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Reason.com's Radley Balko cites current cases regarding cops harassing photographers and the legality of taking photos. It is all about power... not security.

More here ( http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/the_war_on_phot.html )as encryption expert Bruce Schneier speaks up on harassment of photographers, legality of taking photos, and the myth that terrorists use photographs of their targets to prepare their attacks.

Police Chief Jim McDonnell has confirmed that detaining photographers for taking pictures "with no apparent esthetic value" is within Long Beach Police Department policy.

According to his blog, Kevin visited the Bridges Shopping Centre in Sunderland with his son to spend the £10 his father gave the boy on a family visit. While there, he seated his son on a coin-operated train ride and snapped a photo of him with his cameraphone. At this point, a Bridges security guard came by and ordered him to stop taking pictures. He said that it was mall policy, and implied that Kevin was taking pictures because he was a paedophile. Kevin told him that this was ridiculous and took his son to find his wife and get out of the mall.

Americans that take photographs in public places are now considered to be potential terrorists by many over-zealous state employees that have bought into all the "war on terror" rhetoric and the irrational fear-mongering it has brought with it. According to WJZ-13 CBS in Baltimore, several Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) officials recently detained a man illegally for simply snapping a few pictures at a train station -- and the detaining officers tried to use the Patriot Act as justification for their abusive actions.

An advertisement/propaganda video by the "Security" used as a lobbying tool for the corporation Blackwell and Briggs have been leaked to the Internet. This video is targeted at the "representatives" and is absolutely forbidden to be viewed by anyone else. However after their legal department threatend The Pirate Bay for indexing the file location( http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/bwb_mail_resp.txt ). The video is now getting widespread attention.

The degradations of passing through full-body scanners that provide naked pictures of you to Transportation Security Administration agents may not mean that the terrorists have won -- but they do mark victories for a few politically connected high-tech companies and their revolving-door lobbyists.

Famous security expert Bruce Schneier responds to the TSA's recently-implemented security theater measures. Bruce knows real security comes from openness and freedom - not privacy invasion and cameras. From the article:
"A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we're doing the terrorists' job for them."

State troopers dragged the AP's Erik Schelzig out of the chamber as he was using his cell phone to take pictures of the collapsed Williams. Taking pictures isn't against House rules, but the troopers apparently got "a little carried away" in the excitement.

In discussing the changes in the USA within the last decade since 9/11, Chuck Norris said, "It's official: The feds have lost their minds" and have become "an acute enabler of terrorism." Norris added, "As a part of its 'If You See Something, Say Something' stoolie campaign, Homeland Security released two videos, in which nearly every segment shows a shift in federal strategy from catching foreign terrorists to targeting white middle-class Americans who are against big government as terrorists, including tea partyers, anti-Fed activists and even veterans.