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Dereliction of duty
Dec. 5th, 2009 12:41 pmSo I run across another article about photographers being harassed by police and find myself thinking once again that in these cases the officers should be given two choices. 1, admit to dereliction of duty and be drummed out. Or, 2, admit to incompetence and be taken off active duty and be sent back for retraining.
Really, even if terrorists were prone to standing around blatantly taking photographs, they are so outnumbered by actual professional photographers, amateur photographers, tourists, and anyone else you can think of who would be innocently taking photos that to use photography as an indicator that someone needs to be questioned is utter stupidity. The ratio of false positives to actual positives is going to be so lopsided that frankly I think even under the US Constitution's strict definition of treason, you could actually make an argument that it is indeed 'aid' to the enemy. Has even one person anywhere in the world who was stopped solely because they were taking photographs turned out to be a terrorist? How can this kind of time wasting on the part of those who are tasked with the job of protecting us be anything but dereliction of duty? Frankly I see it is no less intentional time wasting than if they were to find a quiet spot and pull out a game boy for a few minutes of Tetris or Mario.
Although at least that last option would have the positive of not being harassment that will cause a group of people to start viewing the police as an enemy.
Really, even if terrorists were prone to standing around blatantly taking photographs, they are so outnumbered by actual professional photographers, amateur photographers, tourists, and anyone else you can think of who would be innocently taking photos that to use photography as an indicator that someone needs to be questioned is utter stupidity. The ratio of false positives to actual positives is going to be so lopsided that frankly I think even under the US Constitution's strict definition of treason, you could actually make an argument that it is indeed 'aid' to the enemy. Has even one person anywhere in the world who was stopped solely because they were taking photographs turned out to be a terrorist? How can this kind of time wasting on the part of those who are tasked with the job of protecting us be anything but dereliction of duty? Frankly I see it is no less intentional time wasting than if they were to find a quiet spot and pull out a game boy for a few minutes of Tetris or Mario.
Although at least that last option would have the positive of not being harassment that will cause a group of people to start viewing the police as an enemy.
