Court Seems Likely to Defer to Gov't on Bin Laden Photo Ban

Censorship okay if government argues bad things might happen

An appeals court on Thursday appeared willing to defer to the U.S. government in blocking the release of graphic photos of the corpse of Osama bin Laden.

The government and a conservative-leaning watchdog organization have been battling for months over the postmortem images of the al-Qaeda leader, with the group asserting that the public has a right to view them and U.S. officials arguing that the release of the photos could incite anti-American violence.