WASHINGTON, March 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - During the time of war, the U.S. media is coming under water-tight constraints from the Bush administration, signaling perhaps an end to the era of 'free' media.

In an article published in the website Scoop, Yellowtimes.org editor Firas Al Atraqchi said: "Once again, the staff at YellowTimes.org was threatened with a shutdown."

The note that was sent to the website hours before it was shut down read: "We are sorry to notify you of suspending your account: Your account has been suspended because [of] inappropriate graphic material."

Another e-mail sent to the site read: "As 'NO' TV station in the U.S. is allowing any dead U.S. solders or POWs to be displayed (sic) and we will not either (sic)."

"At the time of this e-mail, TV stations across the U.S. were allowing the images of U.S. POWs to be brought to the public's attention," countered Al Atraqchi.

He said that the public outrage in the U.S. which sited the Geneva Convention on treatment of POW followed the U.S. TV stations' "extensive footage of Iraqi POWs, sometimes with cameras panning in for extreme close-ups of blank-staring Iraqi soldiers, disheveled and fatigued as they were."

Al Atraqchi said that when asked by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera spokesperson why it was allowed for U.S. stations to broadcast footage of Iraqi POWs, CNN's Aaron Brown said, "because their families wouldn't be watching".

"Not true. CNN is broadcast around the world and is available to Iraqis. There are millions of Iraqis living outside Iraq who may recognize an Iraqi POW as a family member. Not withstanding, to say ‘their families wouldn't be watching’ is not an excuse. If it is a violation on the Iraqi side, then surely, it is as well on the U.S. side," averred Al Atraqchi.

On Tuesday, March 25, the New York Stock Exchange said it had banned reporters from Al-Jazeera from its trading floor, sparking charges of retaliation for the channel's coverage of the Iraq war.

NYSE spokesman Ray Pellecchia said the decision to rescind the accreditation of two journalists from Al-Jazeera's New York bureau had been taken to try and accommodate a surge in requests from television networks for access to the stock exchange.

"We've had to prioritize requests that we've gotten and focus our efforts on those who focus on providing responsible business coverage, and as a result we cannot accommodate Al-Jazeera at this time," Pellecchia said.

"If we can develop more capacity in the future and they are interested in coming back, they may be allowed back," he added.

Pellecchia confirmed that Al-Jazeera was the only network to have its existing accreditations rescinded, but refused to comment on the charge that the move was purely retaliatory in nature.

However, a stock exchange official who declined to be identified said the decision had been taken "with events in Iraq in mind."

Al-Jazeera took its first major flak of this conflict with its broadcast on Sunday of footage from Iraqi state television showing the bodies of several people in U.S. uniforms.

It also showed the interrogations of five prisoners in camouflage uniforms, including a woman.

Most U.S. broadcast and cable networks opted not to air the footage, fearing a possible public outcry and rebukes from U.S. and British officials.

CBS television, which broadcast a brief clip of the video during an interview with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during its "Face the Nation" program, appeared to be the only network to have aired even a portion of the tape.

Confronted with the images, a grim-faced Rumsfeld claimed the airing of the video was a violation of the Geneva Conventions which prohibit any treatment of prisoners intended to humiliate or demean them.

"That's a violation of the Geneva Convention, those pictures you showed, if, in fact, those are our soldiers," he told CBS interviewer Bob Schieffer who appeared slightly taken aback by the remark.

Later on CNN, after the Pentagon had confirmed that a handful of U.S. soldiers reported missing had been captured, Rumsfeld went further, castigating media outlets that would air the footage.

"Television networks that carry such pictures are, I would say, doing something that's unfortunate," he said.

The veiled warning appeared to work as CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer later announced that the network had decided not to air the tape and would use only a still photograph take from it in which it is not possible to identify the dead.

"We want to let the audience know our viewers know that these pictures and the interviews are extremely disturbing," he said.

"CNN has made a decision not to show the video of those killed and will instead use this single image with no identifiable features," he told viewers.

Fox television also said it had decided against showing any portion of the tape as did MSNBC, the sister network of over-the-air broadcaster NBC.

"It is a horrifying videotape," an MSNBC anchor told viewers. "We are not going to show it here."

However, many European television stations on Sunday broadcast the images despite Rumsfeld's criticism.

Editorial staff questioned by AFP defended their decision to air the pictures, saying that earlier footage showing Iraqi soldiers captured by U.S. forces had not been criticized.

Britain's Sky News, the 24-hour news station owned by Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch, was the first to show the Iraqi television pictures of the visibly afraid soldiers.

"We have guidelines, we are trying in most cases not to show faces, to show long shots but basically not to identify. We are not using close-ups material," a Sky spokesman said.

In another censorship attempt, U.S. soldiers stationed in Afghanistan were shielded from TV pictures showing their comrades captured and apparently killed in Iraq, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.

Although Al-Jazeera is widely viewed across Afghanistan where an increasing number of the country's urban population have access to the satellite dishes, U.S. troops are unable to see the channel.

"We have no Al-Jazeera, the only thing that we receive is the Armed Forces Network," U.S. military spokesman Colonel Roger King told reporters at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, the headquarters of U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

King said the U.S. military had never allowed pictures of captives to be shown during its 17-month campaign in the central Asian country.

"We are very concerned about how we may show people that we bring under controls," he said.