The USA Patriot Act, with its broad definition of "suspicious activity," has cracked the door wider to individual interpretation.
But "just because it's not law yet, doesn't mean there aren't people trying to enforce it," says Alicia Wagner Calzada, vice president of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA).
Ms. Calzada offers the example of a small-town photojournalist in Victoria, Texas, who was taking shots of potholes for a newspaper story last year when a police officer drove by several times. Finally, the officer stopped and questioned him and, even after running an ID check, bluntly declared the photographer's actions suspicious and intimated he'd be keeping an eye on him, the photographer recalls.
Posted by Cieciel at May 25, 2005 08:59 AM