I would thoroughly enjoy that as I am sure the TSOs and the LEOs would pretty much end up doing exactly what the London police did when thousands of professional and amateur photographers showed up in front of Scotland Yard to do a mass photographing of UK LEOs to protest Section 76 of their Terrorism Law that made it a crime to photograph cops or members of the military.

The London cops standing around and looking perplexed brings a great smile to my face.

Some great photos can be found here.

First, I haven't read every post in this thread.

I seriously disagree with the behavior of the OP. I would not have allowed the LEOs to detain me without arresting me nor would I have allowed them to search my bag without a warrant. I wouldn't have answered a single question. The only words out of my mouth would have been, "Can I go on my way, now?"

I've turned cops away on a number of occasions. It is not that difficult to accomplish. Just be controlled, firm, and confident. If I am ever arrested, so be it, but I'm never going to acquiesce to any representative of any government agency to violate my rights in such a manner as this.

Wow! You sound like a sweet compassionate person.

That is most certainly a myth. Many hundreds of federal employees are fired every year for cause.

Excellent idea!^

Although on another front it could be said that HUNDREDS of photographers decending on a TSA checkpoint really could be "hindering" the security process:rolleyes: . Biggest hinderance to this process imho, is the smurfs themselves and the useless rules and restrictions they enforce:mad: .

What would HPD do?, arrest hundreds of photographers?, probably not is my guess. The authorites at the Houston Airport System (HAS) spew a lot of talk about how friendly IAH and HOU are so they cannot be very happy about the number of views this topic is getting here on FT^.

HAS is not happy?^, then educate HPD officers at IAH/HOU on what is legal so when one of the smurfs gets worried about someone doing something that is perfectly legal they can quickly dismiss the smurfs complaint.

Notice I did not mention anything about trying to educate the smurfs, that would truly be an impossible and frustrating idea

He's talking about the thousands not on that list who should be.

Unless the Patriot Act (ptooey) is invoked :eek: .

London police have a history of being more civilized and tolerant than US police, though given the post-9/11 hysteria in the UK that may not really be true any more.

I appreciate the sentiment, but what was the OP supposed to do, physically resist the detention or the search? That would almost certainly lead to arrest and to (serious) resisting/assault charges that a DA would be happy to prosecute even though the cops' actions leading up to them were bogus and illegal. I suppose simply walking away would be less aggressive but could still be interpreted as resistance/evasion and would have required abandoning property.

I agree that the OP could have clammed up and just kept repeating "am I under arrest? am I free to go?" but for whatever reason that's not the route he chose. It sounds like he did start asking if answering the current question would lead to his release, but the cops were evading answering that. I certainly think he learned more about the mindset of these cops then he would have by being silent though my personal opinion is that he should not have revealed his SSN or information about the person he was dropping off at the airport. I have enough respect for what he did to give the benefit of the doubt there, though.

I know, just checking. The Canadian equivalent is JTF2.

History is right. It's not true any more, although the Commissioner of the Met (London) has issued a directive to stop hassling photographers. FWIW.

My original intent was not to answer questions as many times that can get one in trouble. That is why I originally stated, "I demurred to their requests for some time, but eventually inferred my detention was going to continue without answers." I didn't answer for some time, but came to believe that they didn't intend to abide by the rules. As such, my judgment call was to answer with simple factual responses that they would be easily able to corroborate.

As I mentioned in my original post, I did ask if I was free to go several times, and each time was told no. However, once again based on my belief that the rules were not going to be followed, I didn't want to take the next step of asking if I was under arrest. And while he said that I was legally required to provide my SSN, I didn't as he was focused on my ID at that point.

What behavior, specifically? He's a lawyer, someone who understood the ramification of his response at every step along the way. It appears he handled the entire affair quite capably. Furthermore, his 'behavior' resulted in at least one valuable outcome and that is the informational windfall we've gained here. I am muy grateful to ND Sol for posting his experience. ^

'ID' refers again to looking up your bar credentials or did you mean verifying your identity with a physical DL/passport/etc.?

The SSN request just leaves my scratching my head. What on earth is a legitimate basis for that requirement?

Another thought
 

If ONE person taking pictures could tie up six HPD officers think of how many officers would be tied up if hundreds did so en masse. I would think that the police should have more important things to worry about.

Sorry, don't want this to continue to be OT, but this is my first chance to come back on since yesterday. It's all somewhat related since our rights do relate to the OP's point.

PTravel, that was a well written post. Thanks. Being a Canadian transplant in California I learned a thing or two. I still don't think I typed anything to provoke the question you asked prior to your initial post, however.

I've been asked for my SSN and said -- lied! -- that I wasn't sure I could remember it and didn't want to try because making a false statement could be breaking the law. I said that if I could remember it with absolute certainty, I would provide it, but I just couldn't. That's a lie, of course. I know my SSN by heart, as most people over the age of 10 do, but I thought my non-answer was pretty clever. They could never prove that I really did know it with certainty, and my reluctance to provide false information is sensible.

Bruce

It was my driver's license.