mauriceramirez wrote:
Exactly. While ignorant rent-a-cops are busy checking innocent photographers in stupid malls and middle eastern travelers are getting pulled aside in airports, any white, older-looking, terrorist with a southern accent and a press pass can get onstage at a political rally.
It's not gonna happen next on an airplane. And nothing's gonna be masteminded by some guy carrying a 70-200IS in a park shooting kids or flowers.
right now there's an obese tourist in san francisco is saying "oh my gawd honey, them there iraqis be photographin' that there bridge."
-m
Wow, what a great job of avoiding sterotypes here. Timothy Mcveigh wasn't southern or obese was he? BTW, yeah, I'm southern.
Blakemore wrote:
Wow, what a great job of avoiding sterotypes here. Timothy Mcveigh wasn't southern or obese was he? BTW, yeah, I'm southern.
I think you missed his point. What he was saying isn't that we should be watching fat southerners, but that by focusing only on people who fit the stereotype of a middle easterner we leave ourselves much more vulnerable to other threats. That instead of profiling we should look at actual evidence if we hope to maximize our security (of course, if we hope that is another thing altogether)
Canonfan wrote:
I think you missed his point. What he was saying isn't that we should be watching fat southerners, but that by focusing only on people who fit the stereotype of a middle easterner we leave ourselves much more vulnerable to other threats. That instead of profiling we should look at actual evidence if we hope to maximize our security (of course, if we hope that is another thing altogether)
Even behaviour-profiling can be misleading and frustratingly so. How do you differentiate between somebody sweating heavily while waiting to board a plane with a bottle of bubonic plague in his bag, knowing he's going to get it like everybody else and somebody who's never flown before and is scared to death about it and who possibly also is going into an unpleasant situation when he gets there?
Rhys wrote:
Even behaviour-profiling can be misleading and frustratingly so. How do you differentiate between somebody sweating heavily while waiting to board a plane with a bottle of bubonic plague in his bag, knowing he's going to get it like everybody else and somebody who's never flown before and is scared to death about it and who possibly also is going into an unpleasant situation when he gets there?
You'll be able to tell the terrorist because he'll spell behavior with a "U" in it.
Osai wrote:
You'll be able to tell the terrorist because he'll spell behavior with a "U" in it.
Ah well, I guess that makes all of the (literate) English terrorists then.
From Cambridge Dictionary online
behaviour UK, US behavior Show phonetics
noun [U]
Someone's behaviour is how they behave:
Her behaviour is often appalling.
He was notorious for his violent and threatening behaviour.
Back on the original topic ....
If you see a person in a Park with a camera it is going to be difficult to know whether there are there to photograph the kids or just maybe there are other things in the Park that are worth photographing like; Ducks, geese , flowers ...
The whole world doesn't necessarily revolve around kids, or women for that matter.
Nigel wrote:"The whole world doesn't necessarily revolve around kids, or women for that matter."
For your own safety, never say that in front of a woman.
lordarka wrote:
But that just isn't rational. If you see someone with thousands of dollars in visible equipment shooting kids playing in a park, it makes absolutely no sense to jump to the conclusion that they have some evil designs in mind. Real sex offenders and terrorists know that this sort of voyeurism or reconaissance would be highly suspect, and would hence operate very discretely. That means they would not acquire multiple L lenses and EOS bodies that anyone can see from a mile away; they would probably work with something much smaller and easier to conceal. Further, taking pictures of kids at play would have little appeal to a child pornographer because, as someone has already noted, pictures of clothed children don't satisfy their prurient interests.
I have to interject here. But Terrorists and Pedophiles aren't stupid. If they think that we think that they would never seek to draw attention to themselves by buying thousands of dollars of photo equipment... Well, that's exactly what they would do. Hiding out in the open, and misdirecting people by openly doing something that might be innocent but might not be. And, there is the distinct possibility that there probably are some professional photographers that might be pedophiles. Just because you are a professional photographer doesn't instantly make you a good nor moral person.
As for the terrorism aspect...what could be a better cover than being a professional photographer flying around with what amounts to be thousands of dollars of high-tech electronics, surveillance equipment, and remote transmitters and receivers? We have every excuse to be anywhere in the world doing whatever we wanted to do...
On another note, FEAR is not rational. People fear things that they do not understand. And, some people cannot understand why anybody would want to photograph their kids except for nefarious purposes. So, if they do not know *why* you are shooting something, then they will fear the worst. That's just human nature.
As much as I hate to say it, times are different now. And, if you cannot evolve with those changes, then you are going to get in trouble. Whether that is fair or right isn't the issue; whether you can avoid that trouble or not is the issue.
To be perfectly honest, being a full-time professional photographer, I don't run into these issues very much. Unless I am getting paid to do a job, I am not shooting other people's children. (My wife complains that I don't even take pictures of our kids enough.) And, when I am getting paid to do a job, there is either media credentialing or enough contact through my clients and the subjects that the question doesn't come up.
This paranoia and nonsense reaches into these forums too.
Photographer A was ranting on a similar thread about how anybody taking pictures of his kids would face violence. Photographer B noted that A was posting pictures of A's kids in multiple threads. Then A called B a pedophile, which is complete nonsense.
mauriceramirez wrote:
Exactly. While ignorant rent-a-cops are busy checking innocent photographers in stupid malls and middle eastern travelers are getting pulled aside in airports, any white, older-looking, terrorist with a southern accent and a press pass can get onstage at a political rally.-m
Any just how many "white, older-looking, with a southern accent" persons have been terrorists? AFAIK, zero, zip, nada, none.
Rhys wrote:
How many non-terrorists carry Kalazhnikovs aside from the Russians?
I missed the relevance somewhere, but an AK-47 is on the national flag of Mozambique, and according to this site Kalashnikov-produced weapons are used in 50+ armies.
I find it interesting that people miss the major issue here...
People are getting more violent worldwide. They're seeing their problem etc going through beaureaucratic channels that take forever and usually end up with something ineffectual being done - if anything. They're taking to violence as a protest/attempt to change/destroy the system etc, having given up on democracy and trying to change the system the way the system is supposed to be changed.
Rhys wrote:
I find it interesting that people miss the major issue here...
People are getting more violent worldwide. They're seeing their problem etc going through beaureaucratic channels that take forever and usually end up with something ineffectual being done - if anything. They're taking to violence as a protest/attempt to change/destroy the system etc, having given up on democracy and trying to change the system the way the system is supposed to be changed.
Actually, there's been a downward trend of violent crime going on for some years now, despite all the hysteria. In the US in 2002 the nation saw violent crimes fall by 9 percent last year, marking the lowest level since the government began surveying victims in 1973.
