Re: Airport pictures beware, some places...

[Pedro Novak Domicelj <pnovak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 19:38:37 -0500
>...
>Subject: Re: Realist and airport security
>>...
>...
>...                     ...                        ... . Take pictures
>inside the airport.  And, my favorite, pictures of HUGE airplanes with
>...
>Best of luck!  -- George

*************************

Hastily written before someone gets dumped into a Secret Service
dungeon in some places in the Third World, or perhaps others I
don't know about.

Here there are signs, usually in Spanish, even in some of the tidbit-
tiest airports, that strictly forbid taking pictures, in any D. And there
are lots of machinegun toting troops around to enforce the rules,
and local airline cabin people may advise land authorities a passenger
has been taking pictures from inside the airplane so that that he may
be nabbed as a spy as he descends aground.

In part, this may be due to the fact that many airports are simul-
taneously civilian and military, in part it is surely due to the fact
that these places have been bombed up in our terrorist-practically-done-
away-with-past, in part due to incalculable ignorance (e.g. that you can
get complete information on the warplane sitting a few tens of yards
away in Janes' Weekly (is it?), and otherwise who knows why else.

But you may really end up in a dungeon, I'm not exaggerating, and 
be severely questioned if you take pictures in some local airports,
particularly if some sec doesn't like your looks or has some obscure
reason of his own (or from some weird security manual) for thinking
you have done wrong.

*Even if you take a picture that is exactly like one that appeared
the day before in the front page of a local newspaper.* !

So, do be careful and find out about local restrictions before you
get into nasty trouble, particularly in far-away lands.

Do take pictures of nice touristic sites, hyperstereo mountainchain shots
and the like, the authorities will smile at you and be pleased you are enjoying your visit. [Must plug tourism. Do spend lots of Dollars... End obligatory plug.]

pno

PS: This being the Third World, I have seen, more than once, pictures
    being taken right under the "Photographs Strictly Forbidden" signs
    with the machine-gun-toting fellas a few feet away and things go on
    as if nothing ever happened. I doubt they had the ability to discern
    the photographer was using a 110, though that wouldn't necessarily
    make a difference. Others do use 35mm's and nothing happens either.
    You figure it out... at your risk, though.


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