"Innocent until proven guilty" is only for a court of law. On the street, cops divide people into three groups: Fellow LEO, Criminal, and Criminal That Hasn't Been Caught Yet. Honest citizen? Ain't no such thang. If someone with a badge and gun and an overblown sense of authority (Cartman Syndrome) wants you in handcuffs, you will not be able to prove your innocence, you will go to jail.

I think this is the bottom line here. Are we willing to live with a very slight chance that someone is taking photographs in order to do something mischievous later on, and allow everyone the freedom to engage in photography, or in order to maybe prevent one minor act of mischief every twelve years or so, do we want everyone who takes a photograph at the wrong time and the wrong place, and who is likely the wrong skin colour or religion to be interrogated, jailed, etc.

Which is it then, oh great nation of scaredy cats?

Well over at PV, Blogdad Bob is trying to have it both ways. On the one hand,
Translation: photography is a potential suspicious "scenario." But on the other hand:
Translation: no puppies this week so I'll pat the photographers on the head instead. Good dog photographer. Sit. Beg. Roll over.



According to the comments (7 so far) the public isn't buying it. The word "harass" is getting used an awful lot.

Indeed. I remember when Colin Powell was asked why the U.S. was bombing civilians in Belgrade, as these civilians had committed no offence against the USA. His candid response was that the U.S. would continue to kill Serb civilians until they changed their government. If that's not a clear example of someone trying "to use violence to bring about political change," then I don't know what is. The real, unwritten definition of "terrorism" in the U.S. lexicon is "violence by people we don't agree with".

Many 'Non-Americans'....not sure how to take that! However I do take comfort in being on the side of 'The Rest of the World'

In my little bit of it, the good old UK, we have a Human Rights Act enjoying supremacy in law and which just about everything has to be compliant with.

Just as a point of interest and I think it is interesting what happened here a few years ago (but I am in no way suggesting that it's the way to go anywhere else) and may be food for thought re the remaining silent bit.

I presume this was the way it was in that if there was a decent reason for the suspicion then the investigators and prosecutors should be able to demonstrate a case against the individual(s) concerned without them having to say anything and still exceed the burden of proof required for a criminal conviction.

For whatever reason (ambush defence?) the powers that be decided things needed to change. A suspect who remains silent may now be advised that the jury can draw such inferences from his silence as seem proper. This appears to give less scope for coming up with some other explanation at a much later date as to his presence at a scene of a crime, items found on his person etc etc, I suppose

I do not know how often this happens or how effective in practical terms it all is but it is interesting to note that it was decided that this was a reasonable step to take. It was felt that there was absolutely no good reason, I again suppose, for a suspect in interview to remain silent and not provide an explanation there and then to particular questions

Am I correct in remembering that Colin Powell was not in the employ of the US government at the time of making that comment?

It sounds like a comment that people in or out of government may make about how the use of such (scale and/or type of) violent power is going to involve the killing of civilians and such killing of civilians is a consequence they will tolerate in order to try to see their political objective realized.

deleted as link has been posted

Policies put forth by TSA certainly are being used to intimidate or coerce civilians to accept WBI or be subjected to invasive Whole Body Pat Downs.

So TSA must be a terrorist organization based on the code you posted Firebug4.

I can assure you the authorities hassle photographers equally without regard to skin color or religion (how is that even visible ?).

We might take your posts a bit more seriously if you didn't play the race card in every single one.

The person taking the photographs was not acting in a manner that was illegal. TSA employees should not have confronted the person nor should they have call police.

That they did is the problem.

TSA and the police should be charged with violation of this persons civil rights. Let them prove they are innocent.

If I may say so, it's not a card - it's reality. Further, if you choose to focus on that single aspect of a post, perhaps it's better for everyone if you do not take my posts seriously.

Yes and no perhaps, or in this case, no, no and yes.

I do not, myself, hold a positive view of TSA based on my last passage through JFK, however:

I think a person behaving in a certain way, may attract the suspicion of security personnel and therefore should not be surprised when enquiries are made of him / her.

I think I agreed previously that, I also, did not condone their involving of the PD in this situation and to expand on that maybe they did not exercise the right judgemement but that's their call based on what the interaction actually was, I suppose. None of us were there. I suppose anyone can call the Police if they feel they see something suspicious and they will make their assessment when they arrive on scene. I also said that the OP must carry responsibility for instigated the scenario and expanding on that, fuelling it.

I would not, from what I have seen, like a body such as the TSA be given LEO status and it is right that at some point in the proceedings that if they are genuinley not happy they have to involve someone else i.e LEOs

I would be horrified if they actually had the power to strip search you, that I would not agree with. I don't know if they have it, I assume not.

So I partially agree with you but at the same time think the OP kicked it all off and should not have been surprised by the intervention!

Who said the OP was surprised? Unfortunately, this sort of unnecessary harassment is all too common, and is to be expected.

These days, anyone who acts in an unexpected manner is guilty until proven innocent. That's the way it is --- and it's not the way it ought to be.

So if he wasn't surprised then he went into the situation, knowing what the likely outcome would be then, which is what I suspected in the first place.

Not quite a case of going about your everyday business and being harassed for no good reason. He chose the time, place etc of his confrontation and came equipped with the means to start it and the mindset to boot IMHO!

Again, IMHO, you're quite wrong. Choosing to exercise your constitutional rights, even knowing that you might be harassed for it, is not reason to criticize the OP for provoking the situation. We shouldn't blame victims.

But I suspect that we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.