meta-roj

ok, you might not be a terrorist if you forget to check your marshmallows, but i guess this is the police-state that keeps us all safe from the fish….

Marshmallow Bust Haunts Woman on Cruise

A teacher’s aide who forgot to put away her marshmallows and hot chocolate at Yellowstone National Park last year was taken from her cruise ship cabin in handcuffs and hauled before a judge Friday, accused of failing to pay the year-old fine.

Hope Clarke, 32, crying and in leg shackles, told the judge she was rousted at 6:30 a.m. by federal agents after the ship returned to Miami from Mexico. She insisted that she had been required to pay the $50 fine before she could leave Yellowstone, which has strict rules about food storage to prevent wildlife from eating human food.

…

U.S. Magistrate Judge John O’Sullivan, who had a copy of a citation indicating the fine had been paid, apologized to Clarke, who spent nearly nine hours in detention, and demanded that the U.S. attorney’s office determine what went wrong.

i don’t care what agency is following up what arrest warrant with bad paper – a delinquent $50 fine does not warrant (ahem) 9 hours of detention.

We were acting on what we believed was accurate information

i feel better already.

from the village voice, news of a proposal to ban photography of new york transit things… and a photo contest to go with it (contest info at the bottom of the voice article).

Forbidden Photos, Anyone?

The MTA isn’t slated to vote on the measure until at least mid June, when a 45-day public comment period ends. Also included in regulation 21 NYCRR 1050.9c are stiffer penalties for hopping turnstiles, walking between cars, and using seats as footrests. Ostensibly designed to counter terrorist attacks, the new rules clearly extend to ordinary—and artistic—activity.

the actual proposal is:

Amendments to NYCT, MaBSTOA and SIRTOA Rules and Regulations

In order to further enhance passenger security and safety, photography and videotaping would be prohibited except for members of the press holding valid identification cards issued by the New York City Police Department or where written authorization has been provided by NYCT. [Section 1050.9(c)]

so, we’re in the public-comment period, and that means it’s time to comment. neat thing about blogs – you can link up those forms real quick-like. i dug around enough to find you the page, now all you have to do is use it.

oh, the sweet irony… just a couple months ago, the mta put this out….

MTA UNVEILS PHOTO EXHIBIT CELEBRATING SUBWAY CENTENNIAL

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority today unveiled a special centennial photo exhibit titled, The New York Subway: A Centennial Celebration. The photographic exhibit of images selected from the archives of the prestigious photographic agency Magnum Photos is located in the window-shaped lightboxes at the Lower Level Dining Concourse of Grand Central Terminal and is part of the MTA Arts for Transit Lightbox Project.

The New York Subway photo exhibit offers a peek into the lives of New Yorkers throughout the decades, from quiet moments reading on a crowded train to grandstanding youths on an elevated platform. The 16 images included in the exhibit were captured by renowned photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Leonard Freed, Bruce Gilden, Thomas Hoepker, Constantine Manos, Inge Morath, Lise Sarfati, and Ferdinando Scianna.

The Photography Lightbox Project provides quality photography exhibits to a broad audience of mass transit users and is one of the many visual and performing arts programs administered by MTA Arts for Transit to increase the attractiveness of transit facilities for customers. Other Lightbox locations can be found at the 42nd Street subway station at Sixth Avenue and the Atlantic Avenue subway complex in Brooklyn. The Lightbox project is made possible through the generous support of Modernage.

MTA New York City Transit operates the largest subway system in North America, moving over 4.5 million customers each day.

a couple calls-to-action….

Photographer’s Rights Protest, June 6, 1pm
nycsubway.org

and here are a couple terrorist photos from my personal collection…

this is an empty subway platform, showing the location, spacing, type and assembly of structural members used to support the 86th street station:

this is a highly secret piece of equipment, known by the code name “vaktrak” – rarely seen even by native new yorkers. it was captured photographically on one of my previous reconaissance excursions to the big apple:

i wonder how they plan to tell all the new york tourists about this one…

[via boingboing]

brought to my attention somehow… a story in the guardian.

“How dare you treat an American officer with disrespect?” he shouted back, indignantly. “Believe me, we have treated you with much more respect than other people. You should go to places like Iran, you’d see a big difference.” The irony is that it is only “countries like Iran” (for example, Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe) that have a visa requirement for journalists. It is unheard of in open societies, and, in spite of now being enforced in the US, is still so obscure that most journalists are not familiar with it.

on behalf of my bewildered country, elena lappin, i’m sorry.

for you journalists, i guess this is the fine print. not sure where blogs fit into the journalist spectrum. i can’t very well get a “letter from my employer” as i’m unemployed.

ow, you can be charged with misdemeanor disturbing the peace (not too outrageous for a protest action), plus felony “false report of location of explosives” and “hoax device” if you happen to have wires attached to your fingers when you do it. the march of creative prosecution in america continues.

if this really was interpreted as a bomb threat by the boston police, and there wasn’t a several-block immediate evacuation, then you really should be careful going to boston for the democratic national convention – you could be dead before the police decide to rprotect you from the obvious (as in, standing in full view on the sidewalk) threats, let alone the sneaky ones. on the other hand, as i fear, if this was a case of finding any charge that might stick to silence a political protest, then the terrorists have won. and we did it to ourselves.

as disturbing as that is in this land of the free… more disturbing [to me] is this quote from the police…

Recruitement-Office Protest

So if Previtera didn’t mention a bomb, what exactly constitutes a bomb threat? “It can be implied, with fingers and wires — especially in a heightened state of alert, as we are,” says Officer Michael McCarthy, Boston Police Department spokesman. And McCarthy thinks this is common knowledge, even if the wires are accessories to a costume. “Mr. Previtera should know better. He’s a young adult educated at Boston College from a wealthy suburb. I’m sure he knows wires attached to his fingers, running to a milk crate, would arouse suspicion outside a military recruiters’ office [when he’s] dressed in prisoner’s garb. If he has any questions as to why people think he may’ve had a bomb, then he needs to maybe go back to Boston College to brush up on his public policy. Or at least common sense, but they can’t really teach that there.”

[via metafilter]

update: i couldn’t resist the irony… emphasis is mine.

President Bush speaks at Air Force Academy Graduation

Like other totalitarian movements, the terrorists seek to impose a grim vision in which dissent is crushed, and every man and woman must think and live in colorless conformity. So to the oppressed peoples everywhere, we are offering the great alternative of human liberty.

Praying Preachers Ground Flight

One preacher told fellow passengers as the Continental Airlines plane taxied down the runway, “Your last breath on earth is the first one in heaven as long as you are born again and have Jesus in your heart, ” according to FBI spokesman Paul Moskal.

Passengers on the Wednesday flight to Newark, New Jersey told a flight attendant, who alerted the plane’s captain, officials said. The captain turned the plane around.

Local Investigation Into Ub Artist Continues

Buffalo police were called to 60 College Street on Tuesday after the owner, Steve Kurtz, came home to find his wife dead. It’s believed she died of natural causes, but while officers were in the house they spotted some suspicious materials that were thought to be biological agents. The FBI’s hazardous materials team has been at the house since Thursday collecting evidence.

Steve Kurtz is an art professor at the University of Buffalo, and the materials inside Kurtz’ home are commonly used in artwork.

The materials initially looked suspicious, like biological or chemical agents.

update (2004.06.05): joi brought us a first-person account of the incident, and wired and usa today have picked up on the story, which then got picked up tonight at slashdot.

none of the information provided on slashdot backs up the assertion that kurtz is or will be charged under the patriot act. but, since we live in a hype-and-hypocracy world, now that it’s there, this thing “has legs.”

i’ll refrain from further comment until i see how absurd the charges are – that’s the point of the grand jury proceeding. if this turns into another case of creative prosecution from the ashcroft department of justice, you can bet i’ll be all over it. right now it’s just the painful wheels of justice turning. if the grand jury tells ashcroft to go find some real terrorists and leave this guy alone – well, that’s what’s supposed to happen if kurtz is just a crazy artist-type guy playing with dna to make a statement.

terror law used against gang [new york times]

Charging that the St. James Gang acted with “the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, ” the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, said that the grand jury was justified in adding the terrorism stipulation to several counts including conspiracy, murder and gang assault.

i’ve always had a problem with laws that are written in such a way that we have to read minds to make decisions.

FBI investigates underground tunnel requests

“The point was to see if there was any type of a threat to campus or public safety due to the nature of the information being sought, ” said Mark Rich, a special agent in the FBI San Antonio field office. “I don’t think it had anything to do with the fact that a records request was made. It was what the request involved.”

don’t ask for the wrong thing in the right country…

FBI investigates underground tunnel requests

Miller said the agents wanted to know everything from his major to why he wears long hair.

They asked, how did he know open records laws? How did he know about campus tunnel systems? Did he ever think of joining UT Watch or filing a lawsuit through the American Civil Liberties Union?

i knew i was up to no good

the associated press is reporting that an unidentified 15-year-old student in washington (state) has been questioned by secret service agents, and disciplined by the school district (though the nature of the ‘discipline’ has not been made public) for anti-war drawings.

Washington Student Questioned on Artwork

The drawing that drew the most notice showed a man in what appeared to be Middle Eastern-style clothing, holding a rifle. He was also holding a stick with an oversize head of the president on it.

The student said the head was enlarged because it was intended to be an effigy, Cravens said. The caption called for an end to the war in Iraq.

Washington Student Questioned on Artwork

“We involve the police anytime we have a concern,” Prosser Superintendent Ray Tolcacher told the Tri-City Herald newspaper.

Washington Student Questioned on Artwork

Tolcacher insisted it was not a freedom of speech issue, but a concern over the depiction of violence.

i could find no statement regarding a new secret service depiction-of-violence initiative and i’m not sure if depictions of violence fall into the counterfeit-operations duty of the secret service or the protective mission of the secret service.

i didn’t find any recent statements on actual violence either….

Cancer Patient Grounded at Fla. Airport

Airport security screeners refused to let a cancer patient board a flight home to Denver because they said she no longer resembled her identification photos.

Cancer Patient Grounded at Fla. Airport

[Athena] LaPera spent most of Tuesday trying to resolve the issue only to be told during a conversation with a federal Transportation Security Administration employee in Washington that she needed new photos and a doctor’s note to explain her changed appearance.

something to keep in mind when you read a proposal for mandatory biometric id – the failure mode is hackable with nothing more than new pictures and a “note from your doctor.”

and there is no way to address the mysterious [not] matching consonant problem.