Policing Subway Photography

Mortimer L. Downey, the authority's executive director from 1986 to

1993, said the value of the ban might lay primarily in giving the police more

leeway in questioning people with criminal motives.

"The likelihood that

you're going to catch a terrorist taking pictures is fairly slim, but

conceivably you might, and it's certainly better to catch him taking a picture

than blowing up a station," he said.

So i guess that whole due process crap is just kind of "over," like slap bracelets and the Geneva conventions?

Not long ago, Mr. Vergara recalled, he was photographing pigeons

that had entered the Broadway Junction station in eastern Brooklyn, where five

subway lines meet. "Somebody just put out the word - and this is one of the

large stations that have police 24 hours," he said. "They went looking for me.

They caught up with me."

Two policemen, Mr. Vergara said, asked him what he

was doing. "I said, 'Well, taking pictures of pigeons here.' That didn't sound

very believable."

While Mr. Vergara tried to convince the policemen that his

photography was legitimate, another passenger began taking snapshots of the

photographer being questioned. That annoyed the officers, in Mr. Vergara's

account: "Right after they were done with me, they told me, 'We're going after

him.' "

Yup, no civil liberties being violated here!