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tim atherton
19-Jan-2004, 09:59
Fwd from Lawyer and Photographer Bert Krages:

> Last December, a photographer in Portland, Oregon was stopped and > detained > by security guards for taking photographs of the old federal courthouse. > Margie Boule, a columnist with the Oregonian, wrote yesterday about his > experience and her interviews with federal officials in the Office of > Homeland Security, Federal Protective Service, and U.S. > Attorney's Office. > It is a well written column and shows what can happen when photographers > voice their complaints about mistreatment.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/margie_boule/index.ssf?/base/living/1074258241122040.xml

(you have to do a little zipcode and age thing)

A couple of quotes:

"You'd think it would be easy to find out if something was against the law in the United States. Either there's a law on the books or there isn't, right? But this week it took a lot of phone calls to get a definitive answer on whether it's illegal to photograph federal buildings in America....

Garrison Courtney, with the Federal Protective Service in the capitol, was certain "there is a law" banning the photographs. "What it is offhand I can't say, but you can be charged for taking pictures of federal buildings. I have seen people charged with it since I came here." But Garrison could not cite the law...

Finally Ken Spitzer, regional director for the Federal Protective Service of Homeland Security -- in other words, the big boss of the security guards who hassled Jeffrey Thorns last month -- had the facts. "It's not true" that it's illegal to photograph federal buildings, he said this week. "They misspoke. It's certainly not illegal. But when we see people in front of buildings taking photos we try to be as vigilant as we can.""

Bob Salomon
19-Jan-2004, 10:09
Out of curiosity: Press photographer? Commercial photographer? Free-lance professional photographer? H.A.B.S. photographer? Amateur photographer? handheld shooting? Tripod mounted shooting in street or sidewalk?

tim atherton
19-Jan-2004, 10:28
it's in the column, but in this case, an amateur architectural photogrpaher, using handeld at that point I think. This is actually one of numerous similar cases that have been reported in the last year covering photography students, "amateurs", newspaper photographers, documentary photographers etc, using everythign from LF to Leicas

Nick Morris
19-Jan-2004, 11:49
Tim, I had a similar experience. I'm a commercial real estate appraiser (though I'd rather think of myself as a LF photographer), and on an assignment at our airport, I was taking pictures of the post office facility on the airport runway apron I was appraising. As I was driving off the airport grounds, I was stopped by security, and asked about photographing the facility. The security man had me wait while he verified my story with the PO manager. I didn't question the legality, but assumed it was part of the post-911 heightened security. Someone in our office was stopped by police after photographing a branch bank. I now try to notify people at the property I'm photographing, rather than doing so un-announced. It saves problems later, and reassures the occupants of the property.

James Venis
19-Jan-2004, 12:33
Why would it matter the purpose of the photographer or his/her status within the field? The First Amendment applies to all.

Bob Salomon
19-Jan-2004, 13:15
"Why would it matter the purpose of the photographer"

There could be quite a difference if one is openly shooting or candidly shooting the scene. There could also be an issue with setting up a tripod and blocking public access on a sidewalk or street while shooting the scene. There could also be an issue if one returns to shoot the scene at various times and days. May not be illegal but could be suspicious. Especially since 9/11.

As an aside, when I was 13 my parents gave me a new Minox - the B. I then went on a sales trip with my father's New England sales rep. We passed the submarine base in New London and decided to stop to photograph the scene with my new Minox. Of course we could not get into the base so we stopped at a rest area that overlooked it. Public land not Nave or Groton Ship Works property.

Within a very few minutes 2 very large (I was only 13 remember) Shore Patrolmen showed up and demanded the film. At that point it seemed like the wisest thing to do so I lost most of my shots with my new camera.

james mickelson
19-Jan-2004, 13:27
Unfortunately "we" have given away our rights. The Homeland Security Administration has been given carte blanche authourity to stop, question, and or apprehend anyone whom they consider questionable. The Patriot act has given "all" governmental agencies the power to detain "anyone" at any time and for no reason. If you think I'm joking you had better read the document. By the power granted "any and all" government agencies by the Patriot Act, you are subject to search and seizure at any time without due process. The Border Patrol, FBI, CIA, or any other agency representative can kick your door down unannounced and take you away for no reason at all. Read the document and weep. While we were being scared of external terrorists we were in fact being deceived into thinking that we were being made "safe" while the real terrorists were busy using our fears to take our freedoms away. If you travle anywhere, not just out of the country but internally as well, you had better read about the CAPPS 2 directive from the Homeland Security Administration. And get your fingerprints ready to hand over to them if you want to get on an airliner to anywhere in the country. Read and weep. 1984 is fast approaching. Don't take my word for it. Read the documents.

Ben Calwell
19-Jan-2004, 13:35
Bob, It probably didn't help your case any that you were using the classic "spy" camera, even if you were only 13 at the time.

Bob Salomon
19-Jan-2004, 13:53
Ben,

That I guess is the point. There are obvious ways to photograph things and there are suspicious ways. today I would try to be as obvious as possible and gather permission prior to shooting it.

At 13 I never really thought of it as a spy camera.

Kosta
19-Jan-2004, 14:01
Maybe I have more attitude than common sense, but my response to any police officer/security guard would be to require them to cite the code in which I would be in violation by taking a picture of any buildings or features thereof.

Leonard Evens
19-Jan-2004, 14:11
I would be tempted to state my rights and ask which law I was violating. As they arrested me, I would threaten them with a suit for false arrest. And of course I would be very sorry afterwards because of all the trouble I was put through. I guess in these matters discretion is the better part of valor, but it would be nice if someone actually stood up for his rights., just to remind the idiots that are running things that we are still supposed to have those rights.

The most annoying aspect of all this is that there is no evidence whatsoever that preventing people from taking pictures of federal buildings from a public location is at all helpful in preventing terrorism. A terrorist casing such a facility could either use a small hidden camera or just observe and remember. Presumably the important things for the terrorist to find out would be traffic flow and how the building was used over time, not architectural details which are in plain sight. It makes as much sense to arrest people for looking at a building as for photographing it.

Chad Jarvis
19-Jan-2004, 14:30
But what ARE your rights? The 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America makes no guarantee regarding your right to photograph anything. It guarantees your right to publish a photo, not to take it.

tim_3863
19-Jan-2004, 14:38
yes, it is a sad state of affairs these days. to add fuel to the fire, the real terrorists are indeed in the big white house. I have been stopped and questioned for photographing TREES near a state resevoir and told that if I was caught photographing "any structure" that they would confiscate not only my film, but all of my equipment!!!! I would have thought that that would be illegal, but we never know anymore, do we? Meanwhile, if I was plotting to destroy the resevoir, I would just drive by, stick a point and shoot out the window and snap, snap, snap instead of calling attention to myself. Not to mention the fact that you can sit there and sketch out diagrams and attack plans and it would be perfectly legal. figure that one out. I was looking at View Camera Magazine and admiring the photos of the dams project (sorry, I forget the photographer) but ended up just getting sad thinking that the tradition of shooting dams, bridges, and other structures is now DEAD in america. Are we really free here? I alwas thought the point was to protect those very freedoms, not take them away from you. Stay in your studios, shoot flowers and develop it yourself. the rest is off limits.

jnantz
19-Jan-2004, 14:57
bob:

the funny thing is they were taking your film from you, but there was a person working at the shipyard who was photographing his family infront of the building he works - and the security didn't both to look twice :)

i have seen that before at a sub-base where it is impossible to use a camera without a badge & the proper documentation, where film isn't allowed to leave the base without being processed proofed, reviewed &C.

then as you leave the base with your head spinning from all the hoops you had to jump through, wondering if you will hear back from the reviewers in the next few days --- there is a guy photographing his kids on a sub-turret in plain view of the restricted area & the " stuff' " you were told not to have in your field of view.

not a courthouse ... but ...

tim atherton
19-Jan-2004, 15:28
"That I guess is the point. There are obvious ways to photograph things and there are suspicious ways. today I would try to be as obvious as possible and gather permission prior to shooting it."

Agreed, however there is a fine line between notifying a location that you will be taking photogrpahs and seeking permission to do so. We need to be careful of seeking permission where none is required. One case was an editorial/dopcumenatry photographer photogorpahing a chemical plant from a public location who was approached first by the security guards and then by the sherrifs dept that were then called by the guards. In each case they told him he couldn't photogorpah (not that he was blocking the hihgway or any catchall thing like that) - basically citing Homeland Security as the reason. They also tried to seize his film.

Now, because the chemical plant was controversial, accussed of causing pollution etc., chances are if this photogorpaher had called and asked for permssion to photograph (permission he didn't need) they would have just said no.

So it may be prudent to notify people you will be photogorpahing, but not neccesarily so to ask their permission.

chris jordan
19-Jan-2004, 16:21
Well so much for the f**king land of the free!! It's amazing, I have been photographing in Seattle's industrial area (the Port of Seattle) for several months, and I have been stopped and questioned by police every single time I have photographed down there. Most recently, I was on a public road shooting over a fence with my tall tripod, and they pulled over and in very macho tones of voices demanded my drivers license, searched my car and told me that I "wasn't authorized" to be doing what I was doing, and before I took any pictures I had to go "obtain clearance" from the Port Authority. Taking a photo from a public freaking road!!! So I went to the Port and talked to the guy who runs the place, and he kind of sheepishly said that's not quite what the law is, and it's fine to photograph from public right of ways. Having done a lot of travelling abroad, I must say that I've never felt less free anywhere than I do in my own "free" country right now.

Seems like our country has the mentality of those types of guys who turn their suburban houses into compounds with barbed wire and attack dogs and humvees parked in the driveway. They become prisoners in their own homes. So whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty?" Seems like we're suspected terrorists until we can demonstrate otherwise. Amazing.

~cj

James Venis
19-Jan-2004, 16:24
I think the phrase we're looking for is "prior restraint."

I just checked...ACLU membership is only $20.

See: www.aclu.org

tim atherton
19-Jan-2004, 17:11
Bert's little "Photographers Rights sheet" is a useful thing to have:

http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

as is his bigger book

http://www.krages.com/lhp.htm

kallitype
19-Jan-2004, 17:32
If you voted for Bush/Cheney, you have no right to complain. They talk about preserving freedom--in reality, they hate freedom. Sorry to respond to politics into a photo forum, but your second amendment rights are history...

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."--- Hermann Goering

chris jordan
19-Jan-2004, 18:19
That's another incredibly stupid thing about all the times we LF photog's get stopped and questioned. If we were terrorists, or theives, or bad dudes or whatever, would we be lugging around a big-ass camera, huge tripod, and a whole bag of old-fashioned film holders, getting under a dark cloth and taking twenty minutes for a single photograph? Well freakin' DUH!!! How stupid are these people? Any terrorist worth his salt would rent a chopper and fly by with a Nikon bulk-loader on motor-drive, or shoot from the back of a motorcycle at 40 mph. Fifteen seconds, 400 photographs, and they're gone.

And by the way, because of a recent run-in with a turd-stupid security guard who threatened to take my film (for photographing a pile of garbage from a public street-- "possible homeland security issue here" she said on her radio) I bring two extra rolls of 35mm with me. If someone says "gotta give me your film," then I'll hand over the 35mm rolls and say "dang, I hate this, but I understand your reasoning, so here is my film." Then it's off to the darkroom to process my new round of 8x10's for 50" wide prints.

I'm going to expose the two rolls of 35mm film, too, in case they want to go so far as processing it to find out what I shot. Can you guess? 36 exposures of the full moon, my narrah white booty, up close with the 24mm at f/22. HA!!!

~cj

Henry Ambrose
19-Jan-2004, 19:30
Chris do you speak of your"narrah white booty" that apparently lacks enough equipment hanging beneath it to get you arrested? As outraged as you seem now why did you not challenge an obviously illegal order? That is "amazing" Ever think about showing them what you're doing? Maybe ask them if they want to look through he camera?

Kallitype, study the Constitution again before you start citing its Amendments. We still can own firearms the last I checked. And are you really " Sorry to respond to politics into a photo forum" or are you using that to let us know that you are eagerly waiting for the chance to spew your hare-brained ideas? Whatca ya smokin, duuude? As for having "no right to complain", if you don't stand up for yourself you surely can't bitch.

And of course if you didn't read the whole article you missed this part: "Ken was clear: Jeffrey should not have been told he was doing anything illegal. In fact, "as a result of this inquiry, I want to follow up with our people. Every once in a while we'll hire a couple of new security guards who don't understand how we do business. I'm going to go back and tell our area commanders to make sure the right word is going out." That doesn't sound like any kind of Nazi to me.

It seems reasonable for people to be suspicious of strange behaviour. Just because you know you're not a danger other people might not see it that way. Good thing view cameras don't look like RPGs, then we'd really be in for a tough time.

james mickelson
19-Jan-2004, 22:24
Henry, you may have the right to buy a firearm, even have it in your home, but try transporting it in any other fashion than in a locked case, with the ammo in a separate locked case. I speak from experience. I am doing public service because of not following the law to the letter even though I was an exemplary citizen causing no trouble, and even though the law is ambiguous at best. The Patriot Act has precluded your right to due process. It states that "any" public safety officer can, for any reason, stop you, question you, and detain you for no reason whatsoever, if that officer deems you a perceived threat to security. It doesn't specify public security or national security. It simply states "security." Try to debate the merits of this with a policeman, security officer, or district attorney. I have done so and it is not worth the trouble. A brick wall is easier to talk to. I agree we should ascert our right to the freedoms the constitution has guaranteed us. Unfortunately "The Partiot Act" as written and passed by "our" congress has usurped "our" rights so guaranteed. And old Hermann was right along with Mao, and Stalin. While our vaunted free press and government officials were telling us we were vulnerable to terrorist attacks, we were actually allowing our government officials to make laws that took away our rights in the name of "our" security. And "we" were so afraid for our seciruty that we were blind to what was actually going on around us. Now all the security apparatus has to do is tell us howmuch danger we face every day, and how good a job they are doing protecting us that we will allow them to pass any law they want in the name of national security. So now with CAPPS 2 they want the airlines to fingerprint us, run dossiers on every air traveler, and give each of us a security risk assesment so the country can be safe from terrorists. Yet the border by which I live, is so pourous that anyone can walk right across it at any time. Wake up people before you are hogtied with laws you can't defeat. The terror doesn't come from abroad, it is here at home in the form of our own government. Just do something wrong and have fun in court. Then you'll see just how far your freedom of speech and your right of due process goes.

Sandy Sorlien
20-Jan-2004, 04:23
I have no doubt that there are some suspicious boobs out there, but let me inject a positive story. Since 9/11 I have been photographing buildings on public streets, and bridges occasionally, all over America, including the Philadelphia Navy Base. Almost no problems. Police see me and drive by without asking wassup. Sometimes someone from the Chamber of Commerce comes out, but they are excited that I may be giving their little town some publicity somehow. I thought when I started the Main Street project I would stop and inform the police before shooting in every town. But it hasn't been necessary, and as someone noted above, sometimes it's better not to ask. Anyway, here are my tips for hassle-free architectural photography in this day and age:

1. Be female. Yes, we have an advantage. (No bananas, but an advantage.)

2. Use a wooden tripod and tie orange hazard tape around the legs. A lot of people think I am a surveyor. I sometimes block part of the street or sidewalk with orange traffic cones; only once did a police officer stop to inquire (I was blocking an entire lane of a state highway in Texas), and he ended up giving me recommendations for other cool towns to shoot.

3. Be obvious and relaxed. Hang around eating your lunch.

4. If questioned, don't be professional or officious or indignant. Smile and say, "Oh I'm just doing a personal project. It might be in a book someday, but it's just for my personal portfolio right now." Offer to show them what's in the ground glass, bore them with your composition issues. Look at the sun fretfully. Once I was shooting the main street of Pottsville PA and there was a US Armory at the edge of the shot. A polite man in uniform came out to inquire. I showed him how the Armory barely showed in the ground glass and he was fine with it.

Cheers, Sandy

Frank Petronio
20-Jan-2004, 05:44
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that a tripod and camera could be mistaken for a weapon by an average security guard. Likewise, if I were planning to drive a car bomb into a building, part of my research would be to study photographs of it in order to determine the weakest defense. The problem is over zealous (or bored) security guards and federal employees who need to justify their jobs because actual terrorists are extremely rare. I don't see it as creeping facism, and I don't think that Bush or Ashcroft are trying to sweep away our rights.

Contrast the ~800 suspected terrorists picked up since 9-11 (250 of which were found guilty of a related offense, and 450 deported) to what Democratic administrations and liberal Supreme Court Justices did during WW2 - interring thousands of Japanese-Americans. Or the sweeping arrest of over 6000 Americans related to domestic bombings during the 1930s. By any comparision the Homeland Security Administration has acted with restraint.

When you consider that we have not had any major terrorism in the USA since 9-11 - except for the DC sniper and the shootings at the LA airport (both by Muslim-Americans, BTW), I'd say that Homeland Security has been doing an excellent job. If anything I think they should increase their efforts.

Regardless of your political views, if you realize that the US is actually in a state of war – which, frankly, we are – the snafus at airport security and vague photo restrictions are really very minor. Try photographing in other countries that are threatened by terrorism to see what I mean.

kallitype
20-Jan-2004, 10:50
Henry: that should be "hair-brained", not "hare-brained"... ;-)

So you can buy a gun? Not for long, pal, see Patriot Act II provision "Our Lady of Peace".

(sorry for the bandwidth)

By Alex Jones (www.infowars.com) http://educate-yourself.org/cn/secretpatriotact12feb03.shtml Feb.11, 2003

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was allowed to read the first Patriot Act that was passed by the House on October 27, 2001. The first Patriot Act was universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum. William Safire, while writing for the New York Times, described the first Patriot Act's powers by saying that President Bush was seizing dictatorial control.

On February 7, 2003 the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan public interest think-tank in DC, revealed the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. The classified document had been leaked to them by an unnamed source inside the Federal government. The document consisted of a 33-page section by section analysis of the accompanying 87-page bill.

*Note: On February 10, 2003, I discovered that not only was there a house version that had been covertly brought to Speaker Dennis Hastert, but that many provisions of the now public Patriot Act II had already been introduced as pork barrel riders on Senate Bill S. 22. Dozens of subsections and even the titles of the subsections are identical to those in the House version. This is very important because it catches the Justice Department in a bald-faced lie. The Justice Department claimed that the secret legislation brought into the House was only for study, and that at this time there was no intention to try and pass it. Now upon reading S. 22, it is clear that the leadership of the Senate is fully aware of the Patriot Act II, and have passed these riders out of their committees into the full bill. I spent two hours scanning through S. 22 and, let me tell you, it is a nightmare for anyone who loves liberty. It even contains the Our Lady of Peace Act that registers all gun owners. It bans the private sale of all firearms, creates a Federal ballistics database, and much more.

The bill itself is stamped 'Confidential - Not for Distribution.' Upon reading the analysis and bill, I was stunned by the scientifically crafted tyranny contained in the legislation. The Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs admits that they had indeed covertly transmitted a copy of the legislation to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, (R-Il) and the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney as well as the executive heads of federal law enforcement agencies.

It is important to note that no member of Congress was allowed to see the first Patriot Act before its passage, and that no debate was tolerate by the House and Senate leadership. The intentions of the White House and Speaker Hastert concerning Patriot Act II appear to be a carbon copy replay of the events that led to the unprecedented passage of the first Patriot Act.

There are two glaring areas that need to be looked at concerning this new legislation:

1. The secretive tactics being used by the White House and Speaker Hastert to keep even the existence of this legislation secret would be more at home in Communist China than in the United States. The fact that Dick Cheney publicly managed the steamroller passage of the first Patriot Act, insuring that no one was allowed to read it and publicly threatening members of Congress that if they didn't vote in favor of it that they would be blamed for the next terrorist attack, is by the White House's own definition terrorism. The move to clandestinely craft and then bully passage of any legislation by the Executive Branch is clearly an impeachable offence.

2. The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.

I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into every facet of our society. It strips American citizens of all of their rights and grants the government and its private agents total immunity.

domenico Foschi
20-Jan-2004, 11:02
It is very annoing to me to see people realizing that this is not the land of the free , since the Homeland security act , when in the past government propaganda has demonized other government ideologies like communism just because the exemples that jump quicker to our eyes ( Russia & China ) have been breeding grounds for corruption and lack of human rights . How many people in the US have been allowed to know that there are experiments in communist idologies in this planet that have been working wonderfully for more than 50 years? The Mc Carthy era was only 50 years ago .... In the US now it is a Stigma to admit that your political ideas are to the left of the spectrum , when the person more worshipped by this country , Jesus Christ , was himself at best a communist , at worst an anarchist . But i'd better stop here since my being an immigrant in this country , gives the authorities the power to confiscate my green card anytime .....

Frank Petronio
20-Jan-2004, 12:17
Imagine if dozens of robed and turbaned men carried suitcases and tripods into close proximity to a bridge, dam, chemical plant, or densely populated area. Suppose they spent several hours there, fiddling with strange apparatus onto of tripods, taking measurements, and writing in notebooks or PDAs, while talking on their cell phones. Do you seriously believe that these people should not be scrutinized?

People complain about security measures; later they complain about the lack of security (listen to the Democratic candidates.) I'm not a fan of federalized airport security, expanded government agencies, or secret dealings. But geez, I'm one of those people who actually thinks that do-gooders like Dick Cheney rather be retired and skiing at his Jackson Hole ranch rather than zapping his pacemaker by having to work 15 hours a day with an idiotic congress and a million petty civil servants. It's not like he has to work for a living...

Let me know when the storm troopers knock on your door. Until then, I'm glad they're locking up Yemenis who "vacation" Osama's training camps.

(It's starting to look like the Leica forum – sorry QT.)

Bob._3483
20-Jan-2004, 13:03
"Try photographing in other countries that are threatened by terrorism to see what I mean"

Erm, you mean like the UK since 1979? Shoot away (except outside military establishmets of course) - if some jobsworth in a peaked cap comes out and moans, tell him to smeg off....

I tend to keep out of these discussions as (a) I am not a US citizen so the pain is therefore remote and (b) I have nothing original to contribute....

BTW, I don't know if it made the news in the US, but while people are being held under military detention without trial for over two years and US citizens rights are being trampled on in the name of security, a guy en-route from Washington to Dubai a few days ago was detected and arrested with several live rounds of ammunition in his pocket while changing planes at Heathrow.... <sigh>....

kallitype
20-Jan-2004, 14:09
Frank P., your point is well taken----I apologize for the soapbox rant, and will make no further replies to the off-topic Constitutional issues. I have never been accosted while photographing street scenes on Vashon Island, WA, or in the canyons of Utah, by other than folks wanting to know "what kind of camera is that?" (8x10 view). YMMV!

Frank Petronio
20-Jan-2004, 14:29
Kallitype - thank you. I am concerned about the excesses of the Patriot Act too, and I'm not at all happy with the situation we're in or the way things are headed. Glad that we can discuss it openly while disagreeing on the particulars. The nice thing is the LF Forum discussion thread isn't anything at all like the Leica forum where people would be shouting at each other and calling each other names, without actually thinking. Guess big cameras make people more polite. Thanks QT.

Ron Bose
20-Jan-2004, 15:36
I was lucky enough to spend almost all of last year in Massachusetts, working on a project at my employers' world-HQ (my home country is Canada).

I have brown skin, my parent's are from India afterall, so I needed to be 'ultra-careful' whenever I was pointing my Wisner or Mamiya at anything (wouldn't want to look like a bad-guy, eh ?).

Being a visitor to the US (even with all the correct papers/visa) , I could have been deported at the click of a shutter-release ... if I was lucky. Most likely though, I'd be thrown into a jail cell with no rights what so ever. No 'phone call, no right to counsel, no nuthin'. I could be handled 'physically' as I'd have no recourse, come to think of it, that's what happens in Iran and Syria to name a couple of respected judicious countries.

I was also wary when I found out that pointing a camera at any mass-transit facility (a bus stop is included) during an 'orange' alert is illegal.

Please don't get me wrong, acts of terrorism make me sick, be it in the US, Israel, Indonesia, Northern Ireland or any place where innocent people are harmed by someone else's twisted agenda.

No one can say (including Secretary Ridge) that the heightened security measures have prevented any more acts of terror ... but I sure feel safer when I visit the US ... not.

All I want to do is bath my face with the light from a beautiful scene, through the GG of my view-camera, can I do that ? Please, pretty-please ??

ralphy
20-Jan-2004, 17:51
Frank:

Try havin' olive skin and dark hair in this the free-est country on the planet.

You'll be scrutinized F-A-S-T !

Please don't generalize about "people wearing robes and turbans" there are plenty of Arabs, Muslims. Turks & others who fit YOUR BILL on what a terrorist might look like, who are just plain old law abiding citizens. I think we saw with Oklahoma, there are just as many crabby ( understatement ) White Americans who want to do damage. It would be nice if when mistakes are made apoligises are made too, rather than the bum's-rush out the door.

Mark_3632
20-Jan-2004, 18:35
"(both by Muslim-Americans, BTW), "

Hmmm......does the white sheet make a good darkcloth?

A wise man once said "judge not lest yee be judged yourself"-JC (A middle easterner himself)

The unfortunate thing about internet forums is we open our mouths and insert our feet more often because of the relative annonymity of the internet. And politicians cannot be dogooders. Oil and water will never mix. It is a sad time for the United States. Those who are willing to give up freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security. Ben franklin was a very wise man. We unfortunately, as americans, tend to not look at the histories of others before making our very short sighted, and paranoid decisions. Lets face it, we are no safer now than before 9/11 but we are a lot less free.

Frank Petronio
20-Jan-2004, 18:37
Nothing personal, but because olive skinned Muslims are hijacking planes and shooting random people, it seem perfectly logical that immigration and security people should be giving them extra scrutiny. FWIW, I'm a dark Italian-American that could pass as having Arabic/Muslim heritage and I often get searched - and I am glad they do it.

Wayne
20-Jan-2004, 21:42
This is so far off-topic it's irresistable! ------ FWIW, I'm a dark Italian-American that could pass as having Arabic/Muslim heritage and I often get searched - and I am glad they do it.

---

FWIW, I'm an unmistakably white-skinned honkey type who isnt glad they are doing it to ya, even if you dont care. :) Just because YOU dont mind, doesnt mean WE as a whole shouldnt mind.

Matthew Cordery
21-Jan-2004, 00:20
A wise man once said "those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither"....

The Patriot Act isn't so much a means of 'securing the homeland' as it is a painfully obvious act of "cover your a**". They screwed up big time so they had to be seen to be doing something. Our representatives, desperate to be seen to be doing something as well, went along with it. We have no one to blame but ourselves if we failed to raise our voices in dissent at the time.

Skip Abadie
21-Jan-2004, 01:42
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania

I shot photos of the I-10 bridge over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge this past September without issue. I walked up and down the levee in the downtown area and photographed a train, the I-10 bridge, some downtown buildings, boats moored in the river, floating gambling casinos, and the levee itself with 8x10 and 8x20. I even took one photo from directly underneath the I-10 bridge, with a police cruiser driving past me on the street nearby. I saw the occasional policeman on foot patrolling the area too, but none of them came over to talk to me. I fully expected to have to defend my right to photograph, but it turned out not to be necessary. Musta been lucky that day.

jarrod connerty
21-Jan-2004, 08:17
I wonder if Franklin would proffer the same quote upon witnessing the video footage of the planes hitting the towers. He lived in a time bereft of such awesome & immediate manmade destruction of human life.

>0 Crabby white Americans wanting to terrorize is infinitely too many, but the notion that the quantity approaches that of radical Islamists willing to die for their cause is beyond absurd.

Mark_3632
21-Jan-2004, 08:29
>> WE have no one to blame but ourselves if we failed to raise our voices in dissent at the time.

Those who did raise a voice were labeled treasonous unpatriotic cowards. Apparently the labels worked because many shut their mouths

Bob._3483
21-Jan-2004, 10:22
I think you will find that Benjamin Franklin was familiar with "such awesome & immediate manmade destruction of human life". The sight of 10,000 Redcoats with musket and cannon marching on a colonial town would have swayed him away from his democratic visions of freedom if anything would, but it didn't....

As a result of people like Franklin, the US became the prototype for the kind of democratic freedoms that much of the world now enjoys (even to the extent of accelerating democratic reforms in its erstwhile colonial masters ;-) )....

Looking in from the outside, it does seem as if McCarthy is back with a vengeance. We can only hope that sanity will eventually prevail and much of this legislation will be revoked in time, when the temperature drops a little.

jarrod connerty
21-Jan-2004, 11:16
A Revolutionary-era cannonball produces a similar sized impact & explosion as a gussied-up 747 colliding with a building?!? Puh-leeze. And another advantage Franklin had is that his enemy did not make concealing themselves their #1 priority before attack.

ralphy
21-Jan-2004, 12:26
No offense taken Frank.

I'm glad you enjoy being harassed by the airline security and by the police. I for one, am not a fan of "the police state" and probably unlike you, I have been 'profiled' by the police for the past 20 years.

Next time I am pulled over, I'll thank them for doing their job ...

Bob._3483
21-Jan-2004, 15:50
"A Revolutionary-era cannonball produces a similar sized impact & explosion as a gussied-up 747 colliding with a building"

No, but a few tens of thousands of them will kill many more, and did so. In any event, making assertions about how someone who died a few hundred years ago would react to a modern situation is pure speculation and athough somewhat amusing to speculate upon, should not be used as the basis for a philosophy....

jarrod connerty
22-Jan-2004, 07:17
"Bob.", you either did not read what I wrote or you have a poor grasp of the definition of the word assertions.

Furthermore, I cannot imagine a more subjective topic than philosophy, where what can be used as a baseline is open to debate ad infinitum amongst those who would care to do so.

DJ Disner
19-Mar-2007, 10:47
I decided to use the bright sunshine and clear air this morning to take some photos in downtown Denver. My first shot was taken while standing in the middle of the street in front of the new EPA building shooting up the mall, not the building. A guard came out to say he was wondering what I was doing. "Trying to get hit by a bus", I said. I was warned that I wasn't to take pictures of the building. "Paranoid nation", was my response and I walked away. There was more to the conversation, but that's the jist. My last shot of the day was an hour later up the mall where I noticed a great reflection in the curved glass of a rotating door. I set up on the sidewalk a took a couple shots, then moved closer. Next thing I knew a man approaches me from a door to the side. "What are you up to bud?" he asks, not too gently. "I'm just shooting the reflec.." He wasn't nice and told me I needed to be back on the sidewalk, about 18 inches from where I was. He imediately put his hand on my tripod. I gently touched his wrist and said, "Don't touch the camera." He didn't like that and tried to be the heavy, but I just stepped back and continued to shoot from the official bounds of the public sidewalk. He went back inside and stared at me, making cutting motions across his neck while smiling maliciously. I'm sure he could read my lips as I made my parting shot.

Ernest Purdum
19-Mar-2007, 18:14
As an historical note, one of the early cameras capable of making handheld photos of animate subjects resembled a gun. A pioneer user was arrested as he attempted to obtain a photograph of Queen Victoria.

Saulius
19-Mar-2007, 21:09
And by the way, because of a recent run-in with a turd-stupid security guard who threatened to take my film (for photographing a pile of garbage from a public street-- "possible homeland security issue here" she said on her radio) I bring two extra rolls of 35mm with me. If someone says "gotta give me your film," then I'll hand over the 35mm rolls and say "dang, I hate this, but I understand your reasoning, so here is my film." Then it's off to the darkroom to process my new round of 8x10's for 50" wide prints.

I'm going to expose the two rolls of 35mm film, too, in case they want to go so far as processing it to find out what I shot. Can you guess? 36 exposures of the full moon, my narrah white booty, up close with the 24mm at f/22. HA!!!

~cj

Ha! Ha! :D What a great idea. I recall back in the early 90's when I still lived in Chicago I many times went to photograph in the industrial areas of east Chicago and Gary Ind. Now this was waaay before 9/11 and even back then I got hassled. Photographing always from public land. On several occasion I saw security coming out towards me. The few times that happened I just got back in my car and left. On one occasion a guard did walk up to me but was not hostile or rude. I also used to love photographing in downtown Chicago, often in early am hours or on occasion at night when I didn't want to deal with crowds. I couldn't imagine how impossible it must be now. A very sad state of affairs when you can't just go walk around a town on a public street without fear of being acosted by security.

Andrew O'Neill
19-Mar-2007, 22:21
Glad we don't have this paranoid crap up here...

Randy H
20-Mar-2007, 15:38
Glad we don't have that paranoid crap in Oklahoma. Even after the Murrah incident. I lived in OKC up until about 18 months ago (live in Tulsa now). On several occasions, my daughter and I walked around downtown OKC taking pictures of the bridge systems on the highway, (multiple bridges that look like snakes from below) the Ford Center, street people, Bricktown entrance from the "middle" of the street looking towards the overpass, etc etc... Got a few puzzled looks from the city's finest, but NEVER questioned or hasseled. DAMN!! I feel left out.
Here, the local newspaper runs articles occasionally telling where good vantage spots for good pictures are. Stuff like pedestrian bridge looking toward downtown, across the river from the electric companies main plant, at their building, refineries, rail yard, etc.
Maybe these others aren't really just paranoid. Someone really IS out to get them.....
"It's all a conspiracy man....."

Brian K
20-Mar-2007, 22:45
I was recently photographing the smoke billowing from a power plant in Colorado. A Fotoman 612 on a tripod, my car at the side of the public road. From my vantage point all you could see was the top of the smoke stack and some powerlines, the plant itself was not visible. As I was shooting a car drove by and stopped, turned around and it's driver watched me for as minute or so. He drove off. About a minute later I hear wheels screeching and after 30 more seconds pass a pickup truck pulls up to my location. Out steps a security guard who asks me what I'm doing. I tell him I'm photographing the smoke coming out of the chimney because I like the way it looks in the snow covered environment. He then asks me for ID. I tell him that I don't have to show him, but as a courtesy I will. He acknowledges that I dodn't have to show him, but says that he appreciates that I did. He then tells me about another location that might be of interest to me... Apparently this guy knew the law, still needed to check me out and did so in a courteous manner. I was courteous to him and continued to do my work unimpeded. A day later when I whought that I would shoot this plant from other angles I made it a point to stop by their security gate and let them know that I would be around shooting. It turned out to be the same guard and her said it was no problem. These things can work out if everyone stays civil. I don;t know how I would have responded if the guard had told me told me to leave or had threatened me, I probably would have forced the issue.

I think that the loss of so many of our rights, such as habeas corpus, protection from search and seizure, etc, means that the terrorists have in fact won. One day of attacks and they have scrapped much of the constitution of the United States. Stupid blind fear is one of man's worst attributes.

Brian K
21-Mar-2007, 11:21
Boy, my typing really suffers after a Martini.....

JW Dewdney
22-Mar-2007, 01:44
Isn't it time to just do away with the whole 'dept of homeland security' thing? I think it's served it's purpose. The dog and pony show is over, folks.

It's all just so ridiculous. If anyone wanted to get a picture of a federal building - all they'd have to do is google it.

I mean - for crying out loud. There's even VERY detailed images of US military bases on google earth - and, before then, on whatever google earth was called (forgot) - even shortly after 9/11...

I don't want to get on another political rant - but CLEARLY - it's all been about trying to scare people, create a diversion from REAL problems perhaps, but if they were actually sincere about what they were doing - they wouldn't leave such glaring holes where there REALLY shouldn't be any.

IF they were serious about what they told us.

end rant.

Kirk Gittings
22-Mar-2007, 08:17
If you voted for Bush/Cheney, you have no right to complain. They talk about preserving freedom--in reality, they hate freedom. Sorry to respond to politics into a photo forum, but your second amendment rights are history...

I have no love for these morons, but this problem long predated 911. I was run off of photographing federal buildings in DC 20 years ago for security reasons.

JW Dewdney
22-Mar-2007, 14:35
hear hear Kirk - but with all these more recent harrassment stories I've been hearing in the forums - it seems like it's extended to the most banal of subjects (bridges, other buildings, etc etc..). I've even been harrassed by security people doing commercial jobs - and it was their bosses who hired me to do the work. It's ridiculous sometimes. In most of these cases, their was a failure to inform security -or perhaps the security was a little down on their english reading comprehension - I don't know... but it does happen here.

Michael Jones
26-Mar-2007, 11:36
Out steps a security guard who asks me what I'm doing. I tell him I'm photographing the smoke coming out of the chimney because I like the way it looks in the snow covered environment. He then asks me for ID. I tell him that I don't have to show him, but as a courtesy I will. He acknowledges that I dodn't have to show him, but says that he appreciates that I did. He then tells me about another location that might be of interest to me... Apparently this guy knew the law, still needed to check me out and did so in a courteous manner.

While I agree with many of the thoughts in this thread about erosion of freedom and liberty, I found the above approach works better that to cite constitutional amendments that may or may not be applicable to the person whose job it is to protect something. It's similar to telling off the waiter in your power mode so he can spit in your food as he or she "corrects" it for you. As Brian pointed out in one of his posted stories, it can be very easy to get shot and as most of us photograph alone, who's to tell our side?

Mike