9:00am | In his January 18 column for the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George F. Will discusses the case brought against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department by Long Beach Post senior contributor Greggory Moore and two L.A.-area photographers.
In his column, titled “Police overreach in the name of fighting terrorism,” Will ruminates on current law-enforcement policy “for gathering information ‘that could indicate activity or intentions related to’ terrorism.”
The policy in question is outlined in Los Angeles Police Department Special Order No. 11, a March 2008 directive concerning Suspicious Activity Reporting. Among the activities listed therein as possibly “reveal[ing] a nexus to foreign or domestic terrorism” — and therefore requiring reportage in a Suspicious Activity Report — is taking photographs “with no apparent esthetic value.”
“From the fact that terrorists might take pictures of potential infrastructure targets (‘pre-operational surveillance’),” Will writes, “it is a short slide down a slippery slope to the judgment that photography is a potential indicator of terrorism and hence photographers are suspect when taking pictures ‘with no apparent aesthetic value’ (words from the suspicious-activity guidelines).”
To read Will’s column, click here.