Had to happen sooner or later - Ottawa Views Photographers as Suspicious

dcsang

dcsang

Canadian & Not A Dentist
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Doing my best Bill Mattocks impersonation.. From the article, a portion of what people should be reporting to authorities:

What unusual situations we should be watching for?

Although the chance of such situations occuring is unlikely, we urge you to be alert to any unusual situation.
  • An individual taking photos or pictures in a location that has no particular interest, drawing maps or sketches, taking notes or wandering in the same location for an unusually long time;
Click to expand...

I'm sure this is not news but really.. I'm getting a little tired of the whole "he may be a terrorist ya know eh??" thing.

Cheers,
Dave
 
dcsang said:
http://www.sto.ca/secure/index_en.html

Doing my best Bill Mattocks impersonation.. From the article, a portion of what people should be reporting to authorities:



I'm sure this is not news but really.. I'm getting a little tired of the whole "he may be a terrorist ya know eh??" thing.

Cheers,
Dave
Click to expand...

Any terrorist I'd be concerned about wouldn't be behaving in any manner that should arouse suspicion. You are right, it is bull poop. It's far easier to make a spectacle of something innocent than to do anything real about a problem.
 
Good thing terrorists are not computer savvy. Imagine what they would do with Google Maps? But if you see someone in an internet cafe on Google Maps...
 
"wandering in the same location for an unusually long time"
Jeez, I'm not coming to Ottawa. Someone might mistake me for being a terrorist (instead of just senile and lost).
 
well make sure you don't wait for the bus around a bus shelter... and if you do, DO NOT LOOK nervous. mind you, knowing this it might be hard to stay cool? OH GOD! i'm doomed!

i hope i do get busted for something in Ottawa... "Ottawa gives photographer money to photograph only to arrest him later". perfect.
 
The ridiculous thing is that any cell phone camera would be more than adequate for "terror photography" purposes -- and almost impossible to detect. As far as drawing maps and sketches ... really? Please don't tell the terrorists about google earth; I think we're better off if they're still hand drawing maps or sketches. Sheesh.
 
Masters have realized slaves have got too many rights. This is time when rights are thinned to keep control over sheeple.
 
so just how real is the threat? I mean just how many terrorist attacks have you had in ottawa or canda in the last 30 years?
The real threat to personal liberty comes from the people within who would control you by using the politics of fear. How many times did GWB say WMD in whipping up fear to justify his actions.
 
I am so tired of the politics of fear. All that has happened since 9/11 is that those that govern have pursued their political agendas while at the same time the vast majority of people have lost most of their constitutional rights. At least here in America, it seems like the the Bill of Rights has been basically eradicated.
 
Wow... I live in Ottawa and I was afraid the Society of Fear would make camp here eventually. So far I haven't encountered any actual specters of of it so far but it's probably just a matter of time. The biggest problem I see is the line "An individual taking photos or pictures in a location that has no particular interest"... who the hell is to judge what I find of interest... also... so we can't take pictures of "things of interest" because I might be planning on blowing an item of interest up... and we can't take pictures of things that AREN'T items of interest because that's just creepy... what's left... taking pictures of our feet... oh wait, that might be suspicious and abnormal behaviour... hmm...
 
jpa66 said:
I am so tired of the politics of fear. All that has happened since 9/11 is that those that govern have pursued their political agendas while at the same time the vast majority of people have lost most of their constitutional rights. At least here in America, it seems like the the Bill of Rights has been basically eradicated.
Click to expand...

+1. That's exactly right, but does not, perhaps, say enough. There is also our culture's incredibly overheated overprotection of children with respect to things that are not serious threats, while simultaneously ignoring real threats to children's' health and welfare. A lot of this comes down to the fact that humans are pretty terrible at quantitative threat assessment, and the media - for poitical advatage, certainly, but even moreso for profit - exploits our ability to be titillated and frightened by the wrong signals.

There's a really nice essay on this topic here.

A sample:
The thing that strikes me now when I think about the Wilderness of Childhood is the incredible degree of freedom my parents gave me to adventure there. A very grave, very significant shift in our idea of childhood has occurred since then. The Wilderness of Childhood is gone; the days of adventure are past. The land ruled by children, to which a kid might exile himself for at least some portion of every day from the neighboring kingdom of adulthood, has in large part been taken over, co-opted, colonized, and finally absorbed by the neighbors.
 
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@semilog

It's true... if I was a child now, instead of 20 odd years ago, my parents would probably be arrested for child endangerment... my mom used to send me off to play in the woods with nothing but a pocket knife, a compass, a couple band-aids and a couple of sandwiches in a backpack... I'd leave in the morning and wouldn't be back till dinner time. I had a ball... and actually learned to find my way home using compass 🙂

Most people would think this was horribly dangerous nowadays... but is it really more dangerous than letting a kid loose in the world with nothing but a decade of Xbox as preparation?
 
semilog said:
There's a really nice essay on this topic here.

A sample:
The thing that strikes me now when I think about the Wilderness of Childhood is the incredible degree of freedom my parents gave me to adventure there. A very grave, very significant shift in our idea of childhood has occurred since then. The Wilderness of Childhood is gone; the days of adventure are past. The land ruled by children, to which a kid might exile himself for at least some portion of every day from the neighboring kingdom of adulthood, has in large part been taken over, co-opted, colonized, and finally absorbed by the neighbors.
Click to expand...

God, this is great. Thanks for sharing the link. I'm over there now.
 
I remember after the 911 fiasco the Oz government at the time went into terror paranoia with a series of TV ads telling us citizens what suspicious activities to watch for and provided a phone number to call and dob anyone in you felt may have been behaving suspiciously.

It was mostly done with a series of visual grabs lasting a few seconds or so ... one that caught my eye was someone using a camera!
 
Yet government "authorities" have stationed cameras to watch the public, haven't they? I wonder where Canada ranks these days in terms of public surveillance? It used to be that Brits were the most secretly photographed, followed by Americans. About 5 years ago there was even a kind of internet coordinated performance art that would post times to show up in front of mapped out known secret cameras and perform skits for Big Brother or whoever was on the other side. There were also maps of London that showed how to get from point A to point B without being caught on cam. I liked the spirit of these actions.

Also, speaking of attempts at herding sheeple and the politics of FEAR, has everyone seen "The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear"? It's in 3 parts:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q="power+of+nightmares"&hl=en#
 
hugh said:
... It used to be that Brits were the most secretly photographed, followed by Americans. ...
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We are actually very aware of the cameras run by the government. In my state at least, there is some legislative action in opposition to it. Time will tell if there will be any affect to that.

jpa66 said:
I am so tired of the politics of fear.
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Me too. Refuse to participate.

jpa66 said:
... here in America, it seems like the the Bill of Rights has been basically eradicated.
Click to expand...

"They" would like you to believe that. Don't.
 
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