Mark, I just looked at the site you've linked from your Slashdot profile: http://www.photo-mark.com/
Based on this link, you appear to be a photographer (unless someone is trying to impersonate you, and in that case I'm not talking to "Mark"), so I'm puzzled about your characterization of the Flickr copyright assertion made by the White House. It is true that the statement does not use the word "copyright." However, it is also true that declaring that a public domain photo can only be used by news organizations and cannot be modified is an attempt to assert "rights" - rights that we normally call "copyright."
As I've pointed out elsewhere (in this thread and in the article seeded above), the issue of using someone's likeness to imply endorsement is /not/ a copyright issue, The person who is the subject of a photo does not have a "copyright" to the photo (rights belong to the photographer unless there are other contractual arrangements, such as being employed by the federal government, in this case) but may have "rights" (as the USA.gov explanation details).