Free Country, My Ass

I'm going to bet that public employees like police and firefighters are going to have to accept being photographed by citizens long before employees of private corporations have to.

Digby:

Where at least I know I'm free ...

A Miami photographer was escorted off a US Airways plane and deemed a “security risk” after she snapped a photo of an employee’s nametag at Philadelphia International Airport Friday.

Sandy DeWitt said the employee, whose name was Tonialla G., was being rude to several passengers in the boarding area of the flight to Miami.

So DeWitt snapped a photo of her nametag with her iPhone because she planned to complain about her in a letter to US Airways. But the photo didn’t come out because it was too dark.

However, once DeWitt was settled in her seat, preparing for take-off, Tonialla G. entered the plane and confronted her.

“She told me to delete the photo,” DeWitt said in an interview with Photography is Not a Crime Saturday morning.

DeWitt, who already had her phone turned off in preparation for take-off, turned the phone back on to show her that it didn’t come out, but deleted the photo anyway.

“I complied with her wishes but it’s not something I would normally do,” she said. “It just wasn’t usable.”

But Tonialla G. wouldn’t let the issue go. She then walked into the cockpit to inform the pilot that DeWitt was a “security risk.”

Next thing DeWitt knew, she was being escorted off the plane by two flight attendants.

If you give people the ability to abuse their power in the name of "security" they are going to do it. It's absurd that people can be kicked off planes simply because somebody --- anybody, apparently -- feels that something is "hinky." In this case it's simply a matter of an employee covering her ass and yet this zero tolerance for hinkiness makes it possible for her to treat a customer this way. Common sense should have prevented it, but this security theatre actually prevents common sense from being exercised.

Oh and, by the way, there's nothing illegal about taking pictures. And yet all over the country people in uniforms are behaving as if there is and treating people like criminals if they do it. This is perhaps the most obvious example of a police state mentality being accepted by the citizenry. There is no good reason for public officials in a free country to stop the people from documenting their public behavior.