Law enforcement continues to crack down on photographers despite the law

Bill Mattocks

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Probably ask the photographer to do the sensible thing, and stop pissing off the TSA goons. Ask the TSA agent to let the guy leave... and tell him he can get a warrant if he's so sure there's a violation of law.

Civil liberties are not defined by complacency and agreeing to unreasonable demands by people who are 'pissed off' at being photographed, whether or not it's legal. They are defined by the outer limits of legal behavior. In other words, if you want to know what the limits of free speech are, you have to test them by going as far as you can until a court of final authority finally rules that no, this is too far. That's where the stake is driven into the ground.

Unfortunately, this scenario is a constant one, because those who would abrogate liberty will pull those stakes up and move them in, over and over again; usually in the name of 'security' or 'safety' or 'public decency'. If no one is there to challenge them, the stakes stay moved in. Later, they get moved in again. It's the nature of things.

Liberty wasn't a one-time struggle and now we have it, tra-lah, we're all happy and free. It's an ongoing back-and-forth conversation between the forces of freedom and the forces of order. Both are required.

I can't always be the guy volunteering to get arrested, but I can go as far as I can without getting arrested, and that means yeah, pissing off some TSA goons. No, I won't walk away. Yes, I know they don't like it. Too bad for them. Too bad for me if I take one step too far and get arrested, because I gotta go to work in the morning. Fortunately, there are people who are willing to go a little further than I am.

Yeah, I'm a PITA to the guys who don't like cameras pointed at them. Tough. They're a PITA to me. Life goes on.
 

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