In the late 70's I entered East Berlin through Check-point Charlie. At the time I was a camera buff and had lots of camera equipment with me (two camera bodies, zoom lenses, telephoto lenses, etc.). When I approached the American side of the check-point, I told them I had all this equipment and was fearful I would run into trouble on the other side of the wall. The US military agent said that I should not take pictures of the wall, as my only restriction. When I approached the East Berlin guard, he asked me to open my bag, he looked in and just waved me on (he didn't even pause for a second
). I took photographs all over EB. At one point using my 400mm (about 18" long) telephone lens I was photographing a harbor and looked up and noticed that I was in front of a police station and a uniformed officer was looking down at me, I just continued to take photographs and wandered along.
PS: That same summer I was hassled in Amsterdam by the hippies in Dam square when I photographed the area and in La Defense shopping center when I tried photographing the interior.
Most of the pictures that I took were in East Berlin - crossing through Checkpoint Charlie without a guide, I was never told not to photograph anything. The warnings came from a guide (more of a minder considering that he was useless as a guide) in Leipzig and Weimar.
Originally Posted by
exbayern
Er, in America one is still permitted to enter airport terminals even if not flying.
My local airport, a small one, encourages non-flying visitors. There is no shopping and there's only one restaurant (but it's decent). What it has is conference rooms in a convenient, central location for people who are driving in from anywhere in the region. There is no charge to use the conference rooms and the management validates parking.