My fellow criminals...

[amateriat]

3. It's stupid. To really appreciate how stupid this is, go to Google Earth, and look at the Houses of Parliament from a satellite view. You can see every detail of the buildings and the surrounding streets and bridges, and you can use the measuring devices to determine how far each one thing is from another. You can do it while sitting in a coffee bar in Mecca -- no need to risk recon in London.

And, in case there's any doubt about this, here's some interesting news. "Eye in the sky", indeed.


- Barrett

 

[Hiyawaan]

I was taking some picture of a friend of mine in a public park 300m from the American embassy in Greece. Two day later I get a call from my friend telling me that the Anti-terrorist Police are trying to get a hold of me, I thought he was joking. He didn't give them my number but told me to call them. Being that I thought it was a joke I didn't call. He called me back again and told me call them, cause they were bothering him. I called them and was told that if I didn't that if I didn't come in voluntarily for an interview they would arrest me. I went in for the interview as they had my telephone number now.

These guys are watching everything. When I got out of the elevator in the HQ I turned left and unknown to me a woman who was in the elevator with me said not that way and took me to the office for the interview. They had the plate number of my car that was parked over 1km away, but because the car was registered to a company they had no idea who was driving. They watched me on CCTV going to a friends house, over 2km away when I didn't know the address they told it me. It seem that anybody taking picture near the embassy are called in and that all these guys do day in and out is interview and track people. Orwell was right. While I felt me rights were violated and my taxes wasted I did manage to get a free cup of coffee.

On the plus side the interviewer was very courteous and apologized for the inconvenience but stated he was just doing his job (Nuremberg ring a bell). Luckily I've been screened up the wazoo as I worked in the 2004 Olympic games.

What really irks me about the whole thing is that I pay taxes to the Greek Government to protect the US embassy and they (the embassy) has refused my visa application three times and charged me $100 non-refundable each time. I should get a tax rebate.