The Totalitarian One-way Mirror

by Will Grigg
Dec. 12, 2012

An official document produced by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security describes photographers as potential terrorists. The “Roll Call Release” of November 13 recounted several incidents in which innocent photographers were detained for using cameras in public facilities like airports and shopping malls. Those incidents were described as successes because they served “awareness and training purposes” – even though they had nothing to do with capturing terrorists or deterring terrorist acts.

A citizen activist in Indianapolis who monitors police activity was told that his actions were suspicious and that he might be monitored by undercover police officers. Indianapolis Police Captain Chris Boomershine claimed that “we have a lot of sovereign citizens that are targeting their officers” and that his department’s criminal intelligence unit will determine if the activist’s photojournalism constitutes “a threat to law enforcement.”

While police are trained to treat cameras in civilian hands as lethal weapons, the government they serve keeps us under unceasing surveillance. [The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently obtained documents describing how the Pentagon is conducting missions in which full-sized Reaper drones are deployed over areas ofNevada,California, andUtah, using technology called “Gorgon Stare” that can capture images of entire cities.]