Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.
Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.

Watch this video, at least to the point where the Amtrak spokesman is being interviewed about how i’ts just fine to photograph the Union Station.

A friend who works here reported being seriously harassed by Rodeo (the city, not the livestock-taming activity) police and told to “get out and stay out” for merely photographing the refinery there. I told him that next time he shouldn’t shoot pictures while wearing a kaffiyeh and chanting “allahu akbar”. Seriously, the cop is just way out of line here unless, maybe, the photographer is a Middle Eastern male of military age.

It turns out that a former coworker, Kevin Bjorke, has a site dedicated to fighting back. Check out PhotoPermit.org.