Are photographers really a threat?

[Maggie O]

Are photographers really a threat?

What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are?

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it's nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography.

At last, someone talking sense about our paranoid society!

 

[helenhill]

Perhaps we should be next on the list of endangered species (photographers).......:thumbup:

best-H

 

[Robert Campbell]

And yet, when there has been an 'incident' the cops and the media cry out for pix from people who were around at the time...double standards, anyone?

 

[Maggie O]

Crazy, innit?

 

[Maggie O]

I saw this over at the RFF in its thread about this article and I had to bring it over here, because it's a perfect example of everything the article discusses:

Here's an interesting video from Washington DC. The local Fox affiliate is interviewing an Amtrak spokesman who says there is no prohibition from photographing in Union Staion, when lo and behold, up comes a rent-a-cop who tells them to stop filming. You can't make this stuff up...

http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/...ale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

 

[ChrisDauer]

History is written by the victor.
And if you can suppress photographers... well... a picture is worth a thousand words. And no pictures = you can't prove a thing. ;P
I'm looking forward to retiring in a nice third world country where I hope to still have the freedom to get up late, and have cereal for dinner. Freedoms are a disappearing and a disappearing fast. Maybe they'll even let me own a camera!