John Sheesley's article recognises, admittedly from a business point of view, that...

"Flash drives have presented security problems for IT for some time now based on their ability to store and make portable gobs of your sensitive corporate data. It’s not just flash drives either. Any device, such as digital cameras or iPods, that can store data and connects to USB present a method for people to remove data from your organization."

"The question for IT leaders however, is what to do about flash drives and other USB storage options. Do you allow them in your organization or do you block them? And what are the implications for blocking USB?" 

Read the whole article at http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/decisioncentral/?p=107&tag=nl.e112.