From: Tom Hawkins (tomehawk@ix.netcom.com)
Date: 09/15/02-11:52:51 AM Z
Listmembers,
The following article appeared in today's New York Times.
We live in sad times.
Tom Hawkins
Words of Warning: Don't Shoot
September 15, 2002
By JAYSON BLAIR
LOOSE lips sink ships. So do loose lenses.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks last year, New York's
Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been confiscating
the film from anyone caught taking pictures at the
Verrazano-Narrows, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and other
bridges and tunnels.
Tom Kelly, an M.T.A. spokesman, said a ban on taking
pictures has long been in place, but was enforced only
after the attacks. Mr. Kelly said he does not "even want to
get into the reasons why we don't want people to do it."
One can assume, though, it has to do with terrorism, since,
after the attacks, the agency began installing signs that
read "Use of Cameras Prohibited. Strictly Enforced,"
confiscating cameras and in one case, at the Triborough
Bridge, detained an art history professor for taking
pictures for his class.
New York is not alone. In San Francisco, California Highway
Patrol officers have stopped dozens of people photographing
while on or near the Golden Gate Bridge.
Harvey W. Kushner, a terrorism consultant and professor at
C.W. Post University, said that, while anyone can still
take pictures of bridges and tunnels from nearby vantage
points, there are important structural details that can
only be gleaned from taking pictures close up.
"I can understand why my friends in the A.C.L.U. and other
groups rail against what I am advocating, but we live in a
different time and the Constitution is not a suicide pact,"
he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/weekinreview/15BLAI.html?ex=1033111557&ei
1&en=fe5b621f57a8cec7
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