Politicians and the police forces are there not just to create and uphold the law, they are there to keep people confident in the structure of society. So, even though stopping or arresting a photographer is as dumb as it may sound, it provides a lot of people with a sense of security and the confidence that the fabric of their precious society is intact. That there are people who even need that security and confidence hits IMO at a deeper fear in that society, a certain lack of confidence in one's own position in this world. Now, in the case of the US, where would that lack of confidence come from? Not from a few terrorists that blow up a handful of buildings, right? Maybe, deep down quite a few people "realise" that the confidence the US show to the outside world is little more than varnish. And that there are other people who found that out and pierced right through it. Just speculating, of course.
But a truly confident society doesn't need draconian laws to keep the fabric of its society intact. The fact that so many western countries resort to such draconian laws post-911 shows (plus the many racial and religious unrest in those countries) to the rest of the world there's something wrong in the state of Denmark. We, unfortunately, haven't found out quite what is wrong and how to turn the tide yet.
