{quote}
Sheriff’s office says poultry plant that man photographed could be
target for terrorists
Diffly spoke with The Times on Friday, a day after an FBI agent
interviewed him about photographs Diffly took outside the Pilgrim’s
Pride poultry processing plant off U.S. 129.
Diffly said he came to Gainesville on March 11 to work on a field
project for his Georgia history class that focused on the region’s
poultry industry. After trying to gain admittance to a few plants with
little luck, he decided to snap some photographs from Industrial
Boulevard of the Pilgrim’s Pride plant and the adjoining train tracks.
"I figured, I had my camera with me, I might take some photos for the
professor, for the project," Diffly said. "I’m just a college student,
trying to get some stuff for this project."
He said he snapped photos for perhaps 10 minutes at two locations at
about 3:30 p.m. when two patrol cars pulled up and three officers got
out and started questioning him.
{snip}
[Hall County Sheriff's dept Major] Strickland said the deputies
responded to a report of a suspicious person and that Diffly was
questioned not because of his appearance, but because he was
photographing a potential terrorist target. Authorities believe that
large industries in the nation’s food supply are at risk of what
officials term "agriterrorism."
"We regard all calls that could possibly involve agriterrorism as
serious," Strickland said.
{snip}
The report was turned over to the sheriff’s criminal investigation
division, which in turn forwarded it to the Joint Terrorism Task
Force. On April 2, an FBI agent phoned Diffly and requested a
face-to-face interview.
"When I got the call from him, I was like, ‘Is this a late April
Fool’s joke?’" Diffly said.
Diffly said he was asked over the phone whether he was Middle Eastern.
The following day, he met with a FBI agent for a 20-minute interview
at his job at an Athens pizza restaurant. Diffly, in an act of
defiance, wore a camouflage T-shirt emblazoned with a bright yellow
AK-47 to the interview.
{end quote]
Full article: http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/article/4736/
Sigh.
The cops who interviewed him at the scene may have actually been aware
that they had no grounds to actually do anything to him - a poultry
processing plant has no "reasonable expectation of privacy" which is
the only grounds (in general) for not being allowed to photograph
someone/somebody.
In fact, even if you are trespassing, you are allowed to photograph
anything yopu can see that wouldn't be covered by the "reasonable
expectation of privacy" - that is, even if you bluff your way intof,
say, a meat-packing plant, it is legal for you to photograph anything
that you can see, except that you would not be allowed to, say, open
file cabinets or rifle wastebaskets for things to shoot.
The FBI, of course, was just performing a little Security Theatre so
as to actually look as if they were Doing Something.
|
