Comments on: Incarcerating the Amateur Photographer

By: Solve Illegal Immigration With a Poor Economy | Carceral Nation

Solve Illegal Immigration With a Poor Economy | Carceral Nation — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:28:41 +0000

[...] outsource labor to other countries to save money and then the CEOs give themselves multimillion dollar bonuses as a [...]

By: Nicola Brown

Nicola Brown — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:42:29 +0000

I wonder if their Security is outsourced to another contractor – and they were not informed.

By: Gordon Davidescu

Gordon Davidescu — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:25:10 +0000

There are certain events where mobile phones are just plain distracting. At my synagogue they ask you to turn it off during weekday services. It is understood that you wouldn’t even have it on your person during Shabbos.
Sad about the whole Amtrak thing. Was there a lack of communication to their employees about their contest?

By: Nicola Brown

Nicola Brown — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:54:13 +0000

This is one of those ridiculous situations we are going to see more and more of. I don’t think Amtrak want to pay out their prize!
Many years ago we traveled to the Greek Islands and were warned in advance to check that we could take photographs before we took them – as many of the historical sites were next to sensitive military installations. To be fair we were warned, they had huge signs everywhere indicating if photography was or was not allowed.
Nowadays the photography angle all sees a bit superfluous when google offers you a street view of everywhere.
To switch off mobile signals in times of emergency – when the powers that be NEED information and conventional systems may be down – seems to be a dangerous road to go down. One of the main criticisms of 9/11 was the failure of communications equipment.
On a related side note – when I was helping run BDSM events – we had a no mobile policy – mainly because of the cameras included with them and possible breaches of privacy.
People were asked to turn them off – anyone seen with one in their hands was escorted out of the building.

By: Gordon Davidescu

Gordon Davidescu — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:50:22 +0000

It seems like we are getting terrorized more by the law than by that from which the law is trying to protect us!

By: David W. Boles

David W. Boles — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:33:34 +0000

This is an important topic, Gordon, especially with the news this week that the NYPD wants to turn off cell phones in times of “terrorist crises:”

The New York Police Department wants to be able to shut down cell phones, in case of a terrorist attack.
During last month’s massacre in Mumbai, terrorist handlers over micromanaged via mobile phone the assaults on the hotels, train stations, and Jewish center that killed more than 170 people.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/nypd-eyes-disru.html
So let me see if I have this right. There’s a terrorist threat and all cell phones are disabled by the police to thwart the terrorists. The regular, innocent, good people — who might see something of vital importance to help stop the threat — cannot use their cell phones to make an emergency call to the NYPD?