Link: Secret MTA file on photographers. The New York Daily News reports that the MTA has a secret film file on photographers:
bq. “MTA investigators are keeping a secret database of people stopped and questioned for filming or photographing bridges and tunnels as part of the agency’s efforts to thwart terror, the Daily News has learned.
The information is used to try to determine whether shutterbugs are simply putting together vacation slide shows – or gathering intelligence to plot mayhem, law enforcement sources said.”
If this is true, this is very disturbing. Both amateur and professional photographers are being turned into modern day boogeypeople. And when a terrorist incident happens, what do the authorities want? They want people to send them their tourist snapshots so that they can try to see if they can spot the bad guys before the act. Argh!! [Photoethnography.com]
It’s not surprising, unfortunately. The Soviet Union had all kinds of silly rules against photography too.
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