OK, I accept the premise.Which brings us to the crux of the matter.

Had he been arrested during his reconnaissance the attack might well have been prevented, but the question is should he have been arrested simply for taking photographs ? Was that a suspicious act in and of itself ?

No and no. Now I'm not saying that had a police officer approached him and asked what he was doing that would have been illegal or wrong. And if his answers or demeanor led the officer to suspect something wasn't right, that's OK too. But to assume that a photographer is up to no good, absent any other evidence, is unjustified but that appears to be the mindset of many 'in authority'. And that's just plain wrong.

Not at all, but are you saying the official is not allowed to make the initial challenge and clear the suspicion thereby proving innocence. To be honest I'm done with this. It just amazed me that a guy would walk around an airport taking photgraphs of security operations and expected, well....nothing. Adios everyone

Not singling you out, and not saying you don't have the right to express your opinion. But I will say that I notice in you something I notice in many non-Americans: They don't understand the history of this country, and especially, they don't understand or appreciate the rights we take for granted, the ones we enjoy under the 4th and 5th Amendments (or, at least, the ones we used to enjoy before the PATRIOT Act).

I don't take those rights for granted any more! :(

Bruce

I don't think that we are as far apart as you might think. I don't think the officer in most cases is assuming anything. He is just asking questions. I obviously can't speak for every LEO in the United States but the ones I know and work with the questions are calm, brief and pretty direct in nature. The subject reactions to those questions pretty much dictate where the encounter goes from there. I hear many claims about video and audio taping encounters I am actually in favor of that, since many times the LEO is doing it anyway, provided the subject doing the taping is not is purposely baiting the officer with purposeful bad behavior to predicate a desired response. Many times these tapes vindicate the officer when the subject exaggerates claims of abusive treatment, or outright lies. The difference is many times the agency is restricted by policy and sometimes laws that do not allow the public release of these tapes no matter how much the agency would like to.

Anyway a bit off topic, like I said the questions can be asked in a respectful tone and the information needed quickly obtained. Sometimes the subject of the encounter and not the LEO has made up his or her mind that the encounter is going to go bad based on their perception. Many times that perception is formed by web-sites like this where much of the information that is posted as fact is not verifiable. Many times it is third and forth hand information that the poster has no direct experience with at all.

FB

A U.S. Army manual defines terrorism as "the use of violence, or the threat of the use of violence, to bring about social, ideological, religious or political change".

The U.S. has used violence to bring about political changes in a number of countries (often assisting with the overthrow of democratically-elected governments). The U.S., therefore is also a state sponsor of terrorism.

No, that was not your response. Your response was:
I've repeatedly asked you to state what that goal is, but you have yet to do so.

That's irrelevant to this discussion. You can be arrested for anything, or for no reason at all.

"We," being the collective community on FT and other places I frequent on the internet? I agree with you. "We," being the collective citizenry of the United States? I don't agree with the edit. Far too many people take their rights for granted (or, worse, think they shouldn't exist at all in the name of 'safety').

Have you ever tried Google Maps street view? Bing Maps is rolling out even higher res imagery...

Too funny, but worth repeating since this is very true.

That is because the goal will be specific to the individual terrorist organization. I already gave you a general answer in this thread if you don't like it or agree with it I can't help you there. Here is the answer again:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/14620132-post348.html

FB

And US criminal code defines it in

And the point is what? We could play definition games for days. It doesn't change the fact that the methods used to plan, prepare and execute an attack can be identified and can include photo, video and human surveillance. Which is really what the direction the discussion had taken based on the question that was asked of me? It really had very little to do with goals and more to do with methods.

FB

You never answered the question. There's nothing for me to disagree with or to dislike.

You've yet to tell us what that goal is. Maybe you didn't mean what you wrote, which was that terrorist organizations have some shared goal. If so, please just say so.

To clarify, you wrote that "terrorist organizations [...] have a slightly different goal." I want to know what the goal to which you referred is. If you don't think terrorist organizations have a goal, then please explain what you meant to say when you said that they do.

A terrorist organization most often has a less materialistic and intangible idealistic goal. It will vary from organization to organization. They will commit crimes with the intent to make money but this is usually not the goal in and of itself. It is to make money to further the idealistic goal. The money is used to plan and perpetrate acts that use violence and fear to achieve there idealist goal. Something to keep in mind is that idealistic goal may not be illegal in itself. It is the activities of the terror organization uses to achieve that goal that is illegal.

There is my response for the fourth time. It is you who have misunderstood my answer several times now. In my original statement I said


Meaning the following:

Terrorist organizations having a slightly different goal as compared to traditional organized crime organizations and DTO's as those were the organizations that I mentioned earlier not comparing different Terrorist organizations to each other as I did not mention any specfic Terrorist organizations. Terrorist organizations were being used collectively. It is very different than you have taken it to mean. You clearly did not understand the statement as I wrote it.

I have explained to you numerous times now that each terrorist organization will have their own goal. However, many times the methods to achieve that goal will be similar.

This would be like saying that all Federal Law Enforcement Agencies have a goal which would be correct. You could also say that all Federal Law Enforcement Agencies have a goal to enforce the law which would be correct but way to general to be useful information. Each specific Federal Law Enforcement Agency have a specific set of Federal Laws to enforce which is much more helpful. It would also be true to say all Federal Law Enforcement Agencies use similar methods to enforce their respective set fo Federal Laws which is really the point I was making. That regardless of the type of criminal organization be it traditional organized crime or terrorist organizations they will use similar methods to execute there criminal enterprises and it really doesn't matter what their ultimate goal is.

FB

I took your words at face value. You clearly meant something different than what you wrote. You wrote that terrorist organizations have a goal. I believe that is false. I believe that terrorist organizations have goals. I believe that each terrorist organization has one or more goals. They do not share a goal.

I'm not arguing that you haven't. I've repeatedly asked you to support your earlier statement -- which indicated that these organizations have a shared goal -- or retract it.

I don't think so. They do not all have a goal, but each has goals.

Okay, so when you wrote, "Terrorist organizations are no different then the other organizations I mentioned above except they have a slightly different goal," it seems that you meant to say that the difference between the other organizations you mentioned and terrorist organizations is that they have slightly different goals. Well, no kidding.

The point I am trying to make is that it is as ridiculous to say anything about what terrorist organizations goals have in common as it is to say something about other criminal organizations goals have in common. Terrorism is a class of acts. People who engage in any of those acts are terrorists. People who do not, are not. The only thing that terrorists, as a group, have in common is their commission of terrorist acts. They are people who use a tactic -- terrorism -- to attempt to achieve their goals.

The goals were never supposed to be the point of this discussion. It was supposed to be about the methods the organizations used. I even only used the terrorism angle to begin with because the person who asked me the question requested it. It was an example that was used to illustrate that there are cases out there support that all types of criminal organizations use photo, video and human surveillance before perpetrating their crimes. I have personal knowledge of that as I have seen it. However, the of the discussion was dragged in an entirely, unrelated and quite frankly a irrelevant direction as the true purpose hasn't really been discussed for a couple of pages. Some would wonder me included if that isn't what you had intended to begin with since lets be honest it doesn't support your agenda.

FB

:rolleyes:

All sorts of criminal organizations use air, water and food too. Time for the LEOs to investigate persons observed to be breathing, drinking water and eating a meal. :rolleyes:

The point being made that all acts of terrorism are not necessarily considered a criminal activity in the US despite the claim (made previously in another post) asserting (falsely) that all acts of terrorism are criminal activity. In other words, not all acts of terrorism are considered a universally criminal act, no matter how an actor in a position of power/privilege and relying upon terrorism (to maintain power) tries to limit the definition of terrorism and/or criminal activity to try to justify their own (preferred) acts of terrorism.

The argument structure used to apologize for this DHS government "mission creep" is much the same as that used by the "sovereign citizen" tax protesting conspiracy theorists. Talk about ironic.