Careful Where You Point That Gun… I Mean Camera
I was taking photos around San Martin Plaza in Cordoba on Easter Sunday and I was approched by two policeman. Actually, one was a policewoman. Actually, I do not know if they were police, but they had big guns in holsters so that´s good enough for me. As soon as I am approached by police, I get real stupid… I know nothing, including your language.
I had no idea at first why they were talking to me and then I realized I was taking photos and got the idea that they didn´t like what I was photographing. This is not that unusual outside of our normal world, but I was clueless at first because I was in a public square not near some government building or similar. When I understood why they were talking to me, my Spanish suddenly got better 🙂 and I asked what their concern was about. They pointed out the banco across the street. Ah, no problemo, I was not photographing your bank. The best part about digital cameras is that I can show them the pictures. They liked what they saw (reflections of the square and surrounding buildings off a mirror-sided building) and approved of my photos without requesting any deletes.
I am often amazed at security and how stupid most of it is because it rarely addresses the real security issues. For instance, I´m standing in front of a bank on a holiday taking photos with a 28-90 mm lens. Do they understand that if I am taking photos or video of the bank for a heist then I have a 600 mm lens three blocks away and they have no way of knowing about me?!! I´m in a foreign country so I just do as they ask, but if I am at home and they said this then I would laugh at them and tell them how it makes no sense for me the future heister to be standing in front of their bank which is probably filming me. Security always seems to be a step behind the technology or worse, looking at the wrong people.
I hear horror stories all the time about customs and immigration personnel. No, I am not referring to personnel in shady countries, I am talking about in USA. Our airport security folks are downright horrible to foreigners and I question why any of them come to our country in the first place. I won´t even begin to tell you the horrors of trying to get a visa. And I am not talking about Latinos. They have the horror visa stories, but everyone including Swiss, Dutch, British, etc. are treated like crap once they get off that plane. They are either terrorists or they are drug dealers, but it makes no sense because our security knows who they are and the dogs can sniff out the bags without opening them. Me thinks we have a horrible beauracracy abusing their purpose and it appears they are hassling the wrong people.
Amazingly, all of these other countries do not treat Americans equally. They should. Instead, I am welcomed in every country I have visited (although the Congo was pretty shaky and I was glad Rod had hooked us up with folks to meet and greet and grease the local official palms!). I have yet to answer more than a couple of obvious questions and I have never had my bags looked at beyond the sniffing of a pooch or x-ray machine. Where do we come off not using the obvious technological security measures and welcoming all of the tourists and business folks to our country? And don´t even begin to tell me about how we are targets of the terrorists. I have been to many other countries with higher potential of terrorism via airline passengers and I have also traveled out of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru via airlines and they still welcome the tourists without suspicion. We truly have the most arrogant country in the world and it is certainly costing us a lot of foreign tourism. If you´re still hung up on this terrorism business, I can give you specific examples of Europeans being hassled for hours by immigration before 9/11 while we obviously allowed real terrorists to get in without too much of a hassle. I find it embarassing.
I was recently reading about Mennonites in Missouri who are moving to Arkansas because Missouri is now requiring them to be photographed for IDs. Apparently, that is supposedly against their religious beliefs and they even quoted something from the bible. I fell over laughing. Forget 600 mm lens and hidden closed circuit video cameras taking all of our photos regularly, even if they never leave their properties, satellites are photographing them once in a while. Unless you are Osama bin Laden and his sidekick, you´re being recorded. Maybe the bible says it is only a problem if you know about the image´s existance?
All I can say is 1) always act stupid when a foreign official with a gun starts asking questions, 2) welcome every foreign tourist in America because they have probably been treated as crap by our officials, 3) expect other countries to love you a lot more than we love them, 4) if you think the TSA is making you any more secure from real bad guys, don´t believe what you´re thinking, and 5) make sure there are no Mennonites in your photo before you take it or something bad, really bad, may happen to them on their way home (the big home).
Tags: argentina, south america, Travel
vagabondrick
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