{"id":986,"date":"2001-10-28T08:04:44","date_gmt":"2001-10-28T13:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=986"},"modified":"2001-10-28T08:04:44","modified_gmt":"2001-10-28T13:04:44","slug":"ordinary_freedo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/28\/ordinary_freedo.html","title":{"rendered":"Ordinary freedom in extraordinary circumstances"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Sacramento story<\/a> about a journalist who managed to get on the wrong side of some folks who could make his life much less pleasant.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey you!<\/i> What are you doing?\u201d <\/i>
\nA California National Guardsman, a big guy with a buzz-cut dressed head-to-toe in camouflage army fatigues, was moving rapidly toward me. I froze as he approached. He came so close it seemed impossible he wasn\u2019t touching me.
\n\u201cDid you take my picture?\u201d he asked angrily. \u201cDid you take my picture?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m a journalist, working on a story about airport security,\u201d I told him.
\n\u201cYou can\u2019t take pictures here,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cSays who?\u201d I asked.
\n\u201cSays me!\u201d he barked. <\/p>\n

Police state run amok? Journalists poking their noses into things they oughtn’t?<\/p>\n

Or people trying to figure out how to balance an imminent, tragic sense of urgency with expectations of How Things Have Been?<\/p>\n

Or just the sort of confusion and mixed signals that occur when action precedes policy, and then testing of that action follows immediately?<\/p>\n

About 15 years ago, I was in England. I was touring through London on my own, on foot, near twilight. I was taking a “short cut” through some side streets to get to Buckingham Palace.<\/p>\n

I stepped out of a side street into a — well, it was another side street. Or a back street. And what it was the back of (on the other side of the street) was a major military barracks.<\/p>\n

The street was deserted. No traffic. No parked cars (duh). Nobody but me.<\/p>\n

And two British soldiers, standing by the truck entrance across the street. Guarding it against the obvious threat.<\/p>\n

I looked at them. They, lacking anything else to look at, looked at me.<\/p>\n

I considered, for all of about two seconds, taking a picture. It would be intersting, I thought. It would be fun. I could show my friends. It would be a conversation piece.<\/p>\n

It would be so stupid …<\/i><\/p>\n

I pride myself on being able to put myself into the Other Guy’s shoes. This sometimes makes me extremely wishy-washy, but other times it saves me a trip to the local constabulary. Like this time.<\/p>\n

Since, for all those guards would know, I was an IRA supporter, sypathizer, or member, taking photos of a secure entrance to a barracks, for purposes that would be unpleasant for the inhabitants therein.<\/p>\n

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. Etc.<\/p>\n

And maybe, just maybe, you don’t give hypersensitive security guards at airports any reason to worry. Because, in the tension of the moment, before policies and procedures and little things like Constitutional Protections are all firmly in place and integrated, they might react badly. And do stupid things. And then other people will overreact and do stupid things. <\/p>\n

And then you get to be in stories like this.<\/p>\n

Did the writer do anything wrong? Nope. Did the guardsman overreact? Absolutely. Did the bureaucracy mess things up? Duh, that’s their job, and during a crisis is when they do it best. <\/p>\n

But it’s understandable, dammit. It’s not a sign of the impending apocalypse, or proof that we’re all about to be rounded into Re-education Camps by grey-uniformed State Police. <\/p>\n

This is a crisis. People aren’t thinking clearly. They still aren’t. Most are, probably for the best, erring on the side of over-caution, overreaction, which is understandable because underreaction and blithe disregard of threats is part of what got us into this to begin with.<\/p>\n

So think, people. At least for a while. Consider how something might look. And if you transgress, don’t start waving around the Bill of Rights and getting all snarky. Err on the side of over-apologizing. Make yourself as non-threatening as possible. Cooperate above and beyond.<\/p>\n

And then go home and file your story. Because we don’t want treatment like this — understandable now <\/i>— to become the norm. We do expect appropriate policy and Constitutional protections to come back into play Real Soon Now. And if something really <\/i>dire happens — well, save your moral indignation and standing on the Constitution for those times.<\/p>\n

But until then … expect problems. And don’t be stupid about them when you run into them.<\/p>\n

(Via Boing Boing<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sacramento story about a journalist who managed to get on the wrong side of some folks who could make his life much less pleasant. \u201cHey you! What are you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homeland-security"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1948,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/04\/04\/the_1994_nobel.html","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":0},"title":"The 1994 Nobel Peace Prize Winner","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 4-Apr-02 9:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"Notes from a journalist who covered the first several weeks of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority in 1994. 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This has been confirmed in court again and again.And, of course, if you are taking their pictures, the police don't have the right to smash your cell phone, take your cell phone, lock you in a cell for a few hours (or more), hit you over the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128882,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/18\/terrorisms-goal.html","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":5},"title":"Terrorism's goal","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 18-Nov-15 8:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"It works if we give in to their demands. It works if we give in to the demands of our base instincts. 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