Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Well, I just earned myself a trip to the police officer station to answer some questions and to have the distinction between "arrested" and "detained (for questioning)" explained to me ("Were you handcuffed?"). Remind me to join the ACLU as soon as I can scrape together money for dues. I made the mistake of being a photographer, you see.

I'd planned to zip out to the Post Awful to mail something and move my car to the other side of the street (it's street-cleaning day this morning), but when I stepped outside I noticed the lovely, lovely fog. And I figured, hey, I've got a camera hanging from my shoulder, and three types of film in my purse -- what would make good photos in the fog? So I shot a graveyard, and a traffic light, and I drove to Catonsville to shoot a street scene and a church, then I figured I'd swing by the harbour before going home because there was bound to be something cool down there.

I didn't want to go far from the car -- partly just tired and lazy, partly the fact that I wasn't really dressed for "going out" because I had only planned to go from the car to a mailbox and back when I got dressed -- but the Power Plant looked interesting. So I zipped into a parking area by there, pulled the tripod out of the front seat, and shot a couple frames of the neon on the front of the Power Plant, then turned around a shot the pedestrian bridge because the light falling on it looked cool in the fog. I noticed a police car pull up, but they didn't do anything, so I waved and got back in my car to drive home, figuring I'd shoot the last frame or two on Lombard Street.

Two blocks later, the flashylights came on and they pulled me over. Why? Because I was "taking pictures of the World Trade Center". Excuse me, I know the Baltimore WTC is down in that area someplace, and I figure it's probably "the tall one", but I don't know it from ground level and in this fog I couldn't see very far up an unlit building-side, so I'm really not sure how close to the WTC I was even pointing. The two officers who took my license and registration called a higher ranking officer in, and after about ten minutes he had me follow him to the police station to talk to someone in the Criminal Intelligence division. All told, from the time I was pulled over to the time I was allowed to leave was about fifty minutes. When I griped that the situation felt intrusive, every response started with, "You have to understand, sir, what with recent events..." Yeah, yeah, I'm not living in a vacuum -- I watched my television in horror fourteen months ago along with everyone else, I know at least two people who were in the Pentagon (not hurt, thank goodness), I know people who lost friends in NYC, I winced the first few times I heard aircraft after that, and I've been noticing the even more frightening things happening politically since then. I do understand the Context, thank you. I know why you're being more careful, but I want to know how THIS helps and just how eager I'm supposed to be to be detained out of the blue when I haven't done anything wrong.

The thing is, when I asked whether photography is now illegal, I was told, "no, but you have to understand that in the light of recent events...". When I pointed out that in dark of night IN THE FOG is the worst time to try to capture any detail (great for "mood", of course, which is what I was there for), they didn't seem to think that was particularly relevant. They wanted to know my mother's name and address ... hey, it's bad enough that you're taking nearly an hour of my time without paying me, and keeping my name and address in your files, and you want background info on my family as well, just because I was doing something legal after dark? "You have to understand, sir, ..." Okay, okay, okay, I was doing something unusual and coincidentally near a potential target -- ask me why I was there, I guess, but a background check (more or less)?? (I did give him the URL of the Pentax Users Gallery and told him to search on my name to see samples of my work. I hope he realizes that I meant to hit the "Looking for a particular photographer?" link at the bottom of the page, 'cause I'm not in the current gallery.) Yeah, they have to watch out for Suspicious People and try to figure out whom to take a closer look at, but just how much intrusion into the lives of innocent bystanders is reasonable and acceptable? As someone else said recently, "This is no longer the country I grew up in."

No, I wasn't arrested; no I wasn't Locked Up; but I was most definitely hassled (politely hassled, but hassled nonetheless), and spent most of an hour jumping through their hoops. For doing something completely legal.

Here's the kicker: I can understand their being a little nervous about photography near a Target, but that's The Tourist Center Of Baltimore down there -- the Aquarium, the Inner Harbour, the Torsk, the Science Center, etc., etc. There must be huge numbers of people taking pictures down there on any afternoon, when it's a better time to get lots of detail and not be noticed doing it. Are they stopping every tourist who happens to point in the direction of the WTC? Or just the local who is down there when nobody else is? If they stop every tourist, that's insane: it's a touristy area and there's pretty stuff around. If they only stop me, then they get to Feel Like They're Doing Something because they're "watching for suspicious activity", but they're not doing anything meaningful, because the Bad Guy casing the place is going to be one of the hundreds of ignored daytime people.

It's a scenic area. It'll get photographed. If there'd been a big sign saying, "Don't photograph in this direction," I would have grumbled under my breath and obeyed, but what I did was completely unregulated ... except that it got me "invited" to have a chat with a detective.

I can accept that we have to be more careful. I'm tired of having that used as an excuse to step on Rights and Liberties and things that make America American. I'm tired of having government entities duct-tape policies in place that do nothing to increase safety or security and only serve to Look Like We're Doing Something. Give me policies that matter and I'll weigh the cost versus the benefit and come up with an answer about whether a policy is reasonable, an answer that some folks will agree with and others won't. Give me policies that are mere shams, or are stupidly implemented, or are excuses to intrude on American freedoms for no valid security reason, and I'll jump up and down and cry, "Bullshit!"

The Enemy wants to destroy us and our way of life. They can do that by killing us, or they can do it by tricking us into turning ourselves into Them. They probably won't get as much satisfaction the second way, but we lose either way.

The Enemy wants to destroy our way of life ... and unfortunately so do some of our "friends" that we elected. And I fear that those of our leaders who don't have something sinister in mind will be suckered into playing along with the sinister game plan out of fear, or out of a need to react to voters' fear.

The problem is that I'm pretty much preaching to the choir here, at least most of the folks who I know read this. But I needed to vent.

While I'm thinking about security stupitidy ...

On the drive home I thought of several ways to photograph the Baltimore World Trade Center without being conspicuous doing so, and what other directions I'd want to photograph if I were planning to do damage there ... it seems to me that to plan a 9/11 style attack, you'd want blueprints of the building more than photographs, and you'd want photos (and maps) of the approaches to the building, not of the building itself! Of course, if you were to plan a different type of attack, you'd want different intel, but I didn't hear about them watching for people pointing cameras away from the WTC...

And another example of Looking Like You're Doing Something without doing it came up in conversation with the ... (uh, three chevrons on his sleeve -- is that a sergeant?) on the way back to my car: the last time I was on a plane, there were all the restrictions against nail clippers and such, but they served my drink in an aluminum can. Fold the empty back and forth a couple of times, and it tears in half to become a pair of knives. They gave me the can, but they prohbited nail clippers?

If you're going to implement policies that get in my way, PLEASE make those policies actually do some good!