I tried to give a sensible response but you have chosen to be silly.

So against my better judgement, I will give a proportionate response. Excuse me in advance.

You are beginning to catch on:

It depends what they are drinking dear boy !! The airliner plot intended to carry the nasty stuff in liquid form in soft drink bottles (hence the current liquid restrictions). Had this not been a case of intervention the backstop would have been only the (possible) suspicion of having so much of it, I suppose. If not then.........

And the two soldiers were unfortunate enough to be cut down by a, that's right......Pizza delivery man !!

Depends how they are breathing I suppose.....heavily, sweating profusely, nervous etc etc


Money sustains and finances terrorism. It is neccessarily transported across borders. That is why Govt. agencies question people about having money at airports along with it being potentially proceeds of crime. I suspect that the tall bearded one does not use a bank draft and ask his pal to call in at Bank of America to pick it up. The reasons why carriage of cash arouses suspicion are already discussed ad infinitem.

Not surprising, as that's what it means in most other lexicons.

You state that you did not see the report till after the encounter yet:

You state in your OP that what made this 'incongruous' (ie his response to you asking him about being a BDO) was that the report on that subject had been shown the night before. You appear to be stating what your emotion was at the time of the encounter based on a report shown (and seen by you) prior to it (not after it).

In addition, looking at the photographs from the OP, clearly the gentleman in question is an observer of some sort (BDO if that's are called).

The OP states 'I did not realise' the TSA person etc etc (paraphrasing) was in the picture.

He is the focal point of the effort as far as I can see.

All arguments about constitutional rights to protect innocents from harassment aside, I think the OP knew exactly what he was doing.

Your post causes me to wonder - suppose the OP had been planning some kind of terrorist attack. Would law enforcment be able to do anything, other than keep up surveillance?

At what point does it become a crime?

It seems to me that you are catastrophizing - you're seeing one picture and building a story from it the way you want the story to be told.

IMO, if the OP, being a very good photographer, was focusing on this one person for a specific reason, he would have put him in the center of his photograph.

I think it's safer to say that if photography by the actors has been a precursor to attacks real or planned, it wouldn't be a secret. Other than the Mumbia hotel attack, no evidence of this has ever surfaced.

Like you, the authorities simply imagine it to have been the case because it seems a reasonable assumption. Others assume that the reconnaissance (if any) would have taken other, less ostentatious forms.

Depends entirely on what theoretical position you want to take. If you steadfastly believe that unusual=suspicious and photography=terrorism no amount of discussion, rational or otherwise, is going to have the slightest effect.

You may well be right. Here you go: http://photolibrary.baa.com/Glasgow-...search=glasgow .

The point was not what was in my mind, but what was in TSO1's. The term "BDO" and their function is common knowledge for those that frequent this forum (see the Sticky). According to HPD1, the use of that TSA term was deemed suspicious by the TSA. My point was that as recently as the night before, the whole SPOT program was discussed on national television. TSO1 shouldn't have been surprised when someone used that term. Instead, he acted like he didn't know what it meant, when in reality he must have (thus he was untruthful to me from the first question asked in our encounter).

I will be the first to admit that the photograph referenced is not good. That is one reason I take photographs - to be able to critique and see what limits exist. In this instance it was what the lighting would do. There was no intent to focus on a particular person.

As a general rule, the eye is first drawn to the lighter portion of a photograph, which in this case would be the windows, the light wall and, to some extent, the reflection on the floor. Also, the eye is generally drawn to action, which in this case is several others in the picture. The rule of thirds is also not followed here. Nothing of importance is captured where any of the four intersections occur.

But that is what is great about photographs; different people may focus on different things based on their prior experiences.

Did you read Post 170 that I referenced? Here is part of it:

I am humbled that from 5,000 miles away you can ascertain my intent was not what I have consistently stated. If I had the intent you believe, why wouldn't I state it? It would show that I knew exactly what I was doing and prove up that I could make the TSA and HPD waste resources by going down a rabbit trail with little provocation.

I seriously doubt that the two individuals responsible for the GLA bombing needed photographs. One of them was a doctor at the hospital in nearby Paisley who could easily check out the set up. Their whole plan was pretty dumb because if they had bothered to pay attention they would have known that the security bollards would prevent them from actually getting their vehicle into the building.

I have never heard the word catastrophizing. I get the drift though and no, I am taking everything I have read, compared it against norms and what I would have done and formed a view. The OP clearly has knowledge of what he defines as his rights and is prepared to assert as he did when asked for ID by the PD. The whole thing is like an experiment in rights v authority. To what end, I can only speculate.

'Being a very good photographer' - well, I take your word for it! In addition as the OP points out below. Focus does not always fall on the centre of the print but is dependant on other factors. What is most prominent to you?

In turn then

1. Who said it was a 'secret'?

2. 'Reasonable assumption'. Exactly, of course it is. Good point Your statement works for the prosecution. Thanks

and finally,

3. 'I may be right'. The date of the attack at GLA was 2007. I haven't looked at the date on all your very nice pics but they seem after this time. They would have to have made use of them from beyond the grave.

So, we have a solution in search of a problem.

We have this equation: photographing security areas/personnel + X = possible terrorism.

So far, no one has stated what X is other than a whim or pure speculation without any data to back it up.

A bit naiive. You are assuming that the individuals in the Jeep were also those charged with all planning and recce in addition. I'm not sure this is the way it would happen. Also, bollard, which seem to be standard at a lot of UK airports now may not have been there at the time. They are a defensive feature. It seems likely to me that they appeared after this event and were not there prior to it. The vehicle in question reached the outer doors and got jammed. If there was any defensive measure prior to that, then it didn't work!

That's an intriguing one PhoenixRev. Have to think about it but I suspect it's more of an artform than an algebraic formula

Against my better judgement...If it's not a secret, it would be public knowledge. Of course if something simply doesn't exist then it's neither.

An assumption, reasonable or otherwise, does not equate to "safe to say".

That was the first link google found. I doubt it is the only one.

Clutching at straws a bit ?

5000 or 50, makes no difference when reading about this event. The Internet is wonderful in that respect. You can have a business meeting with colleagues on a different continent without leaving the office via conference call, great isn't it (not for mileage points though!). Anyway, I'm just saying what my opinion is i.e. I don't know why you did it, only that I think you did.

If it is an artform, it is producing bad art.

It also is circular reasoning: It is suspicious because it is.

I am reminded of a tired cliche that use to inundate American television dramas in the 1970. The script trotted out a 60ish married male character and placed him in a restaurant having a candlelit dinner with a very pretty, 18-year-old female who was not his wife. There is giggling and laughing and then the man would present the woman with a gift, usually jewelry. Next, one of them kisses the other on the cheek. The story would then focus on this man and who was that woman he was with that wasn't his wife and they would spin the suspicion that he was having an affair until the big reveal: he took his granddaughter out for dinner on her birthday and gave her earrings as a present followed by a kiss on the cheek (or she kissed him on the cheek out of gratitude) and isn't everyone just horrible for thinking the worst of the man. Tsk, tsk.

Like photography in airports, no one knows why it is suspicious, but why let facts stop people from thinking the worst of innocent people doing nothing more than enjoying themselves?