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June 08, 2008
The Photograph That Helped al-Qaeda
MBTA Advisory, Riverside Station
I was snapping this very photo of a sign at a train station for a collage I'm going to make once we return to Mexico of signs telling of all the things Americans are not permitted to do when I heard a voice asking, "May I help you?"
"Oh!" I exclaimed, having not seen him walking over. "I'm just taking a picture of the sign."
"You're not supposed to take any pictures of the equipment," he told me.
"No photos of any equipment?" I asked, not exactly sure how a sign was equipment.
"No," he replied with a sigh, indicating a mild annoyance.
I suspected I knew the reason for this, despite its being utterly ridiculous. Recently, I have been stopped from taking any number of seemingly innoccuous photographs like the one above.
The first time we ever ran into the phenomenon, we were in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Shawn was going around to see the locations used in the opening credits of one of his favorite shows of all time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show - the house where she supposedly lived, the park where she walked, the street where she tossed her hat in the air. When attempting to take a photograph of the escalator she rode in the Nicollet Mall, he was stopped by a private guard that wouldn't allow him to take a picture "for security reasons." At that time, it actually took us a while to figure out how a photograph of an escalator could be a threat to anyone's security, but by now, we've heard it as often as we've heard the one about putting your liquids in three-ounce bottles in a clear Ziploc® bag in your carry-on luggage.
All the same, I like to hear them say it. I put the camera down and asked him.
"Why is that?"
He looked at me for a moment with a corner of his mouth raised and issued a brief snort, and replied simply, "9-11." He stopped just short of following that with, "...smart-ass."
I thought I'd try to lighten the mood a little, so I asked him about what caused us to notice the sign in the first place: to reach the exit of the station, one has no choice to cross the tracks (visible at the lower left) about five feet from the location of the sign telling riders it is FORBIDDEN. I asked him how one was to get out of the station if they adhere to the mandate of the sign.
He was not amused.
"You exit down there, in the yellow zone," he said, pointing to a strip painted on the ground.
It was late. He didn't need some joker taunting him about the rules; people probably hassle him about the contradictory signage on a daily basis, each one thinking they're the genius that was the first to notice it. I abandoned my hopeless mission to turn his frown upside down and exited the station as he had indicated.
In my defense though, I wouldn't have joked with him about it if I could have just taken a photo of the sign. In his defense, he seemed, by his manner and tone of voice, to realize that it was ridiculous that I couldn't take a picture of signage at the station.
It made me wonder exactly how long people will continue to actually enforce such ridiculous knee-jerk prohibitions in the United States that were pushed on them in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. I mean, honestly. Even if I took a photograph of the entire station, it's a train stop in a suburban town in Massachusetts. It's unlikely to be a high-priority target on even the most unambitious terrorist's list. I would be open to consideration of the idea that high-resolution photographs of more serious targets (Grand Central Station, airport terminals, Fort Knox) might be of aid to those wishing to do harm to the United States and its citizens, but one would be an idiot to think that a tourist's snapshot taken in a train station, especially one that simply shows what a sign says, is helping terrorists.
I know, it's easier to just write a blanket law that uses language like "transportation facility" and "equipment" than to exhaustively list which manifestations of those things are subject to a law and which are excused from it. I understand that such vague terminology has certain advantages to legislators writing the laws and those who enforce it. Yet when will the old chestnut of selective enforcement of such laws start to kick in and give people a little relief from the martial law effect in the United States?
Even the guy that told me to stop taking photographs seemed to find it ridiculous, but he had to do his job. Will life in the United States be like this for the rest of my life?
Posted by crispy at June 8, 2008 10:59 PM
Comments
"Will life in the United States be like this for the rest of my life?"
- no, just for the rest of OUR lives.
- yes, until we corporately merge with the NSA, Pemex, and Seagrams to form the Nouvauo Onidos Stades du iAmerica (N.O.S.i.)
- probably, cheney will drop us the dirty nuke bomb in october, afterwards declaring martial law and all cameras will be outlawed
[crispy says: Hmmmm. Nice premise...]
Posted by: brett at June 9, 2008 04:01 PM
Nine eleven.
[crispy asks: Is this Jim Hough?]
Posted by: Mark Allen at June 9, 2008 05:54 PM
Seriously though, I'm astonished at your anecdotes. I've done a fair amount of traveling over the last 15 years and have never been challenged during photography, or for anything while doing anything else.
Maybe I'm not subversive enough.
[crispy says: Definitely not! Actually, I find that if you do anything unusual and unexpected in the US, people flip out, feel threatened and want you to stop immediatley. In Mexico, they're initially terrified, but then they just laugh at you.]
Posted by: Mark Allen at June 9, 2008 05:59 PM
No, it won't be this bad for the rest of your life.
It will be worse.
Posted by: Cristina at June 10, 2008 10:51 PM
I read somewhere you are on camera at least 50 times a day(?)
[crispy says: in London it's over 100, I've heard.]
Posted by: Akira at June 11, 2008 03:38 PM
Current life in Amerika is worse than almost any existence in world history.
[crispy says: ...unless you love beer, reality shows and fast food.]
Posted by: Mark Allen at June 11, 2008 09:48 PM
[crispy says: ...unless you love beer, reality shows and fast food.]
Ah, that explains my utter contentment.
Except the television part. But beer and food make up for a lot.
Posted by: Mark Allen at June 12, 2008 10:31 AM
Of course, you're not allowed to take photos in many places in Mexico, either. Shopping malls, Wal-Mart, airports, bus stations, military installations, and a few entire towns are off-limits for photographs.
[crispy says: When Gigante used to exist, I was once hassled in there for writing down the prices of certain ingredients for a cake I was making. ??]
Posted by: Cristina at June 12, 2008 02:14 PM