Why are cops so poorly informed? The TSA has made it clear they don’t object to photography of their checkpoints. So why must cops continuously harass peaceful photographers exercising those rights mentioned in the first amendment? It boggles the mind.
One of the photographers, Carlos Miller, blogs about the experience:
On the day before Thanksgiving, what is supposedly the busiest day of the year for airline travel, a friend and I ventured to Miami International Airport to test the Transportation Security Administration’s policy on photographing security checkpoints.
We were also there to see if anybody had opted-out of the controversial scanners that allow TSA officials to see through people’s clothes.
We expected to encounter crowds and chaos and all sorts of madness, but the airport appeared to be running very smoothly, which is rare for MIA on even the slowest traveling days.
Officials reported that nobody had been opting out, but we also noticed at least two machines were not even being used.
As far as videotaping the checkpoints, we were confronted twice by Miami-Dade police officers.
Well……I can see not wanting anyone to photograph any part of the airport. THAT security measure is one I understand. The same rules apply to military installations, war ships, etc. and for the same reason.
The TSA does NOT prohibit photography of their checkpoints.
Tracy
Do you realize there are probably thousands of videos and photos of just about every airport in the world? If you can see it to photograph it, then where is the security issue?
This nonsense of somehow a photo comprises security of plainly visible places is something the government is slowly trying to plant in the public’s mind.
You are free to take photos in any public area, please goggle “Photographer’s bill of rights”, you may learn something.
LMAO – did you really expect either the TSA OR local law enforcement to know their ass from a hole in the ground??? Your experience just underscores the fact that these so called checkpoints are nothing more than security theater to appease the sheep who actually buy into being irradiated or sexually molested in the name of security.
Keystone cops. The public should not have to educate TSA officers – they should be educated by their employer before they are allowed to deal with the public. But, given that their supervisors encourage them to sign off as having completed and understood online training courses (see the ACLU’s website re this reference) is it any wonder TDA officers don’t know what they are doing?
I second this comment.
It seems to me that education of facts is a key component to real freedom and safety… not the suspension of freedoms in areas deemed “high-risk,” especially by government officials.
Actually I thought the Police acted reasonably. No threats, no yelling, no abusing their authority. They admitted their mistake, and went on their way.
They can ask you to do anything, there is no law that says a police can’t ask you to do something, but there are laws that allow you NOT to do what they ask. If you know the law and act respectful to the police, I would hope the police would act the same back, as in this video.
They are hoping that you do not know the law, and can get you to consent to their requests. Once you start showing you are ignorant of the law, then you open yourself up for more invasive questioning and requests for information.
Politely tell the officer, (don’t ask, as they do not have to provide you with legal advice) that you have the right to do what you know is legal.
In this video, I would say the police acted responsibly and courteously towards the photographers.
Police are allowed to get around the Fourth Amendment by “asking.” They may not do anything to infringe First Amendment rights including asking: chilling effect. Cannot even ask your ID if you dis them. Can the police come around asking the ID of everybody who criticizes the mayor? Chilling.
Not only the First Amendment but also the 1964 Federal Civil Rights Act comes into play protecting free speech — the latter for “conspiracy” which I presume means more than one person infringing free speech together. I am not a lawyer.
Asking for ID or “papers please” smacks of Nazi Germany. And police do this all the time even when people are not suspected of a crime. They should not be “tricksters” hoping that citizens don’t know their rights and the law. They ought to be educated and correct in all they do in the line of duty. It is sickening to hear people in these comments actually praise them for not being abusive! A dog has to be a good dog, not just one who doesn’t have rabies or bite often. Police officers should be correct, decent, and even honorable. They shouldn’t be appreciated for not being abusive. We should demand that as the “good guys” they conduct themselves on a higher level.
Who has jurisdiction in an airport? The Feds or the local police?
In my airport, Pittsburgh International Airport, you’ll see Allegheny County police. I imagine that in any airport you have a local police presence because they have local jurisdiction. With the increasing “federalization” I get the impression that the Feds are pushing out the locals. I can’t imagine that most of the local police look at the people wearing blue gloves, hired by ads on pizza boxes, and favor this impression. If I’m not mistaken (correct me if I’m wrong) the TSA agents call the local police and have them arrest anyone they say to arrest.
In the Miami case, it might be better to ask one of the local police a very innocent question. “Officer, where in this airport do you local guys still have responsibility? Just the parking lot outside or inside too?” Or if you really want to rub it in, “Officer, do you have to do whatever the TSA agents say too?”
Maybe there is an activism angle here that can be formed with the local police, but I can’t quite think of it at the moment. In the meantime, buy a cop a cup of coffee and ask if your friend could take a picture of both of you shaking hands at the airport. Thank him/her and explain that you want to show your grandkids that there was a time when we had local police in local airports.
Now all I will really add is the airport it self reserves the right to refuse you to use certain items in different places. I do not know if they have done that yet or not. I know if you go over to the Food court and start taking pictures there you can be asked to stop due to copyrights and other things like that. I only know that because I use to be in Year Book for my high school and one of the things was getting to see some of the students where they work. At different places we were told where we could and coulnd take pictures due to there local Policy . Is that a law ? NO not at all but that is still enough for them to ask you to leave.. then Tell you, and if needed call the police and then you are disturbing the peace or what ever they can pull up, and bam. legally they have you…..Just trying to offer another view.
First of all, security is always filming us, but they protest if we film them. Second, most crimes are inside jobs. Having said that, I think it is the publics duty to watch big brother as much as they watch us. Obviously they have a problem with that, so maybe its because they want to hide something from the public. These gentlemen were brave and polite. The police intimidation was “polite”, but it would have escalated in a moment given the resistance.
Hello friends
I am sorry to say that this is not “misinformed” But probably/most likely indeed INformed by the FBI. Proof? See here, this is an FBI document posted to the ACLU’s website which asked police to crack down on activists and to curtail their free speech in so doing:
https://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/16960prs20031123.html
“11/23/03 WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union today denounced a classified FBI intelligence memorandum (see the link above), obtained by the New York Times, which gives police detailed instructions on how to target and monitor lawful political demonstrations under the rubric of fighting terrorism.”
The police since then have been calling photographing of their sometimes violent assaults on activists an “intimidation tactic” according to the memorandum above.
Is it any coincidence then, that the photography of TSA agents is being curtailed at airports? Is it a coincidence that one man posted about TSA agents mobbing him after he used his cell phone to photograph their activities? He claimed it was just in his imagination that they were all just sort of sitting near him in an airport restaurant, but I am convinced that this was not his imagination at all. He called it “intimidation” and that is exactly right.
What gives the police/ TSA the “Right” to do this? The Patriot Act. The Center for Constitutional Rights reports: https://www.ccrjustice.org/…/ccr-wins-great-victory:-key-provision-patriot-act-ruled-unconstitutional -
“A district court judge declared an important provision of the USA Patriot Act unconstitutional because it is so vague that it “could be construed to include unequivocally pure speech and advocacy protected by the First Amendment.” The ruling is the first such ruling on the USA Patriot Act. January 27, 2004 – CCR announced yesterday that a federal court in Los Angeles has declared unconstitutional a provision of the USA Patriot Act, enacted six weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This is the first judicial ruling in the country declaring part of the Patriot Act unconstitutional. In a decision issued late Friday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins ruled that a ban on providing “expert advice and assistance” to terrorist groups violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution because it is so vague that it “could be construed to include unequivocally pure speech and advocacy protected by the First Amendment.” David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a CCR cooperating attorney, said, “This decision calls into question the government’s reliance on overbroad laws imposing guilt by association in the war on terrorism. Our clients sought only to support lawful and nonviolent activity, yet the Patriot Act provision draws no distinction whatsoever between expert advice in human rights, designed to deter violence, and expert advice on how to build a bomb. We think the Constitution demands that the law recognize the difference between furthering human rights and furthering violence.”
Given that, the Feds can unconstitutionally and illegally DUB you a terrorist just for resisting their so-called “security” procedures. And that is just what has been happening, on a non-verbal level. Why else are people being threatened with jail for resisting? Why are they saying you cannot leave the airport without paying a $11,000 fine and being escorted out? Why the coercion to submit to nude scanning/radiation or public molestation or major fine/jail?
Welcome to dictatorship. America is no longer the land of the free. It is, instead, the home of the very brave.
What we can do:
I suggest class action lawsuits, write open letters to the TSA on the Internet (while we still can), ask State governments to nullify the airport nude scan/manual search mandates, and best of all leave the country to pay taxes elsewhere. We certainly don’t have to pay to be criminally abused, do we? To boot, we are paying more than twice: a) With our taxes b) with our airline tickets c) with $11K fines if we choose to walk out the door escorted by power-drunk TSA or police agents, who still may choose to arrest us for the crime of protecting our own bodies and our own freedom of travel. Oy veh, what a crime!
PS Friends
Please “Translate” the following facts to the ways they apply to being inappropriately and criminally violated at the airports as a passenger.
Don’t be fooled by the words “Terrorist groups” mentioned above. This is misleading.
If you want any proof that such “terrorists” are peaceful activists, see here, you won’t believe it. FBI:
https://www.aclu.org/cpredirect/18706
Such “terrorists” blacklisted by the government and spied on by the FBI include the nobel peace prize-winning Quaker anti-war group, the American Friends Service Committee. It includes Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Food Not Bombs, The National Lawyers Guild, the ACLU, and so many more that will make your hair stand on end.
Why? Because of the Patriot Act facts above, which gives the word “terrorist” Such an over-broad definition as to allow for people advocating freedom to be DUBBED “terrorists”. Doubt it? See this FBI document on the ACLU’s website:
https://www.aclu.org/pdfs/tmcterrorismmemo.pdf
Why is this relevant to the airport public molestations of people? Because we are all dubbed “Terrorists” just by virtue of flying, guilty until proven innocent.
Further, we can be jailed if we resist this kind of criminally abusive nonsense.
We are being treated as criminals, and if we speak up it gets worse. The ACLU has reported that those who have objected and been vocal for their rights, are the ones who are singled out and abused the most.
I repeat: Welcome to dictatorship. We need to update our images. America is no longer the Land of the Free.
We MUST speak out. Thank you friends for starting up this terribly important website. Your work may be more important and valuable than you may know.
Seemed reasonable to me but if you did that in Europe i am sure you would be asked to stop and quite possibly arrested. I actually dont think you should film checkpoints and the cops acted weak here. There is a difference between an illegal act and suspicion of illegal activity. To my mind those guys were acting suspiciously in an airport and a sensitive location and should have at least been asked to explain what they were doing and why. If someone started filming outside your house for 24 hours with the camera pointed at your doors or windows i bet you would call the cops and want an explanation. However what they would be doing would perfectly legal and they could refuse ID. But you would want a good reason why they were casing your joint. There is a difference between a legal act and the bigger picture. The reason why the TSA say you can take photos is so not to criminalise people taking shots as they wave goodbye to loved ones, overtly filming checkpoints in the way these guys did was suspicious and they should have been asked for ID and if they refused to give a credible explation taken away for furthur questions. The law is not black and white and neither should our responce and alertness to suspicious activity.