Sat - June 5, 2004 at 08:30 AM in

Hey, buddy, you're not allowed to capture those photons


More stupid security that I Can't Just Make Up. New York is considering a ban on taking photos in the subways. Not the sensitive areas like conductor compartments or control centers, but cars, platforms, the whole shebang. The Village Voice is running a Forbidden Photos contest to publicize the artwork which has come out of the New York Subway.

It isn't clear how, exactly, this ban is supposed to improve security. Millions of people travel through the system every day, and cameras are so small that the ban will be impossible to enforce (never mind all the tourists who won't have a clue that they're not supposed to take pictures).

And even if you could somehow prevent people from electronically capturing photons while in the subways, there's nothing to prevent the old-fashioned kind of recon: go in and look around.

But what I wonder is: just what kind of terrorist attack are they expecting anyway? The most likely attack mode--have someone carry explosives or poison gas--hardly requires the kind of detailed surveillance you can only get from a camera. The only thing I can think of which would be thwarted by a photo ban is programming a cruise missile to fly down a staircase.

Not what I consider a probable terrorist threat.

Posted at 08:30 AM   Permalink      

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