Terrorists = photographers?

[maharetr]

Next time you see one of those "report any suspicious activity (for example, people taking photographs of public buildings...)" sort of signs? Think on this:

The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography.

The reason we're so hung on up on 'suspicious' people 'taking photographs'?

... “we’re a species of storytellers,” and thus persistently vulnerable to a particular variety of logic failure, the movie-plot threat.

From the Making Light post The power of storytelling…to make us stupid and crazy, educating and making me fear for humanity, all at once...

Comments

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Did you see the episode of The Chaser's War on Everything where they dressed one of their guys up as an American tourist and he not only was not questioned about taking photos of major Sydney landmarks and the Lucas Heights Nuclear Plant, but assisted?

Then they sent in a guy dressed as an Arab tourist and he got told to stop taking pictures or even removed from all of the places he went.

It's on youtube too, I think.