Quote of the day
Man invited to airport to photograph Fathers’ day flight of a B24 Liberator. Photographer cuffed and held since we can’t have people taking pics of planes. Says one of the veterans:
It’s the U.S.A., not U.S.S.R. — I didn’t fight to protect this shit.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 am
From the article:
“The police were professional, and I consider myself lucky.”
I’m sure they were professional in the Soviet Union as well. I’ve been feeling the same way as the old codger in the article for some time. I served in the armed services during the Cold War and I thought the idea was that we were fighting to stop this kind of thing.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:19 am
My first encounter with a communist regime was getting off of an airplane in their country and having my camera immediately shoved down by men in suits. They didn’t arrest me though. So, it sounds like our airport police here in this story did the actual communists one better.
Nice.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:24 am
Are there any airplanes seen at such events of which you can’t easily look up the specs, etc?
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Hmmmm.
Funny thing about carrying large amounts of cash. If you get stopped by cops they actually can confiscate the cash from you on the basis that you -potentially- might be engaged in a drug purchase, money laundering or other crime. And since the “crime” is charged against your property, not you, your property doesn’t get any Constitutional rights.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Ok, so this irks me, but probably not in the way you all expect. The author of the article made it very clear, the photographer made it very clear, and the photographer made it even more clear in his follow-up comments to the original post – he was not detained/harassed for “taking pictures”. He was cuffed for being on the tarmac.
Is that any better? No, not really. And I am not excusing the actions of the police officer, nor the laws that lead to this kind of nonsense. But if you are going to rail against the Man, be sure you are being accurate about it…