FIRST can ban it if they want to, but it would be totally stupid. W/O flashes in a dim building = crummy pictures, unless some new technology has been developed to take pictures in the dark w/o a flash. I remember last year at the Midwest Regional, I took a few pictures not realizing that the flash was off, and they turned out very bad. If FIRST wants to get good publicity and media attention in newspapers, magazines and online, the photographers need their flashes to produce some good pictures