osama bin Laden's death in May 2011, there was immediately a public outcry for the release of photos showing his dead body. The AP even took legal action to force the publication of the images, but that effort was squashed by a federal judge earlier this year.

While it's unlikely that we'll ever set eyes on the photos in question, more information on how they were captured is emerging.

Hillary Clinton Gets ‘Shopped Out of Iconic War Room Photo by Newspaper

Pete Souza's iconic photo of Obama and his national security team in the Situation Room has become extremely well known in the span of a week, so it's unlikely that any reputable media outlet would dare alter the photo in any way -- but that's exactly what one newspaper did. Orthodox Hasidic newspaper Der Tzitung has a policy of never publishing photographs of women, and decided to publish Obama's situation room photograph with Hillary Clinton and counterterrorism director Audrey Tomason Photoshopped out of the frame.

Obama Reenactment of bin Laden Speech for Press Photos Stirs Controversy

You might not know this, but virtually all of the still photographs you've seen in the press showing President Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden are staged photographs. Reuters photographer Jason Reed wrote an interesting behind-the-scenes blog post on Monday, explaining:

As President Obama continued his nine-minute address in front of just one main network camera, the photographers were held outside the room by staff and asked to remain completely silent. Once Obama was off the air, we were escorted in front of that teleprompter and the President then re-enacted the walk-out and first 30 seconds of the statement for us.

Apparently this has been standard practice during Presidential speeches at the White House for quite some time, and is meant to prevent the noise of camera shutters from interrupting the televised address. Despite the fact that news organizations try to disclose the nature of the photos in the captions, the fact that these photos are staged doesn't sit well with some folks.