www.thememoryhole.org

russ kick of the www.thememoryhole.org has obtained 361 photographs from dover air force base of the flag covered coffins of iraq military war dead.  he was able to get these photos by filing a freedom of information act, and then a follow-on request/challenge when his first request was denied.

this morning i saw the pictures posted at:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/dover/

since then, the pictures have made their way around the internet (including drudge, who does not credit russ kick).

but, tonight the entire site is unavailable.

does anyone know why?

•  Traffic to Memoryhole has been heavy all day

  but I managed to get through & see the pix about half an hour ago. Access is really slow, though, due to high use of bandwidth, I'm sure.

  A lot of them are just shots of the plane arriving, hearses, stuff like that, but there are lots more of flag covered "tubes" being carried out, etc.

  I did not look at all 361, however. It would have taken too much time.

  by murphy on Thu Apr 22, 2004 at 05:28:21 PM PDT

  •  thanks murphy...

    glad to know that the site wasn't shut down by some over-zealous pentagon folks....  i was a little worried.

    by selise on Thu Apr 22, 2004 at 05:31:03 PM PDT

    •  heavy traffic

      i think the heavy traffic (which was reported on the evening news as well) just shows that people are really hungry to see these.  and i don't think it's all mischievous liberals or anything like that.  the pics show a pretty solemn and respectful treatment of the dead, and i think that many military families and other "support the troops" types are looking at them to pay their respects.

      it would be interesting to document this if true, it would put the lie to the pentagon's claim that the photo freeze from 1991 was at the request of military families.  that might make sense if they were showing bloody corpses, but flag draped coffins being saluted by marines? who wouldn't want that picture of their loved ones' sacrifice being shown?

      so now the facts are partisan?

      by zeke L on Thu Apr 22, 2004 at 07:31:21 PM PDT

•  I saw them.

  No problem at all, thankfully.

  But does anyone know why the military takes so many such pictures? Or more specifically, why they ban media photographers entirely while at the same time taking at least 361 photos themselves?

  They're all essentially identical caskets, and since they apparently had no intention of providing them to anyone without a fight, one wonders why you have to so thoroughly document what you're trying to hide.

  When the media try to get these and similar shots themselves despite the restrictions, people accuse them of being ghouls.

  by Kagro X on Thu Apr 22, 2004 at 05:58:39 PM PDT

•  mirror site

  
  warblogging.com has mirrored thememoryhole.org site:

  http://warblogging.com/mirrors/www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/dover/gallery.htm

  via ap report at:
  http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0422-11.htm

  by selise on Thu Apr 22, 2004 at 06:29:52 PM PDT

•  ABC and CBS both

  profiled the issue and the website FOIA pix on the evening news. I was glad to see it, and both talked about the woman who lost her job...

  by Marisacat on Thu Apr 22, 2004 at 06:55:29 PM PDT