This is about the sickest thing I've heard of this year. File this under "rendered (nearly) speechless":
6 Members of Elite Navy Force Sue News Agency Over Photos
Six members of the Navy Seals and two of their wives sued The Associated Press and one of its reporters yesterday for distributing photos of the Seals that apparently show them treating Iraqi prisoners harshly.
One wife had put the photos on what she believed was a password-protected Web site, a lawyer for the group said. The suit, filed in Superior Court in San Diego, charges The A.P. with invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It does not name the plaintiffs.
Yeah, we wouldn't want their "privacy" invaded any further, now would we?
More from the Times coverage:
An Associated Press article on Dec. 3 about the photos said they had date stamps suggesting they were taken in May 2003 - months before the photographs taken at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq that led to investigations of abuse of detainees.
In one photo published by The A.P., a gun is pointed at the head of a man who appears to be a prisoner; another shows a man in white boxer shorts, with what looks like blood dripping down his chest, his head in a black hood. In another, a grinning man in uniform is apparently sitting on a prisoner. The faces of most of the prisoners are obscured, but those of their captors are not.
James W. Huston, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said yesterday that since the photographs were published, the men's lives had been put in danger and their wives had received threatening calls. Mr. Huston said the photos had appeared in Arab news media and on anti-American billboards in Cuba.
The lawsuit demands that The A.P. obscure the faces of the Seals members if the photos are published again. Even if The A.P. agreed to shield the faces, Mr. Huston said, he would still pursue damages.
Mr. Huston said he did not know how The A.P.'s reporter got the photographs. "Obviously they were not as safe as she believed them to be," he said of the Navy wife, adding that she was not available for comment. The wife had put the photographs on Web the site as a kind of backup storage, her lawyer said, "and planned to go back and organize them or delete them later."
The A.P. reporter, Seth Hettena, discovered the photos on a Web site called Smugmug.com while researching another news story on alleged brutality by members of the Seals, according to an A.P. article on the suit. The site lets members display photos in password-protected or public galleries.
Reached at The A.P.'s San Diego bureau, Mr. Hettena said he could not comment on the suit or the photos. Dave Tomlin, a lawyer representing The A.P. and Mr. Hettena, said, "We believe that the use of the photographs and the manner they were obtained were entirely lawful and proper."
Truthout carried
Hettena's December 4 article about the Smugmug photos. Hettena explains in it how he came across the pictures (emphasis mine):
The images were found through the online search engine Google. The same search today leads to the Smugmug.com Web page, which now prompts the user for a password. Nine scenes from the SEAL camp remain in Google's archived version of the page.
"I think it's fair to assume that it would be very hard for most consumers to know all the ways the search engines can discover Web pages," said Smugmug spokesman Chris MacAskill.
Before the site was password protected, the AP purchased reprints for 29 cents each.
Some men in the photos wear patches that identify them as members of Seal Team Five, based in Coronado, and the unit's V-shaped insignia decorates a July Fourth celebration cake.
The photos surfaced amid a case of prisoner abuse involving members of another SEAL team also stationed at Coronado, a city near San Diego.
Navy prosecutors have charged several members of SEAL Team Seven with abusing a suspect in the bombing a Red Cross facility. According to charge sheets and testimony during a military hearing last month, SEALs posed in the back of a Humvee for photos that allegedly humiliated Manadel al-Jamadi, who died hours later at Abu Ghraib.
Testimony from that case suggest personal cameras became increasingly common on some SEAL missions last year.
My god, what kind of people put up fun pics of their hubbies torturing Iraqis along with the family pictures, then pitch a fit when someone comes across their photos during a Google search, then decide to SUE because the REPORTER violated their privacy?!