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04/16/2005 02:37:05 PM · #26 |
I had a recent incident at a bridge (during the bridges challenge), and was asked to leave because I might be a terrorist or suicidal maniac. I was going to persue a case against them because I felt my rights were violated because it was a state trooper that asked me to leave. Well, the new Jersey Bridge Commission, is a private company and in no way affiliated by the state. Odd that a state trooper would be partolling the area, but I had no case since I was on private property. Also, that was not the first, or last time I have been questioned for having a camera in public.
Recently, I decided to attempt to photograph independance hall, as I have always admired the history of that building. Its nostalgic, for a lot of Americans. Well all the shots had at least six considerably overweight security guards. It appeared that there were more than 10 on duty. Now, I can understand the need for "some" security due to the occasional teenager maybe adding graffitti to the building, or drunkard throwing a rock through a window, but I seriously doubt that a terrorist would ever attack a nostalgic building, no matter how much of "America" it represents. So what are we left with? Portraits of a historic building with 10 security guards on duty standing out in front of the place smoking cigarettes. It's obscene if you ask me.
However, Hyperfocal, if the person you are describing has a case and feels that their civil liberties have been violated, (as there may or may not be more to the story) I suggest you have them contact the American Civil Liberties Union. //www.aclu.org/
In my own opinion, as I am sure this thread is going to bring out two differing political views on the subject, I'm going to add my 2 cents on this one, as much as I try to avoid politics on this site. Look, I have studied our country's history a great deal, and I am proud of our founding forefathers. They created a wonderful constitution of these United States. They made that wonderful document so that we would have freedom and liberty. They never promised that our nation would be secure. When I read stories like the one in this thread, I get sick to my stomach over the apparently tyrannical state that this nation has become. I will continue to fight for my rights, and the rights of others, no matter what. This over-surveillance that we have had to endure lately does not make us more secure anyway. It is an illusion.
I'm guessing that the person in the story was violated and surveilled because due to the Patriot act, law enforcement was able to do so very easily. Folks, if a person is a suspect of a crime, all that law enforcement ever needed was a warrant issued from a judge in order to search and seize. It's in the bill of rights. The patriot act removes the part about having to have a judge issue the warrant. Honestly, I don't understand why people aren't upset about that. There is a reason we have a judicial system, and that act completely undermines the rights of American citizens, as well as our law. So far all I have seen are instances like the one described in this thread. If law enforcement feels that they need to skip the judicial part of our law, and take surveillance into their own hands, then why not do away with the court system in general? Seriously, this stuff drives me nuts.
Look, before all the peole with opposing views start spitting literary bile at my post, I understand that some Americans want the security. Its ok, I'm not heartless to your needs. However, the security you want can be acheived without changing the law, or surveillance of our citizens. Stop watching the television....actually, that would be a really good start.
Benjamin Franklin said, "They that would trade a little liberty for a little security deserve neither." To me, that is the honest truth. |
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04/16/2005 02:47:59 PM · #27 |
Originally posted by photodude:
As for the big picture, I will keep saying this to anyone who will listen. If we want to be safe we need to stop taking our own rights away and start taking away the rights of our enemies. Our enemies are the citizens of hostile nations - which are for the most part the Arab and Islamic ones. For example, Saudi Arabia is not our ally or friend and a large swath of their population would participate in or support harm being done to us.
Therefore, we need to stop letting citizens of hostile nations into our country. That means no more tourist or student visas. Did we let in German and Japanese tourists during WW2? We didn't try to seperate the good Germans from the bad ones did we? |
Even better idea - let's take it a step further and lock em all up in internment camps until the whole situation blows over.
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04/16/2005 03:00:45 PM · #28 |
Originally posted by virtuamike:
Originally posted by photodude:
As for the big picture, I will keep saying this to anyone who will listen. If we want to be safe we need to stop taking our own rights away and start taking away the rights of our enemies. Our enemies are the citizens of hostile nations - which are for the most part the Arab and Islamic ones. For example, Saudi Arabia is not our ally or friend and a large swath of their population would participate in or support harm being done to us.
Therefore, we need to stop letting citizens of hostile nations into our country. That means no more tourist or student visas. Did we let in German and Japanese tourists during WW2? We didn't try to seperate the good Germans from the bad ones did we? |
Even better idea - let's take it a step further and lock em all up in internment camps until the whole situation blows over. |
Can we do that? Seriously though, Doesn't it make it easier to deal with an enemy who's pretty much limited to one race? People are going to complain no matter what. 911 happened, people complained why things weren't done to stop them.
A few innocent people are questioned or detained, but cleared, and people complain about that.
Why should you waste time and money questioning an 80 year-old Amish woman just to make it not racially motivated? If you came across someone of Muslim faith photographing a nuclear power plant, what would you think? Would you be the slightest suspicious?
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04/16/2005 03:07:15 PM · #29 |
Originally posted by MeThoS:
Why should you waste time and money questioning an 80 year-old Amish woman just to make it not racially motivated? If you came across someone of Muslim faith photographing a nuclear power plant, what would you think? Would you be the slightest suspicious? |
Do you really think that a terrorist spy is going to be walking around with a rag on his head? If not then how can you tell if he is Muslim or not? Oh, I forgot, he's dark!
Message edited by author 2005-04-16 15:07:56.
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04/16/2005 03:11:50 PM · #30 |
Originally posted by nsbca7:
Originally posted by MeThoS:
Why should you waste time and money questioning an 80 year-old Amish woman just to make it not racially motivated? If you came across someone of Muslim faith photographing a nuclear power plant, what would you think? Would you be the slightest suspicious? |
Do you really think that a terrorist spy is going to be walking around with a rag on his head? If not then how can you tell if he is Muslim or not? Oh, I forgot, he's dark! |
Please, color of skin is only one characteristic of race. Facial features and language are the biggest ones. I referred to Muslim because of the Latino Muslim terrorists that have been caught...
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04/16/2005 03:34:30 PM · #31 |
Originally posted by MeThoS:
Originally posted by nsbca7:
Originally posted by MeThoS:
Why should you waste time and money questioning an 80 year-old Amish woman just to make it not racially motivated? If you came across someone of Muslim faith photographing a nuclear power plant, what would you think? Would you be the slightest suspicious? |
Do you really think that a terrorist spy is going to be walking around with a rag on his head? If not then how can you tell if he is Muslim or not? Oh, I forgot, he's dark! |
Please, color of skin is only one characteristic of race. Facial features and language are the biggest ones. I referred to Muslim because of the Latino Muslim terrorists that have been caught...
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And you can tell the difference between a Sicilian and a Lebanesse? And what the hell is Eric Rudolf. Would you be able to tell he was a terroist by the color of his skin, his facial features or the language that he spoke? Bullshit. Profiling is rascist, plain and simple.
Message edited by author 2005-04-16 15:35:01.
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04/16/2005 04:34:18 PM · #32 |
Originally posted by nsbca7:
Originally posted by MeThoS:
Originally posted by nsbca7:
Originally posted by MeThoS:
Why should you waste time and money questioning an 80 year-old Amish woman just to make it not racially motivated? If you came across someone of Muslim faith photographing a nuclear power plant, what would you think? Would you be the slightest suspicious? |
Do you really think that a terrorist spy is going to be walking around with a rag on his head? If not then how can you tell if he is Muslim or not? Oh, I forgot, he's dark! |
Please, color of skin is only one characteristic of race. Facial features and language are the biggest ones. I referred to Muslim because of the Latino Muslim terrorists that have been caught...
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And you can tell the difference between a Sicilian and a Lebanesse? And what the hell is Eric Rudolf. Would you be able to tell he was a terroist by the color of his skin, his facial features or the language that he spoke? Bullshit. Profiling is rascist, plain and simple. |
Actually I can tell the difference between most Asian races which is much more difficult. We're talking about the majority of the specific Islamic terrorist network here. They're is always going to be an exception to the rule. Profiling is a very intelligent way of weeding out possible suspects, whether or not it's politically correct...
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04/16/2005 04:37:15 PM · #33 |
B.F. = Give me Liberty or give me death.
G.B. = I know whats best for you, so listen to me.
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04/16/2005 04:38:30 PM · #34 |
Originally posted by Travis99:
B.F. = Give me Liberty or give me death. |
That was P.H. : ) |
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04/16/2005 04:40:49 PM · #35 |
| Kinda glad I live in Scotland. We have a thing called ramblers law which allows us to go anywhere, within reason. But pretty much the whole countryside and cities as long as you are not causing a disturbance or diversion.Private buildings are obviously a no go but anywhere else. We had a news story a few weeks ago where one gentleman called "the naked rambler" wanted to travel naked.Needless to say he kept getting arrested but everytime he was released he would through away the police blanket and continue naked,arrested again LOL not a pretty sight. |
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04/16/2005 05:08:53 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by MeThoS:
Actually I can tell the difference between most Asian races which is much more difficult. We're talking about the majority of the specific Islamic terrorist network here. They're is always going to be an exception to the rule. Profiling is a very intelligent way of weeding out possible suspects, whether or not it's politically correct... |
Majority? Are you trying to tell me that the majority of terrorist activity in this country is caused by people of the Islamic faith? Can you tell what faith those Asians you seem so sure you can differeciate practice? What about the Latino Muslims you mentioned earlier? Do they look like Arabs?
The only terrorist activity in this county in the last 15 years was caused by a small group of Southern Baptists when they burnt down two black churches. They were white, both male and female between the ages of 16 and 22. How would you profile that?
You're trying to tell me you can tell criminal intent by langauge, color and racial features and I say bullshit, whether or not it's politically correct...
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04/16/2005 06:38:30 PM · #37 |
Originally posted by photodude:
As distateful as all of this is, it sounds like your friend should have sought legal counesl before as much as speaking with any of these people. The Patriot Act for all its zealotry, did not take all of our rights away.
As for the big picture, I will keep saying this to anyone who will listen. If we want to be safe we need to stop taking our own rights away and start taking away the rights of our enemies. Our enemies are the citizens of hostile nations - which are for the most part the Arab and Islamic ones. For example, Saudi Arabia is not our ally or friend and a large swath of their population would participate in or support harm being done to us.
Therefore, we need to stop letting citizens of hostile nations into our country. That means no more tourist or student visas. Did we let in German and Japanese tourists during WW2? We didn't try to seperate the good Germans from the bad ones did we?
Its time to restore our rights and take theirs away. |
My opinion is that this would be a mistake. But I know for fact, not opinion, that it isn't going to happen as long as we have leaders whose family are business partners with the family of the leaders of Saudi Arabia.
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04/16/2005 07:00:09 PM · #38 |
what a moron, some people are so uneduacated its disgusting..maybe he should go live with some good muslims and see what its like to be treated different just because your muslim, better yet why dont you go live with everyone else that gets treated different because their skins too dark!
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04/16/2005 07:09:23 PM · #39 |
I'm not so sure people really understand one point... They did not fly planes into buildings because those buildings represented America.. They hit them because those buildings were the center of our economy. They were trying to eliminate the problem (our country) by cutting off funding (trade centers) and our 'military dispatch' (the pentagon).
The sad thing is this, we will never know how many of us citizens are truely 'targets'.. after all, most of us have never had a run in with a terrorist let alone a big enough fall out to constitute a vendetta to kill all Americans. They are against our government and how it works and in turn against anyone who supports such a government.. A government some believe is a bully. The only way to stop this sort of thing is to deny human rights and leave all foreign countries leaving them to deal with their own corrupt government, or lack of. I mean, it's ok when we are spending our currency in their respective countries, making them even more 'wealthy' (yes, sand nations are wealthy but led by greedy men who retain all the wealth for themselves while leaving their people destitute.. human rights eh?). Let them have their oil and what ever else we 'need' from them and let modern technology, which has almost no limits these days, catch up. But again greed cuts away the solution simply because if there was no way to make money from their sand covered nations, there would be no reason for us to be there, and no reason for them to attack because we bullied our way in which leaves no reason for them to attack.
There really is no more reason now to search a person with a valid ID just because they happen to be holding a camera or photographing something they know absolutely nothing about (art, composition, lighting etc.) which is why you're searched.. Most officials don't understand why you would want to photograph a bridge so they harrass you about it until you convince them that they are wrong for not knowing EVERYTHING.
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04/16/2005 07:13:10 PM · #40 |
Originally posted by queanbeez:
what a moron, some people are so uneduacated its disgusting..maybe he should go live with some good muslims and see what its like to be treated different just because your muslim, better yet why dont you go live with everyone else that gets treated different because their skins too dark! |
I've been on almost every continent (with the exception of Asia and the middle east) and as an American we are heavily discriminated against in other nations.. The only difference is, America is the only place where people are expected to treat all people equally (rather or not they do is another story) While living in Germany I was told by the 'pound' (place to adopt animals for you numbskulls) that I could not even look at the animals simply because I would make them bark.. If someone was told that in america they would be RICH from the lawsuit based on discrimination.. You don't have to be 'DARK' to be discriminated against.. If you think you do try talking to some other long haired people, or women, or children, or homeless people for that matter. Give me a break.
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04/16/2005 07:14:38 PM · #41 |
[quote=phreakon] I had a recent incident at a bridge (during the bridges challenge), and was asked to leave because I might be a terrorist or suicidal maniac[quote]
A similar thing happened to me in the Lucky 7 challenge while taking this photograph & others. 
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04/16/2005 07:35:46 PM · #42 |
he said people who look like muslims, he never said anything about having long hair, being a woman, or whatever..trust me i'm a woman with a multi racial background you dont have to tell me what its like.
Originally posted by magicshutter:
Originally posted by queanbeez:
what a moron, some people are so uneduacated its disgusting..maybe he should go live with some good muslims and see what its like to be treated different just because your muslim, better yet why dont you go live with everyone else that gets treated different because their skins too dark! |
I've been on almost every continent (with the exception of Asia and the middle east) and as an American we are heavily discriminated against in other nations.. The only difference is, America is the only place where people are expected to treat all people equally (rather or not they do is another story) While living in Germany I was told by the 'pound' (place to adopt animals for you numbskulls) that I could not even look at the animals simply because I would make them bark.. If someone was told that in america they would be RICH from the lawsuit based on discrimination.. You don't have to be 'DARK' to be discriminated against.. If you think you do try talking to some other long haired people, or women, or children, or homeless people for that matter. Give me a break. |
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04/16/2005 07:56:54 PM · #43 |
Found some interesting reading (sites) from google search.
Seattle Story
King County Story
People always fear the worst = terrorism of the mind !
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04/16/2005 08:31:27 PM · #44 |
Originally posted by queanbeez:
he said people who look like muslims, he never said anything about having long hair, being a woman, or whatever..trust me i'm a woman with a multi racial background you dont have to tell me what its like.
Originally posted by magicshutter:
Originally posted by queanbeez:
what a moron, some people are so uneduacated its disgusting..maybe he should go live with some good muslims and see what its like to be treated different just because your muslim, better yet why dont you go live with everyone else that gets treated different because their skins too dark! |
I've been on almost every continent (with the exception of Asia and the middle east) and as an American we are heavily discriminated against in other nations.. The only difference is, America is the only place where people are expected to treat all people equally (rather or not they do is another story) While living in Germany I was told by the 'pound' (place to adopt animals for you numbskulls) that I could not even look at the animals simply because I would make them bark.. If someone was told that in america they would be RICH from the lawsuit based on discrimination.. You don't have to be 'DARK' to be discriminated against.. If you think you do try talking to some other long haired people, or women, or children, or homeless people for that matter. Give me a break. |
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You're absolutely right! Truth is alot of different kinds of people are judged for idiotic reasons, only you don't hear about it on the news or in forums. I'm sorry for the way you are treated but you don't have to be or live with muslim people to feel what discrimination feels like and that alone was my point.
Message edited by author 2005-04-16 20:32:34.
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04/16/2005 08:34:20 PM · #45 |
Some you misunderstood my original point. Its not about peoples color or religion per se. Its about their citizenship. We need to stop letting citizens of hostile countries in here. It is true that these nations have mostly muslim populations and many are people of color. But we need to make their hostility their loss not ours. In addition we should encourage the rest of the western world to do the same.
As for American Citizens. We should never discriminate against any US citizens regardless of religion or ethenic origin. There is however a remedy for those Americans who would aid and abet the foreing terrorists. It's called treason and carries the death penalty - a penalty we should not hesitate to use |
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04/16/2005 08:55:05 PM · #46 |
This argument again...
It's pretty simple, if you want to take photos of a bridge or a power plant there is a chance that you might be questioned because for most Americans, taking a photo of a bridge or power plant is strange and percieved as suspicious. Most Americans take photos of their kids, dogs, and vacations and not much else. If one of those people call the police they are obligated to follow up on the call.
If someone of authority (including a security guard on private property) comes up to you and asks you for ID or ask you what you are up to, simply comply and be courtious. Getting angry and refusing to cooperate is a very good way to ecalate the situation. It also might be handy to carry your portfollio with you to show it off and show you take lots of pretty photos of bridges and power plants. It's not a big deal, someone asking to see your id and asking what you are up to is not an infringment on your rights.
IF, you are told you can not take pictures, told you must leave the area, or you are man handled for no reason, then it is worth your time to go home, do some homework and see if they were in the right or not.
As for the story that started this thread, I find it very hard to believe homeland security has the manpower to watch someone for months just for taking photos. I'm not accusing anyone of stretching the truth, but I'm guessing that we are not hearing all of the story here. It's also funny how it's always a friend of a friend of a co-workers uncle... I think we've all seen how a story changes slightly everytime it's re-told and after 2-3 re-tells it gets pretty fuzzy on fact and fiction.
FYI, in AZ they just passed a law stating that security guards at the nuke power plant can use deadly force if they feel it is required when someone is trespassing. Be careful if you cross fences you are not suppose to cross! |
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04/16/2005 09:21:12 PM · #47 |
Originally posted by nsbca7:
Profiling is rascist, plain and simple. |
Profiling is what should be considered common sense. Unfortunately I don't believe that common sense really exists anymore
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04/16/2005 09:23:08 PM · #48 |
POr put on a yellow hard hat, and a khaki jacket. No one would even think of bothering you while photographing bridges. No one would bother calling the police because they would more then likely think you were an engineer.
My son stoppped on the highway across the sound from Seattle north of Port Orchard and was photographing some of the mothball ships. A police officer was there in less then 5 minutes. He told my son that no less then 18 people had called in from there cell phones to report him. He confiscated the film from his camera and told him he needed to be careful because he is dark skinned (we're Italian) and that raises suspicions.
I tried to get my son to press the matter, but like most people he didn't want any trouble.
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04/16/2005 09:26:47 PM · #49 |
Originally posted by nsbca7:
He confiscated the film from his camera and told him he needed to be careful because he is dark skinned (we're Italian) and that raises suspicions. |
This part's probably illegal, unless he got a receipt and had it retuned later. |
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04/16/2005 09:28:06 PM · #50 |
Originally posted by nsbca7:
Majority? Are you trying to tell me that the majority of terrorist activity in this country is caused by people of the Islamic faith? |
The majority of terrorist activity does not take place in this country... It takes place overseas and is a common practice of extremist muslims. 911 proves that they are willing to come here now. Shouldn't we be watching for them?
Originally posted by nsbca7:
The only terrorist activity in this county in the last 15 years was caused by a small group of Southern Baptists when they burnt down two black churches. They were white, both male and female between the ages of 16 and 22. How would you profile that? |
If black churches in the south were being burned down again, I would hope like hell that LEA would be taking interest in white folks hanging around in predominately black neighborhoods by the churches...
Originally posted by nsbca7:
You're trying to tell me you can tell criminal intent by langauge, color and racial features and I say bullshit, whether or not it's politically correct... |
If the person having those features is here illegally or acting in a suspicious manner or in an area that they (or others) shouldn't be, yes you can say that there is a good likelyhood that the individuals may be up to no good.
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