OT: Homeland Security...Just Left My House!

DavidMcKnight wrote on 5/23/2007, 9:44 PM

Well this will get the neighborhood talking...

Local cop shows up at my door about an hour ago saying our vehicle was spotted with someone shooting video of a local industrial plant. My wife was the shooter, for a hometown Chamber of Commerce type project. One of these, "Why it's great to work and live in this city, bring your business to this city", etc.

And then the FBI shows up. We show him all the documentation on the project, and they now want to review the footage before it goes out to make sure no security measures are compromised. The footage in question? Ten seconds of a train going by. The industrial plants were to her back, they weren't even in the shot.

As I type this it kinda sounds absurd, but I understand what they're doing and why. I'm a little miffed that we're now in the Homeland Security database, but good 'ol Tom from the FBI (the freakin' FBI. Right here in Texas City) assured me it won't have any bearing on travel, background checks for employment, etc. All of this could have been avoided if we would have notified local police prior to shooting, or so they say.

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vitalforce wrote on 5/24/2007, 4:36 PM

The real problem (I know, everybody's an expert) is that law enforcement is not where you stop terrorism. It's like waiting outside the barn for the door to fly open, and trying to catch the first horse galloping out. Tapping someone on the shoulder for videotaping is what we should have done in the past, when they were videotaping WTC. But back then, we were policing trucks going into parking lots in Manhattan because that was the 1993 attack. You can't use past acts as your only model for the future.

The most important element of national security has always been intelligence work. Spies. Overseas. Loyal CIA agents and foreign-born reliable assets. Our current administration does not have the ability to understand the importance of, or how to develop, good intelligence--not satellite photos of a license plate, but someone of, for example, Arab origin phoning in to Agent Jones in Karachi to tip him off to an attack planned for next week. THAT is national security.

Getting buttonholed for shooting a local video will not forestall the nuking of half a city. My fear is that the bomb will just go off and no one will have a clue how it happened until afterward, when we then start screening all cigarette machine delivery trucks (remember that TV movie?) and arresting drivers.

I'm originally a Southerner, and most, I'm sure, of my fellow Southerners follow the motto, "If we don't fight them over there we'll have to fight them over here." That is close, but not quite on the bull's-eye. The correct sentiment is, if we don't spy on them effectively over there, we'll have to fight them over here.

John_Cline wrote on 5/24/2007, 4:59 PM

Typically, most of our best intelligence is provided by someone on the "other side" that believes that what we're doing is correct and just. Unfortunately, this type of intelligence has pretty much dried up because very few people believe that what we're doing is even close to right and just.

ken c wrote on 5/24/2007, 5:22 PM

Good points... since USA popularity worldwide has plummeted to historic lows, thanks to you know who, it will likely be harder to get others to help us... we are seen now as the tyrant and bully, not the victim... so others won't be as ready to help us w/intel ....it's a shame. I worry for the kids, everywhere.

ken

Coursedesign wrote on 5/24/2007, 5:27 PM

Amen to that, John.

We are wasting trillions of dollars of taxpayers' money because we have chosen to go with double standards for just about every kind of evil behavior in the book.

Letting the convicted major terrorist (airplane hijacker and hotel bomber) go free recently really made us lose a lot of credibility in the so called "war on terror."

(The terrorist said that if he was jailed by the U.S., he would tell all about who hired him to perform these acts of terrorism... so he had to be released immediately, and I understand he's now laughing his head off on the streets of Miami and having a generally good time, probably working on new terror operations.)

LarryP wrote on 5/24/2007, 6:04 PM

If you haven't read any of Bruce Schneier essays on security here's a good one:

Rare Risks Breed Irrational Responses
.

Coursedesign wrote on 5/24/2007, 7:16 PM

Bruce Schneier's essay is right on...

Here's a link that worked for me: http://www.schneier.com/essay-171.html

The whole edict to look out for people taking pictures or shooting video of public places is so World War II.

Today it is so incredibly easy to get very high quality photos from a concealed camera, so why harass tourists or local photographers?

Ditto for shooting HD video from your armpit with a prime PL lens attached to a $20,000 3CCD eggcam, unless you just want to settle for a "measly" high res V1U.

Frankly, I could even shoot 11"x14" fine grain negatives with a concealed Deardorff still camera without those Keystone Kops noticing if I wanted to.

Ditto for shooting with a big Panavision 35mm camera, which is done in major cities worldwide in the middle of traffic and public places completely unnoticed, quite often actually (because it is the only way to get certain kinds of footage).

alfredsvideo wrote on 5/24/2007, 7:58 PM

Vitalforce.
"The most important element of national security has always been intelligence work. Spies. Overseas. Loyal CIA agents and foreign-born reliable assets".---------------
Do you mean the like ones who uncovered Iraq's fictitious weapons of mass destruction that has taken us into another uneccesary war?
Personally, I think it's about time every country in the world disbanded their spy services. Spies occupy the lowest rung on the ladder of human decency in my opinion. The world will never experience Peace whilst there is so much distrust. We can't even keep our spies out of 'friendly' countries. Doesn't seem like a particularly good friendship to me. Your comments will ensure war everlasting.

busterkeaton wrote on 5/24/2007, 10:21 PM

Alfreds,
Intelligence was not the reason we went to war, politics was. The CIA and other intel agencies were never driving policy. The politicians in the White House and the Pentagon wanted to go to war, so they misused intelligence
Check out this clip with the head of the CIA in Europe and the guy who hunted Bin Ladin in Afghanistan. They both say the White House misused intelligence. Gary Bernsten the Bin Ladin hunter, was actually pulled out of Afghanistan early to focus on Iraq.

He makes the very good point, that the CIA is there to provide information to policy makers and not to the American public. If the policy makers misuse the intelligence, there is very little the CIA can do. It's not their role. Tenet saw we were going to war, that Bush and Cheney had scared the American public into thinking A. Iraq was a threat and B. the war would be easy. Tenet went along with it. But he or the CIA in no way drove the effort. The politicians in the White House and Pentagon were arguing in Sept 2001 that we should invade Iraq before Afghanistan. That's an actual argument the neocons (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith) were actually making on Sep 12, 13, and 14th in the White House. The CIA got swept along, they didn't drive the train.

Ken, that is not managing risk, that is being terrorized. I can tell you I just had a lovely NY evening with some out of town guests. Drove them back to their hotel next to ground zero too.

busterkeaton wrote on 5/24/2007, 10:29 PM

By the way, speaking of terrorism and false scares. Remember how Jose Padilla got arrested and he was going to launch a dirty bomb attack? An American held for years without seeing a lawyer. The first arrested him as a "material witness." Then Bush declared he was an "enemy combatant" and therefore lost all his rights as an American. Held in solitary confinment for years. Not allowed to see a lawyer for years on Bush's say-so. They were not even going to give him a trial until the Supreme Court stepped in. Well, five years later, Padilla is on trial right now. Except he is not been charged with a dirty-bomb attack in Chicago, because that evidence evaporated. Instead the government attached him to a different case in Florida and is charging him with an "inchoate" plan to commit a crime.

Steve Mann wrote on 5/25/2007, 12:01 AM

This reminds me of the recent Cartoon Network publicity stunt where some boxes with LED's in the shape of fast food cartoon characters were placed in public locations.

The hyper-paranoid people in charge, at least in Boston, hit the panic button, thinking they were bombs.

Yea, right....

Terrorists are going to plant bombs with a couple of dozen flashing LEDs to attract attention to themselves? Anyone who believes this deserves the president they have.

GenJerDan wrote on 5/25/2007, 3:26 AM

Politicians (any) have to be seen as Doing Something. Doesn't matter if there's nothing to be done.

So you get things that are highly visible and useless. (Whether there are NON-visible things going on is another matter, and you'll never know because visibility leads to avoidance or countering.)

Meanwhile, if Mr Terrorist wants film of targets, all he needs to do is get a permit and film whatever he wants. Bring along a crew for cover. Probably even be able to hire off-duty cops to do security for it.

MUTTLEY wrote on 5/28/2007, 12:56 AM

Wow David, that just grovels, I must say you're taking it a lot better than I would have.

I for one am appalled by the way things have been going here lately and personally could just about puke every time I hear some politician citing the "war on terror" or "911" as a reason to vote for em. Me, I'd rather risk a plane falling on my head or a bomb going off next door and taking me out than live every moment in fear and sign away my rights to some unscroupulous power hungry suit (and that's just about all of em).

Obviously reasonable efforts must be made to protect ourselves but we haven't banned booze and people still die everyday ( In 2005 one alcohol-related fatality every 31 minutes) I'm pretty sure that even now with all those big bad meanies that wanna kill us (oooga boooga) the odds of dying as a result of a "terrorist" are far less than that of dying in a car accident, and I'm confidant still would be even if self inflated goverment .

Bah, why the hell am I talking about this here? lol, my bad.

- Ray
www.undergroundplanet.com

Logan5 wrote on 5/29/2007, 1:05 PM

Perhaps a ‘conceal carry” camera permit?

Or is it a public video recording permit needed?

birdcat wrote on 5/30/2007, 5:08 AM

A couple of years ago, I was shooting in the downtown Manhattan area (just a couple of blocks from ground zero) and made a point to ask police on the street before setting up the tripod multiple times. No one gave me any hassles but I figured it best to ask anyway beforehand.

I guess it's what we need to do in this post 9/11 world.

In NYC there is also a city agency that helps clear the way for filming (lots of that here) that can get you a permit to film in restricted areas as well (like bridges and tunnels now). That paperwork can also save you lots of grief.

RalphM wrote on 5/30/2007, 11:46 AM

So here's law enforcement in the middle with a group on one side yelling "You're idiots for following up on a report about people doing something suspicious!"

On the other side is a group yelling " You're idiots for not checking the reports of somebody doing something suspicious!"

"Suspicious" is in the eye of the beholder, but when it gets reported there is an obligation to check it out.

Remember the flight school that couldn't get anyone's attention that people were training there who didn't need to know how to land a plane......