Shelby County, TN Sheriff: watch out for photographers and radical greens, they might be terrorists
The Sheriff's Office in Shelby County, Tennessee, is warning locals to turn in anyone who takes too many pictures of bridges or shopping malls, because they might be scouting for Al Qaeda, who are clearly slavering at the opportunity to make a gigantic media splash by getting up to some serious naughtiness on the "iconic Hernando DeSoto Bridge."
The Sheriff also asked environmentalists to look out for anyone "a little bit radical" who might be a terrorist provocateur hoping to exploit the trusting, gentle hippies to turn them into deep green Unabombers.
"You may think a guy is just shooting pictures, but if you report it to us, we'll send it on to the FBI and they may have four or five other reports of the same thing," said Richard Pillsbury with the Tennessee Fusion Center, a collaboration between the Department of Safety and the Department of Homeland Security.Link (via Schneier)Shelby County sergeant Larry Allen warned attendees at the meeting to look for people who appear to be doing surveillance outside public buildings, such as shopping malls.
"One of the things discussed in the al-Qaeda manual is conducting surveillance of your target," added Eric Jackson with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. "That could mean looking at a building to see how security is established."
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If they are trying to catch members of Al Qaeda doing surveillance by the book, wouldn't it be a good idea for them to not mention that they have the book. By admitting they have this knowledge, they are merely encouraging the terrorists to innovate.
Also - this is batshit crazy why why why why why is terrorism even a minor concern for Tennessee police? ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Oh crap, here we go again. Now it's not only mall rent-cops, but good ol' Tennessee sheriffs who are a-scared of people takin pitchers.
Maw, them hippie communist, terrists is out there with that new-fangled camra agin. Whatdya spose we aughta dew bout it?
Obviously, slavering islamofascists intend to strike at the spiritual and cultural heart of America by bombing Dollywood and desecrating Minnie Pearl's grave. We are all Tennesseans.
What in hell is wrong with us.
I can't count the Presidents who are turning in their graves.
"One of the things discussed in the al-Qaeda manual is conducting surveillance of your target," added Eric Jackson with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. "That could mean looking at a building to see how security is established."
He then reached to the base of his neck, tearing off his mask to reveal himself as Xeron the Unconquorable.
'Our logic from planet Zplatsen will not resemble your Earth logic, so it is to be expected that you question why you should be suspicious of people looking at buildings.
'However,' he said, tapping his laser, 'I believe you will learn in time to find it agreeable.'
Oh, and while you're watching the tourists, don't forget to LIVE IN FEAR!!! Have a nice day, citizen!
money
isn't shelby county where those cops tortured that half retarded "drug dealer?" terrorists want to git them fine americuns down there for believing in our lord and savor, jesus crist.
Another thing discussed int he Al-Qaeda manual is to not bother smuggling guns or weapons into the US. It says something to the effect that there is no point smuggling weapons in and blowing the operation, it's so easy to get firepower in the US that a potential terrorist need not bring anything into the country.
So why is it that photography is controlled, but not assault weapons? Maybe the latent fascists in George W's core of associates see guns as more im,portant than stopping the Islamic Fascists (who hey increasingly resemble).
Seems to me if the war on terror was about anything than scaring western voters, it would be conducted a lot more effectively.
HMMMM, beware of photographers???? They are a mighty suspicious group.
Hippies? Weren't we cautioned against them in the '60's?
YUP! That there shereef is one insightful cookie!
When next I travel through Tennessee, I'm wearin' a mask and disguising my camera as a bologna sandwich!
anyone adopting jed clampettisms in their posts - that's a little bit offensive.
i live in shelby county, TN. for the record, i have not the slightest wisp of a southern accent, not that that should really matter.
the contents of this article prove that idiots live here - i cannot possibly contest that.
i take exception because the simple and depressing fact is that idiots live absolutely everywhere, which explains why stuff like this happens absolutely everywhere.
when the posts detailing the same ridiculous IT'S THE TERRORISTS GRAB THEIR CAMERAS BEFORE THEY KILL SOMEONE phenomenon happening in london popped up on this site, why didn't people respond with "if we could get these camera-toting blokes to bog off, we could save london! the terrorists, deprived of photographic guidance, would be completely gobsmacked as to how to bomb us. that would be the dog's bollocks! i say, how about a warm lager, old chum? hahahahahaha man those people who want to steal cameras talk funny, amirite?
Hollywood
Thanks for the post, it convinced me to create an account to comment after viewing this site on an almost daily basis for years. :P
I live in Shelby County (just outside Memphis) and got to experience this first hand 2 years ago. I was taking photographs outside an industrial plant here and was detained by the police. They took my camera, which I didn't get back for some time. I couldn't even get a response from our police department until I got Congressman Harold Ford's office involved.
About two weeks later an FBI and Coast Guard Special Investigative Service agent showed up at my house to interview me. They seemed mildly annoyed at the inconvenience. Maybe they were great actors, but it seemed like they knew they were wasting their time but had to follow procedure.
- Chris Wieland
Takuan
litigation.
Anything that serves to promote fear is a winner.
Our own authorities have become the "terrorists". Quite literally.
Well it seems that the DHS have some serious information about terrorist targets in Shelby Country.
Didnt Al-Quaeda mentioned also East St Luis and Flint as a first rate target?
Flint, MI? I've seen Roger & Me. How would you even tell if it'd been attacked by terrorists?
@Winstonian:
- Deliverance
- The Beverly Hillbillies
- Hee Haw
Innit?
That was a nice excerpt. I can't wait until they finish the rest of the book! The story seems really promising. Terror, suspense, the ever-vigilant public constantly kept aware by the authorities of the great looming threat.
They might want to rewrite it a little bit though. Some parts of the plot clearly appear to be plagiarized from elsewhere.
I remember reading a story where a girl was mentioned who slipped off from the hike of her spy troop. She follows a strange man and hands him over to the patrols. Bang. Must have been an enemy agent. Because he was wearing a funny kind of shoes.
The point was that, at this young age the smart girl had already learned to be overly suspicious and to constantly live in an abstract fear. We can't afford to take chances. What I mean to say, there is a war on.
Funny shoes > funny cameras. That's not really original writing, is it?
An oldie-but-goodie:
...the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
If anyone knows the date Mencken wrote this, and in which context I'd be grateful.
"You may think a guy is just shooting pictures, but if you report it to us, we'll send it on to the FBI and they may have four or five other reports of the same thing," said Richard Pillsbury with the Tennessee Fusion Center, a collaboration between the Department of Safety and the Department of Homeland Security.
I attended a presentation given by City of London (which to be fair, is probably Al Quaeda's #1 target outside the USA) police recently where we were given exactly the same advice, almost verbatim, except for the FBI bit. Coincidence?
#21: In Defense of Women, around 1918. http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/hlm/defense.htm
If I were a terrorist, which I am not, Bush Cronies, might I not simply put on an orange vest and use a heavy duty tripod to take pictures of all the prime targets (sarcasm) in Shelby, TN? Even the police wouldn't ask questions of someone in an orange vest. Hell, throw in a clipboard and then you really look official.
Or is this guy saying I should turn in every surveying crew I see along side the raod ALL summer?
It's a simple pork protection racket--dem good ol' boyz jes' wanna keep on a hittin' the DHS crack pipe.
Terraists = profit!
Oh my god, I saw a man looking at a building yesterday!
I bet he was one of those terrormarists
@winstonian. We drink warm beer, not warm lager. warm lager is digusting, warm beer is lovely :)
Money? Hollywood? Litigation? hmmm. Advertising!?
Movie trailer!!!
Is it in theatres yet?
Ah Memphis TN, never mind expending energy and taking on risk in stopping counterfitting, lets beat up some hippies! Memphis is the capital of counterfitting in the US, lots of FBI and Secret Service crawling around here, but hey, who wants to risk thier donught scarffing butt when they could instead beat up hippies!
@2, jake,
as a very liberal native tennessean, AND an employee of a local sheriffs department, fuck you.
although i find this sheriff's views to be a great deal paranoid, especially for a county with only 40,000 people, you cannot automatically assume that Tennessee = rednecks. its incessantly irritating.
@winstonian, what you said.
The appropriate response is for every citizen to call in 10-100 times a day reporting someone with a camera, or loitering, or with a cell phone (which might have a camera), or...you get the idea.
@ 24
I wonder, would it break the system to report absolutely every person with a camera pointed at a building? Would the sheer volume of it be such that cops knew this was a ridiculous way to catch people, and that it was only going to be enforced arbitrarily anyway? I'd test this theory, but I'd worry that it wouldn't work, and that somehow the arrests of hundred of photographers taking pictures would do nothing to point out the flaws in that cops' logic.
I have to wonder about the mentality of interrogating everyone with a camera. Honestly, if someone is intelligent enough to slip into this country with the intent to do harm they don't really need a camera to scope out a site.
I am not a terrorist, but I have a pretty photographic memory. I could simply walk by something and take in a lot of details and go somewhere secluded and write down my thoughts or a rough sketch. It's not hard.
This is just stupidity and fear mongering.
BO @30 - As a native of New Joisey, and resident of Florida, I hear plenty of ribbing and stereotypes about those places. I don't go saying fuck you to everyone of them.
Nice to meet you though.
You mean this bridge? http://images.google.com/images?q=Hernando%20DeSoto%20Bridge
I live over in nashville, if the terrorist blow up rock n roll they may come after country music next
Terrorists, the new Commie
My wife and I moved away from Shelby County (Memphis) a few years back, and it was the best decision we've made so far.
Before we moved though, I went downtown to photograph some of the buildings, and ended up shooting a bunch of skateboarders in front of the downtown branch of the Post Office.
Within 5 minutes the cops were on the scene accusing me of being a terrorist. I asked them why they suspected I was a terrorist, given I am white as a sheet and carrying around 4K worth of photo gear. They responded "these are troubling times for our nation." They were right, just not in the sense that they intended.
After 20 minutes of questioning and ridiculous accusations I went a way with a warning and a lowered respect for the local authorities.
#36 -
Well, whiteness/brownness isn't necessarily a good indicator of the likelihood of one's being a terrorist, in the US.
Ask Timothy McVeigh or the Unabomber.
Doesn't anyone else remember back in the USSR when it was illegal to take photographs of bridges?
The United States is now attacking its own citizens for exercising exactly the kinds of freedom that it once fought long and hard to protect.
I think that folks should watch out for the Shelby Co. Sheriff's dept; I lived in Memphis for the last several years of A.C. Gilless' reign--sexual harassment of his employees, selling deputy jobs, gladiator-type matches between inmates at the horrific Shelby County Jail--they had it all.
Another soviet-style trick US (and UK) law enforcement departments might like to try is the intentional distortion of maps. I mean - there's no knowing what those evil terrorists would do with accurate plans and maps. Better to be safe than sorry. Ban all maps, I say!
There is a basic problem here. Terrorists do use photographs to plan their attacks. wouldn't you feel like a schmuck if you saw someone taking suspicious pictures of a bridge and a week later those photos were used to decide exactly where to place the explosives to cause the most death and mayham? It's sad we have to live a world where this even has to be a consideration, but it's the world we have. Use some common sense. If a police officer asks you what your doing taking a picture don't become confrontational. Yes some cops are dicks but for the most part they are underpaid civil servants trying to protect your sorry but. Show them some respect and who knows they may even stop taffic so you can get a vacation photo without getting run over for the trouble. I've had this happen.
For the past seven years I have been engaged in a large scale rephotography project. Specifically, I have been traveling across the country rephotographing more than 100 scenes contained in George R. Stewart’s 1953 book U.S. 40. The book was a landmark in the field of landscape studies and it portrays everyday life along the highway that runs from Atlantic City to San Francisco. My goal is to visually measure the changes in the American landscape over the past 60 years. If I can find an agreeable publisher I hope to have this work published in the next year or two.
I’ve been taking roadside photographs for 30 years, but since 9/11, it has become increasingly more challenging to do so uninterrupted. Most of the scenes I am shooting are unremarkable, everyday scenes – and not your typical tourist Kodak moment spots. I always park my car far off the highway and set up my gear as to not impede traffic, sight lines or safety of traffic. I even wear an official looking bright green safety vest. Yet, I’ve been stopped in all 14 U.S. 40 states by law enforcement officers who are puzzled by my photographic activities. Sometimes the officers are pleasant and cooperative. Sometimes they are not. Of all the states, Kansas seems to be the worst. On at least three occasions I’ve been told that it looks like I am engaged in “terrorist activities” while taking pictures of corn fields, grain elevators and other backroad scenes. In 2003, near Wamengo, Kansas, one eager officer was bound and determined to cite me for something. I was in a roadside park and had taken pictures of some railroad tracks leading to a nearby town. The officer said that sounded suspicious. I showed him the 1953 book with the original photograph, explained my project and even offered up my ID. But he wouldn’t let me go and he kept asking me question after question. Finally, I said I had to get back to taking pictures. The officer then questioned the authenticity of my license plates. Here in Ohio, vanity plates are printed on a computer and they do not have embossed letters. He had never seen anything like that before. He was sure my plates were fake. I showed him my car’s registration and explained how Ohio vanity plates are indeed non-embossed. He didn’t buy it and asked his dispatcher to verify my claim. Fifteen minutes passed and the dispatcher was unable to confirm that buckeye plates are flat. Eventually, the officer got tired and he told me I was free to go, but not before advising me against taking pictures in the area again. I ignored his warning and as soon as he left I went back to the highway and snapped away. Last year I returned to the same spot and snapped pictures from the same location. A police car came by and asked if I was OK, I just waved and said everything was fine. His car pulled over about 200 feet to the east and then drove away after 30 seconds or so.
Makes me wonder just what they're up to in the sunflower state!
@30
40,000 people in Shelby County? It's the biggest county in Tennessee. A million people live here.
And yes, the terribly corrupt Sheriff's department is fearmongering for DHS money. Like everybody else in law enforcement these days.
Terrorist hunting hillbillies = win for Boing Boing commenting!!!
@41
Just because someone uses a photo for illicit means doesn't mean the entire country has to be harassed for taking a picture. Besides, if I wanted to blow up a bridge (which I don't) I wouldn't need photos for it. I can search for bridge construction and find all sorts of articles that would tell me the weak/strong points of a bridge. All I would need to do is identify what type of bridge it is, and I don't need a camera to do that.
The fact of the matter is that this is a power tripping fear mongering Sheriff that should be removed from office.
"Terrorists do use photographs to plan their attacks. wouldn't you feel like a schmuck if you saw someone taking suspicious pictures of a bridge and a week later those photos were used to decide exactly where to place the explosives to cause the most death and mayham?"
They also use email, phones and sometimes just talk to each other in person. Should be ban those activities as well?
"Makes me wonder just what they're up to in the sunflower state!"
There are no other crimes there I guess so they have to harass guys doing cool stuff. It's the same in any small town. Burbank, right in the middle of Los Angeles, is a small town with small town cops. Catch a guy jaywalking and 4 squad cars will show.
The problem isn't people with cameras planning terror attacks. The problem is people using their fingers to operate the buttons on the cameras. You solve the problem by breaking everyone's hands. That way they can't take anymore pictures.
This still doesn't obviate the problem of LOOKING at pictures of bridges and buildings, or of looking at bridges and buildings directly. But this problem is solved simply by forcing people to stay in their homes, or, government mandated blinding and eye gouging.
There's still the problem of people doing drawings of bridges and buildings, but I think if we break everyone's hands that would take care of that for the most part. You'd still have those wily few who can sketch out a faithful representation with their toes...
Dammit.... I guess you really CAN'T win this fucking war on terror!
As a photographer here in Tennessee I am of course concerned! So I called Sergeant Larry Allen, (mentioned in the above article), to get his advice - here's the recording of the phone call with his recommendations: http://worldcriminal.com/lta/?p=722
the sheriff is right...the terrorists hate us for our sun-spheres, and cherry coca-cola. why must we dissent so when our betters use their sharp knowledge to protect us? the constitution sez nothing of cameras, why should we need them anyway? Our Founding Fathers saw no point in cameras and nor do I. If good Lord had wanted us to take pictures he'd have given us flash powder instead of hair.
#42 fbrusca - love the sound of your project. I'd buy a copy. That's the George R Stewart that wrote "Storm" and "Earth Abides", right?
Hitler tried the same stuff "Spy on your Neighbor" sad part is it worked for him.
I doubt Billy Bob Sheriff will have the same effect.
Oh yea " The sky is falling "
Great, let's send a million reports of people taking photographs to the FBI, that'll sure make them operate more efficiently.
#52 SLABRAT-- woa-- careful of the ol' Godwin's law there fella! It would be wiser to compare it to the USSR where people ratted on each other nearly everyday, mostly out of revenge, or so an apartment would open up and they could move in. (and that way you avoid Godwin's law too).
Really-- I can sort of understand why a Sheriff would think this way (if I really try to put myself into that mind-state), but it's just so simple-minded; Al Quaeda would use road maps to find their targets, why not arrest any stranger buying road maps? Is there something about cameras that is so special that it screams "terrorism" or is it all just complete paranoia? He obviously wouldn't arrest somebody he knows photographing bridges, only an outsider-- it really plays into the whole stereotype of southern Sheriffs as ignorant and xenophobic.
This is a case where hundreds of like-minded folks should descend on the area and spend hours photographing (or even just pretending to photograph) bridges and public buildings-- and see what the Sheriff does.
how much federal money can you get for your small town cop shop ?(that's earmarked for bin-ladening)?
I know if your budget is tight, you can steal cars and property from people passing through under Warondrugs Industry confiscation laws. What specific funding can you get a piece of from the Warofterror Industry budget? Do you have to file reports on how many ay-rab photographers you questioned?
Amerinoia - The act of trampling on civil liberties in the name of groundless fear.
I'm a Memphis resident as well, and there was a similar anti-terrorism meeting in DeSoto county at about the same time. For non-residents, DeSoto county is directly to the south of Memphis, just on the other side of the Mississippi state line. It's widely considered part of the Memphis metro area.
A friend of mine who lives in DeSoto county brought me a flyer he found at a gas station near his house:
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/8923/flyerxa3.jpg
It's pretty funny, and I'm sure the DeSoto county "meeting" was just about as productive.
Based on reading a lot of comments on these kinds of [lost] civil liberties posts, I think we need a new acronym:
IANAT - I Am Not A Terrorist
As in, "I'm not a terrorist, but if I were, I wouldn't use a fancy obvious camera," or "I am not a terrorist, but I would be able to draw a bridge from memory."
Jus' trying to save us all some typing time...
Why are Tennesseans so sensitive about redneck jokes? New Englanders don't get upset when people make fun of their accents. Californians don't get riled when we hear plastic surgery jokes. Let's not even get into Minnesota and hotdish. How come y'all think that you're exempt from being made fun of?
"although i find this sheriff's views to be a great deal paranoid, especially for a county with only 40,000 people, you cannot automatically assume that Tennessee = rednecks. its incesTantly irritating."
ftfy
@ 58
With the South I get the sense it goes further than simply talking funny. Stephen Colbert, for instance, grew up in North Carolina and said he dropped his southern accent because it was national television shorthand for stupid. When you make a plastic surgery joke, it is, like the surgery itself, superficial. Making fun of the way Southerners talk/live/love jesus (which represent a collection of stereotypes) all leads up to making fun of a presumed ignorance or stupidity, which is a much more serious insult than "teehee, you talk funny" or "you have more plastic than face now, you do realize that?"
also, i don't know why everyone's taking this poor sheriff to task. if the terrorists bombed graceland, it would be a HUGE psychological victory - and RV sales would tank, as old people across the midsouth would no longer have a reason to sightsee.
Okay, first of all, have you ever heard a Boston accent? Not the TV kind. A real one. Southerners have no monopoly on sounding like provincial hicks. Second, what's wrong with being a redneck? So you waste your time fixing old cars instead of parked in front of a sitcom. What segment of the US population is so culturally superior that it can afford to sneer at any other?
That sheriff is spot on. I even heard that Richard Petty was seen lurking around down south with a suitcase nuke. You can't trust anyone or be too careful these days, yup!
@11
I have a LOT of family in Memphis, they ALL have a HEAVY twang and still call people from IL & MO Yankees.
Granted they have ALL lived their entire lives down there, not to mention the huge amount of people from there that DO have a twang that are younger (I.E. in their teens-30's)
Perhaps it would be instructive for some to pull up Memphis, TN on Google Earth/Maps and to consider the impact of losing the Hernando de Soto bridge bridge that crosses the Mississippi river there. While its average annual daily traffic is only 35,000 vehicles, much of that is made up of commercial trucks carrying goods. Add in a major shipping container hub for Canadian National Railway. Recall that Memphis International Airport handles the greatest tonnage of freight of any airport in the world.
I say this to point out that there are high value 'targets' in Shelby County, TN that would be of interest to terrorist organizations. I, too, think that stopping every person with a camera is wasteful and inappropriate, but the county should act to protect infrastructure vital to commerce.
#58 ANTINOUS
Unfortunately it's true that most Southern accents just shout "inbred hick" to the rest of America (I would probably exempt some more high-toned accents like parts of Georgia for example, which tend to sound more aristocratic).
Me and a buddy had a bad habit of speaking in a Southern accent whenever we were joking amongst ourselves about something stupid somebody had done: "Whuddaya MEAN I caint pork mah car inna middul o thisa field? It sez 'PARK' rot theyar own thet sign!"
That stopped when we caught ourselves doing it around a southerner who had a very similar accent.
Although I know plenty of idjuts with New England accents, New England doesn't have the stigma of barefoot toothless inbreds brewing 'shine up in the hills that the Southern accent seems to invoke (thank you very much "Deliverance" and "Beverly Hillbillies"). People hear a New England accent and they think of JFK or some whizzened old lobsterman, not the sloped-cranium "ya-dude" from Somerville in a Bruins jersey, who keeps saying "Ay Mahkie -- let's hit the spa and get some beeyahs!"
"The city of Shelbyville was founded by Shelbyville Manhattan in 1796, who held the belief that people should be allowed to marry their cousins, due to the fact "they're so attractive"; a practice disallowed by fellow explorer and founder of Springfield, Jebediah Springfield. As a result of this disagreement, the two founders and their party split into separate groups, and went their own ways; since that time, the populaces of Springfield and Shelbyville have held a strong rivalry. This feud was demonstrated in the episode “Lemon of Troy” when a group of Shelbyville kids stole the Springfield lemon tree and the Springfield children enter Shelbyville in search of the tree, using guerrilla tactics. This episode is the only episode which shows Shelbyville in detail; including yellow fire hydrants, which causes bully, Nelson Muntz, to chime, "This place is starting to freak me out." Shelbyville is also the home to lemon-shaped rocks, an impound yard and bizzaro Milhouse. The true calling card of a kid from Shelbyville is a candy wrapper. As noted by the real Milhouse, "They're always eating candy in Shelbyville; they love the sweet taste.", unlike the people of Springfield, who enjoy eating lemons (being the sweetest fruit available at the time of the founding of Springfield, according to Grandpa Simpson).
Also it is discovered that the drink of choice in Shelbyville is turnip juice.
The rivalry is apparently well-known even among outsiders; in Marge vs. the Monorail, a slick-talking salesman convinces the residents of Springfield to spend a large sum of money on a monorail system they don't need by musing that the idea might be better suited for Shelbyville. (Mayor Quimby quickly tells him that the Springfieldians are twice as smart as the people of Shelbyville, so if he'll just tell them his idea, they'll vote for it.)
According to Abe Simpson in Last Exit to Springfield, Shelbyville was called "Morganville" during the 1910s, which, he elaborates, was when "Nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em" and men tied onions to their belts, "which was the style at the time." This claim conflicts with the story Abe tells in Lemon of Troy where he claims the town was founded with the name Shelbyville after its founder, Shelbyville Manhattan.
In season 18's episode 24 Minutes, guest character Jack Bauer dismisses Springfield's fears after a nuclear bomb goes off, by explaining that the blast happened in Shelbyville. The crowd was relieved by this news."
D'oh!
#42 -- Fbrusca, I live not too far from Wathena, KS, (not far enough) and I can tell you we have nothing going on in this part of the nation. We don't even have interesting vocal inflections to our credit. So we feel very left out of the whole terrorism thing and get a little touchy when someone notes there's nothing here worth destroying. At least, not that anyone would really miss.
That and the ready availability of doughnuts sometimes makes for some very bored, very obese (and to start with very stupid) cops with very nasty attitudes. And the majestic authority of the law to back up their temper tantrums. As you discovered.
"Then I'm walking in Memphis
Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel..."
That feeling wouldn't happen to have included rampant paranoia, eh Marc?
I just listened to the call to the Sheriff and nothing he said there was unreasonable. Does it hurt to identify yourself to local law enforcement? People seem to confuse loss of civil liberties with civil responsibility. If what you are doing is not illegal then how does it hurt you to answer a few questions when Barney Fife approaches you? I suppose if you wanted to drive a moving van with art supplies in it into a parking garage for the courthouse you'd be offended if security wanted to look inside it. Even though that's the same delivery system used on the world trade center and the Oklahoma City bombings. Yes it may take a few minutes out of your day. Plan for it and be a responsible citizen of this country. If what you want to do is illegal and you don't think it should be then do it right and get the law changed via the democratic process. If you just feel like your being harrassed just wait until you have to wear a bhurka.
couldn't the terrorists just google a potential target fro photographs of it?
oh wait... all terrorists are illiterate. forgot.
and forgetful since visual surveillance is outside of their abilities.
seriously who made up this BS?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
Why would a terrorist hit Memphis anyway? It isn't like we are intelligent central, or even a highly populated area. I think it is a journalist tactic to keep selling papers.