Posted on 10/08/2012 8:42:36 AM PDT by Altariel
A man who snapped photos of a brewing storm last month received a visit Friday from an FBI Agent, inquiring why he would want to take such photos.
Michael Galindo explained that he was simply volunteering for the National Weather Service.
And FBI Agent David Pileggi seemed to be satisfied with that response.
But Galindo was left wondering whether he now has a permanent FBI file.
“He told me, ‘you’re not a threat and you are doing a public service but just be careful next time,’” Galindo said in a telephone interview with Photography is Not a Crime.
The problem arose because Galindo happened to be taking photos near the Lyondell Refinery outside of Houston on September 13, even though he was never standing on the refinery’s property.
Someone from the refinery spotted him and called police, whom apparently arrived after he had left.
Police then contacted the local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, which bills itself as “nation’s front line on terrorism.”
“I was pretty freaked out when he came but I had no idea what it was about,” said the 26-year-old man. “The worst thing I’ve done is get speeding tickets, but I haven’t gotten one in three years.
“He said I was spotted near the refinery but I couldn’t even remember doing that. I thought it had to be somebody else.
“It wasn’t until he mentioned my camera that I made the connection.”
Galindo told the agent that he volunteers for a NWS program called Skywarn that trains citizens to monitor the weather in the name of “protecting lives and property.”
He said when he pulled off to the side of the road and began taking photos of a brewing storm and potential tornados, he didn’t even notice the refinery, but made sure there weren’t any “no parking” signs around.
“I told him I had been looking for a clear line of site and I had found it,” he said.
Although Pileggi seemed a little surprised by that response, he pulled out a three-page document and began asking questions off it, inquiring whether Galindo had ever been in the military or had ever traveled overseas and about what schools he had attended in the past.
“I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything,” Galindo said.
The 20-minute visit took place less than a week after a scathing report was released on the inefficiency and ineptitude on urban fusion centers, such as the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Homeland Security Bureau, which was monitoring my Facebook page because of my blog, as well as the Houston fusion center, which produced a video depicting photographers as terrorists.
Joint Terrorism Task Forces are a little different than fusion centers but they both operate under the Department of Homeland Security and are under the assumption photographers are terrorists.
There is a profound difference between knowing history and understanding it. The documented development of Nazi Germany clearly shows a totally internal domestic system of control against its own people. They didn't have thousands of foreign soldiers disguised as civilians wandering among them.
The same is true of Japanese in Hawaii.
Since Kodak is no longer with us, it is impossible to tell how many trillions of photos are taken in the United States annually.
Strangely, you made me stop and think. Have I ever even thought about dropping a dime on a picture taker because he looked middle eastern? No. I am certain of that. Would I under suspicious circumstances? Sure. But as a lifelong amateur photographer wandering among crowds in many countries of the western world, I would hope I would never allow paranoia to kick in, certainly not in my own country.
Would I ever drop a dime on a neighbor? No. Even if he was an Eastern European and rabid as Osama, I would give him the benefit of the doubt, unless he gave me reason to think otherwise, by word or deed. I can only thing of one such example, from decades ago. Long before the current waves of koranimal mayhem and murder.
Behavior by the government, indiscriminately, is a whole other subject altogether.
I was wonder that too. If the local cops had a plate number they could have handled this themselves.
It is not an "either / or" issue. This particular incident aside, a WHOLE LOT of what is being done is not to the benefit of security. It's a combination of gross incompetence as well as a deliberate effort to intimidate the American citizenry.
I often wonder if any improvement in our "security" isn't simply an incidental byproduct of this intimidation of the US populace.
Taking Pictures of any power lines or generators is a big No No.
I don’t think there is a law but it all gets reported to DHS.
Or just out of general malice. Think about home owners' associations and the malicious busybodies in those who go around turning others in because of flagpoles, fences, etc.
In my neighborhood there are a couple of a**hole busybodies (retired) who go walk around a couple of times every week looking for things to turn people in about. Captured one of them on my surveilance camera looking in my garage. I didn't say anything, but now I know whose lawn on which to dispose of any waste oil that I might accumulate while working on my car.
Reluctantly, I have to include this headline among the egregiously misleading and childish headlines, purposely done so by an adult child.
The first such headline that started the collection, was from a number of years ago, and it was : Woman Is Arrested and Jailed for Petting dog.
The huge blind spot in the reasoning ability of a large segment of our adult population, can only be described as mind-boggling.
Think Cindy Dheehan...
But not ICE. ICE can't find an illegal alien in a Mexican protest parade or sitting on the curb of a Home Depot.
A little daily hyperbole is relatively harmless.
The only possible gray area is crowd shots on a public street or area, where individuals are clearly identifiable, and the photo is used for commercial purposes.
It would boil down to if the person, in Public, in a crowd of other people had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Exactly where we are headed and we're a fair distance down that road already. The TSA and "homeland" security protecting ?? The kgb protecting the rodina, the stasi protecting the Vaterland. Does anyone really feel safer for having all of these government agents crawling all over your every orifice
They didn't have thousands of foreign soldiers disguised as civilians wandering among them.
And neither do we unless you count illegal 0bama voters. What we have are tens of thousands of secret police (ie armed government agents NOT in uniform with arrest powers) wandering among us.
Have I ever even thought about dropping a dime on a picture taker because he looked middle eastern?
Someone obviously did NOT feel the way you do.
A crazy X-Files fan going around impersonating FBI agents, maybe? Was he accompanied by Special Agent Gillian Duchovny?
I’d probably be in jail for not answering questions.
Taking pictures on the side of the road by a refinery is probable cause? Sure.
What a cute pollyana staement.
Aside from the instances where there is too much public exposure, koranimals actually caught are many times the number reported by the MSM.
You are familiar with the Obama statement that he would stand with muslims if things "got ugly." That is, we refuse to be simply victims, and actually fight back.
You go ahead and continue being prey. Your choice. Fortunately, we all can still make our own choices.
Anyone planing a vacation tp Washington D.C. do not take a picture of your wife a six children with the White House in the background or you will be jumped upon by the thugs from the FBI, Homeland Security, TAS, and CIA as a terrorist agent.
I’d offer you some tinfoil, but you clearly don’t need any more. The danger to the USA isn’t foreign terrorists, but the government itself. Look at history and try to understand it as to who kills the most citizens in any country. Hint Russia, Cambodia, China, Germany, Turkey.
Honestly, from reading your posts over the years, I’m amazed you live in a neighborhood covered by an HOA.
With tongue planted firmly in cheek, that an unreconstructed southerner would knowingly and willingly submit to the tyranny of an HOA is mind boggling.
I don’t know who you are anymore.
(obviously since I didn’t know who you were before)
For what it’s worth, this situation could have a fairly innocent explanation. In the late 1980’s, as a publisher, I was doing research for a photo essay about municipal services in a very large east coast city. One of the photos I wanted to have taken was on a major roadway leading into the city. At several points I got out of my car and examined every angle a photographer could use. My clients then called me and said I had “generated a suicide warning” at the police station.
As far as the three-page dossier, that is nothing. I could put together a 12-pager in minutes about just about any American strictly from the internet. What you want to worry about with the Feds is a half-inch or more of dossier. These days, they might even carry gigabytes’ worth on thumb drives.
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