An FBI Counterterrorism Agent Tracked Me Down Because I Took a Picture of This

I think his quote is absolutely spot on about how this stuff works:

"I lived through the McCarthy era, so I know how false accusations, surveillance, and keeping files on innocent people can destroy their careers and lives."

I'm actually rather amazed at the number of "so what?" comments I'm seeing here. I thought we were all much more conscious of how these types of programs start to spin out of control.

I've read about this happening to a guy that photographs underground missile silo's/bunkers already. That was admittedly pretty soon after 9/11, however.

We don't know what the security guard told the FBI.

I'd be willing to bet that if a security guard bothers to report a 72 year old with a high-quality camera for taking pictures of obvious artwork to the FBI that the guard exaggerated the encounter.

I've heard of several of these FBI followups in the past ~10 years but the person being interviewed always said nothing but positive things about how professional and calm the FBI agents were. They didn't send a 30 person SWAT team like the DEA would or multiple agents to your door with exposed guns threatening you. Yes, I've personally seen multiple instances of the DEA raiding homes while I was in college, good peoples lives were ruined because "someone smelled marijuana at a party".

It's the FBI's job to follow up on these types of instances. They were heavily criticized after 9/11 that they received tips but didn't properly follow up, now they follow up and everyone complains that they shouldn't bother anyone.

Does anyone think the FBI would simply leave a card asking for a phone call if they really believed that person was any real threat?

I'm just offering another possible perspective to the story that doesn't fit the mainstream "all law enforcement are bad" group-think going around. Think before jumping on the bandwagon guys.

The security guard who over-reacted is the issue here, not the FBI. Yes, the Patriot Act needs to be revisited or even thrown out and the NSA needs to go back to having very strict limitations on sharing with other agencies and allied nations, but that's a different conversation.

The solution to this is really simple. Photography is never illegal. It literally infuriates me every time I enter the midtown tunnel in NYC to see the "PHOTOGRAPHY PROHIBITED" signs at the entrance[0]. No, it fucking isn't.

Don't put it in public if you don't want people taking pictures of it. We use that argument for Street View, for aerial photographs, for countless other things. There should never be reason to harass people for photography, regardless of what Tom Clancy told you in his latest novel.

[0]: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.745975,-73.974759,3a,75y,86....

(The irony of being able to link to a publicly-accessible image of the "STRICTLY ENFORCED" no photography sign is not lost on me.)

The underlying issue probably requires a reformulation of the Constitution to resolve.

The problem is that the police can investigate anyone for any reason. Arresting them is harder, but not that hard. You have no redress for this; investigations and arrests that don't lead to a conviction (or indictment) can waste an infinite amount of your time. The Constitutional protections (however weak these days) only prevent you from being punished without a trial. If no charges are filed, you can effectively be punished without the Constitution mattering.

I'm not sure what the solution is -- I'm not a lawyer or political scientist or whatever -- but something seems not right.

(I've been investigated before; it really wasn't as bad as people say. I thought the agents were extremely competent and professional, which is not quite what you hear from the average Reddit commenter. Some things need to be looked at in detail before being dropped on the floor; asking the person suspected can be a good way to decide whether or not to continue the investigation.

I think I've posted the details to HN before, but I'm not sure how to filter that out from my many other comments :)

Do terrorists actually take pictures of potential targets? I know that's what happens in the movies, but have there been documented accounts of terrorists taking photos before an attack--is it common? If it is common, is the false positive rate low enough to justify classifying this kind of photography as suspicious behavior?

Pictures of most likely targets are readily available online, and they can get those without exposing themselves to countersurveillance. Why would they stand around taking pictures?

I wonder how my boss would feel if I spent a bunch of time on a ridiculous task, say, maybe two days hand typing a list of project files in alphabetical order with three space indention into a text file and then printing it out, then spent a day reviewing it, and then ran 12 copies for everyone in the office....just in case the project git got messed up at some point, so we would know what our file names were. I wonder if explaining to him that "one can never be to careful" would fly? Or would he consider this to be unreasonable, wasteful, counterproductive and that I should be doing something meaningful instead? Probably he would. Which would obviously mean that he isn't a real patriot and that he hates America. Just as I suspected!

I don't know which is worse. The undue suspicion or the waste of time and resources which are needed to fight actual crime.

I suspect we all do unnecessary things from time to time at work. Sounds like law enforcement maybe does more this more than it's fair share however. I guess this is what happens when you don't have a ship date.

I got interrogated by Federal Marshals for videotaping out a hotel lounge window while bored in NYC.

There's part of the story missing: how did he jump from "Have you been to Boston?" to the security guards reporting him?

No reason not to believe him per se, but if he's trying to be persuasive he needs to paint a fuller picture and explain what let him make the connection, not suddenly jump to conclusions like that.

Just as an aside: Corita Kent was a nun who got really into screen printing and making beautiful Catholic pop art:

https://www.google.com/search?q=corita+kent&tbm=isch

http://photographyisnotacrime.com/ is a superb blog dealing with these issues.

It wasn't until after reading the article did it register that the event took place less than 3 years after 9/11. I think that's important context.

Don't get me wrong, I felt for the guy. It seems silly to investigate 76 year old man photographing public art. Today I would have argued my rights to photograph while on public property.

But back then, I distinctly remember calling the police when I saw someone with an SLR and a humongous zoom lens taking photos of the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Center. Better safe than sorry was my thinking.

That's very different from public art, but it was also public art on a 140' tall gas tank. It's not unreasonable to view that as a terrorist target, esp. 2.5 years after 9/11, and in a major city (that fairly recently suffered a terrorist attack). Again, just trying to provide some context.

Not sure if I agree or disagree here, but if I was a security guard and saw someone photographing a natural gas tank, the thought would at least cross my mind that maybe he's planning to do something not so nice with that picture. (If you don't get what I'm saying, it could very well have been that he was taking a picture to figure out the best places to detonate bombs at.) It's a valid cause for concern, and it's not like I'd go ahead and check Wikipedia on the spot. And of course if I report it to the police, it's their job to follow up (but nicely). Maybe I shouldn't report it in the first place, but then that's my fault, not law enforcement's.

We as a culture should be very afraid of our future if as a culture we treat anything out of the ordinary as a potential threat. It will mean the end of a creative vibrant society if this is left unchecked - we simply cannot walk thru life as if there /may/ be a boogyman around every corner.

People need to be taught what reasonable risks are, and be better themselves at making good choices - moreover, we should all learn or be taught the difference between fear, and actual risk.

The problem here isn't the government, it's just the canary in the mine for a far larger societal problem - the abject fear of anything and everything - in short, this never should have been reported in the first place, much less investigated.

I don't get the overreaction. If some stranger is walking around the neighborhood, doing something legal but suspicious or out-of-the-ordinary, a cop should have the right to stop him and ask questions. Cops should have the power to stop and ask questions when someone is doing something that is not normally done. Sure, he has the right to do things that are legal. But at the same time, cops should have the right to investigate. They weren't saying he did anything illegal.

[I am assuming there is not racial or religious profiling going on].

Why is the article tagged "Anti-muslim bias"?

There's a great disconnect between actual security needs and the security theatre demanded of those who must engage in guard duties. Those in charge must view the empowerment of security guards to determine actual threats as somehow inviting disaster when in fact, it may reduce the significant bureaucracy and paperwork these "centralised evaluation" procedures may impose.

Reminds me of the time plane spotters ended up in jail in Greece for taking pictures at an airport.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1697862.stm

Old man, sign ze papers! They are merely a statement that you have not been mistreated while you have been here.

He hasn't told the reason behind the business card left at his front door...

Not sure what's more perplexing. The FBI stalking an 86 year-old man or why anyone considers that paint blob thing art.

Having a number to report suspicious activity is a great idea. There isn't a single thing Orwellian or unpatriotic about it. Unfortunately too many people don't really have any experience identifying suspicious behavior, so they end up reporting all kinds of benign activity.

Its really just a sad case of human nature making a good idea impractical to use in the real world.

In spite of the popular belief in this thread, terrorists do take photographs of their targets quite frequently. Unfortunately, they look just like innocent people taking photographs, so the practice of harassing everyone that takes a photographs isn't going to catch us very many terrorists.

However, there are many different types of suspicious behavior, and some of them will have a much lower false-positive rate than photography.

So he gets into a minor argument with some security guards, guards call the cops, cops leave their business card on his front door and when he calls them he's asked if he's been to Boston recently... what am I supposed to be outraged about?