Posts Tagged ‘architect’

Dark Chambers: The Escalating War on Photography

Monday, August 25th, 2008

As I mentioned in my last post, Cory Doctorow1 has been bringing my attention to this “War on Photography” that has plagued many an innocent photographer recently. I decided to create a poll on the Atheist Think Tank forum asking how people would handle a situation similar to that of many photographers who get ambushed by “security” in public. Here’s the poll, and some follow-up questions. How would you answer?

For your last birthday, you received a decent, professional-looking SLR camera2 that kinda looks like this:3

SLR

The next morning, you try it out. Being fond of the architecture and layout of the downtown area, you head there (not many people are out yet), and you start taking photos of buildings, trees, other people, the nearby bridge, and the iconic capitol building.

You’ve been there a good 20 minutes, and have taken quite a few shots, excited about the prospect of going home to review them on your computer. As you begin heading back, you are stopped by a police officer who asks you for your camera license. Oh no, you don’t have one! You tell the officer that you don’t have a camera license, and the officer says that you will either have to forfeit your camera for inspection or delete all of your photographs while the officer watches, lest you be cited for taking pictures of official buildings without a camera license, and possibly arrested upon suspicion of terrorist activities.

What do you do?

1. Delete your photographs while the officer watches.

2. Hand over your camera.

3. Run away.

4. Insist that you have the right to take photographs in public places, and refuse to hand over your camera or delete your photos.

5. Something else.

Follow-up questions. (with hints and answers from ATT in the footnotes, if you’d like ‘em)

A. Based on your choice, what do you think would happen next?4

B. What do you think would happen as a result of the choices you didn’t make?5

C. Is there such thing as a camera license in your country?6

D. Do you think I just came up with this scenario off the top of my head, or do you think it has any basis in reality?7

E. Is it an effective terrorist deterrent to treat all people who take pictures in public places as a potential terrorist?8

F. Have you ever been told that you cannot take photographs somewhere? Where was it? Do you think you did have the right to take photos there? Did you take photos anyway, or did you comply? If you took photos anyway, what happened? If you complied, what do you think would have happened if you had taken photos?

G. Have you ever taken photos covertly, in public — with the intent that others won’t see you taking them? Are you allowed to do so, as far as you know?

H. Would you report to the police an unaccompanied adult male apparently taking photographs of children in a playground? Why or why not?9

I. What, in your mind, is a good example of the kind of suspicious activity that should be reported to the police? What’s the bare minimum?

J. Have you ever reported suspicious activity? Do you think there are people more prone to do so? Why?

K. Do you think it’s appropriate for the government to install and use video cameras on its buildings, roads, etc.?

L. If you were running the government, would you make use of video surveillance of public places? Would you implement a national identification card? Would you require citizens to have camera licenses to take pictures of government buildings?10

Here’s some follow-up reading you might enjoy (or that might scare the wits out of you):

Latest from Boing Boing: Writer who photographed HP Lovecraft’s headstone ordered to delete her photo, heaped with abuse

Two ferry riders sought by FBI last summer were just tourists

Almost Arrested for Taking Photos at Union Station

Our Transportation Facilities Are Being Watched
Two FBI agents just showed up at my door… (I think I’m being investigated)
Orwellian Los Angeles

Taking picture of pylon lands man in police cell

At MARC, a Snapshot of Post-9/11 Excess

The War on Photography

Legal Rights Card for Photographers

Man Arrested For Unlawful Photography

Father-of-three branded a ‘pervert’ – for photographing his own children in public park

Photographing thugs ‘is assault’, police tell householder snapping proof of anti-social behaviour

My pool picture ban over paedophile fears

Simon Blint, Director of Visitor Relations at the SF MOMA, Yeah You Jerk, Photography is Not a Crime

[Much thanks to Cory Doctorow for citing many of these on Boing Boing]

  1. If you haven’t already, you should read Cory’s book “Little Brother,” which is right on-point with regard to the super-surveillance topic. You can even download it for free at: http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/ [<]
  2. If you haven’t figured out why the title of this piece is “Dark Chambers,” it’s because the translation of the Latin ‘camera obscura,’ the foundation of what we call today a “camera.” Check out the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura [<]
  3. n.b., I actually have a D200 [<]
  4. About 76% of those I polled on ATT answered that they’d invoke their rights (choice #4). The remainder chose to delete their photographs (choice #1). Answers to the follow-up question varied — some thought they might be detained if they didn’t comply with the officer; others thought the officer would leave them alone if they deleted the photos. [<]
  5. Answers varied here, of course, depending on the initial choice. The main worry among those polled was losing their photographs and possibly some civil rights. One even suggested that refusing to comply might end up with the photographer arrested, but it would be worth it, because the photographer was in the right. [<]
  6. The most common answer to this question: “I don’t know.” As far as I’ve been able to tell, the U.K. and the U.S. do not have camera licenses. I think there are press and photography badges/IDs that one can acquire to gain access to otherwise private events or secure locations, but if you want to go take your camera on a tripod and take a picture of a prominent bridge in your town (while you stood in a public place), there shouldn’t be any legal restrictions for doing so. [<]
  7. Take a look at the links following the questions to see that this isn’t just some hypothetical, and it could very well happen to anyone at any time, any place. [<]
  8. How many of the 9/11 hijackers or co-conspirators stood outside the WTC with cameras, taking pictures of the buildings? [<]
  9. A few of the links above refer to situations just like this. [<]
  10. What’s a National ID Card? A potentially future result of the REAL ID Act of 2005. Read about it, and, if you like, protest about it, at http://epic.org/privacy/id-cards/ [<]

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Posted in Government, Logic, Morality | 6 Comments »

We Need 3000 Sean Tevises

Monday, July 21st, 2008

Look up rational activism in the encyclopedia, and you should find Sean Tevis. If not, slip his bio in there.

Sean Tevis

Last week (on or about July 16), Sean created a web page with some stick-figure action figures resembling Frank Miller’s “300.” These stick figures were yelling something about how the Internet could change the face of political history. Well, it did, and it’s still going strong.

Arlen Siegfreid is a Kansas state representative, a right-wing conservative who is anti-abortion, pro-censorship, anti-same-sex marriage, pro-surveillance, and pro-creationism (in public schools). Although Representative Siegfreid seems a shoe-in for the next election, Sean, a non-politician “Information Architect,” wants to run against him.

With a common sense platform, mostly designed to oppose Siegfreid, Sean readied himself to play the political race game, until he stumbled upon a hurdle that would seem insurmountable for most would-be activists: he needed name recognition cash. According to Sean’s entertaining stick-figured explanation of the situation, 93.4% of the time it’s the candidate with the most advertising money who wins an election. It’s mid-July, and Sean asks, “How much do I need?” The verdict: $26,000. By July 28.

Game over, man! Game over!

No, not for Sean! See, Sean is an educated man. Sean knew that it would require 52 donors, donating $500 each, to meet his goal. However, having spent some time learning basic math in school, Sean figured that he could reduce the amount of individual donations required by increasing the number of donors. Brilliant! Reminds me of the idea I had as a child to send a letter to every resident of the U.S., asking for them to send me a dollar each. I’d have been a millionaire for sure! Except that I wasn’t so great at math, and I didn’t account for the fact that it would actually cost me money to send those letters, and I would have to offset any earnings made by the cost of those letters, and I wasn’t guaranteed to get any money. Even if half of the U.S. sent me a dollar, I’d still end up with a negative return. But, as Sean says, This is the Internet!

Instead of trying to find a handful of very generous donors, Sean would seek out great gobs of very slightly generous donors, via the Internet, which is practically free.

His goal was to acquire 3000 donors, donating $8.34 each.

He drew his stick-figure story, and posted his request website page, with a little button link to donate via PayPal. He even listed the basic campaign finance rules and a list of perks for higher than requested donations (campaign t-shirts, coffee mugs, and Kansas flags, among them).

And then he waited. (I’m sure the waiting involved a bit of “alerting the press”)

BoingBoing (one of my favorite must-visit-daily websites), and a few others got the word. I got the word from BB, and spread it to the Atheist Think Tank forum. I monitored Sean’s website, watching the donors increase slowly. I was getting worried. When I first started watching, he had only acquired a hundred or so. But, probably because of all the latency created by the flood of visitors to his website, I was likely not seeing what was really happening. My forum friends informed me that they had either donated or that the website was sluggish. We started passing out Sean’s direct email so that we could donate via PayPal without going through his website. We sat and watched and cheered and rallied. And, apparently, so did a hell of a lot of others.

And today, July 21, the number of donors is 5,298.

That’s five-thousand, two hundred and ninety-eight donors.

Screw 3000, make 6000!

Apparently no state representative in Kansas history has ever had more than 644 donors.

WIN!1

But you know what has gotten me really excited about all this? It’s not Sean Tevis specifically, although I think he’s established himself as a hero. It’s that this has given us an example of how we can use our resources to make progressive change, to rally against the incumbents who want to tell us that the way to live our lives must conform to their twisted ideologies. It shows us that there are people out there who give a shit, and although they might not all individually be able to stand up and fight, they sure can click a button and send a real representative a few bucks to help do something about this strangulation we’re enduring. And that representative can do what needs to be done without worrying about not being related to an oil tycoon. If you want to phrase that in popular terminology (that, in its spiritual sense, doesn’t necessarily correspond to my rational belief system, but is a close enough word), it gives us rationals some hope.

Sean Tevis needed 3000 of us to help him kick some ass.

What we need is 3000 Sean Tevises.

[Update: At the end of July, Sean had nearly $100,000 in donations. According to his Weblog, he's made more money than his opponent, and since his money hasn't come from lobbyists, he's not tied down by promises that would shaft the voters. Great job, Sean!]

First, go visit Sean Tevis by clicking these words, and see what he’s done, and maybe donate a little.

Second, do something about something. I can’t tell you exactly what to do. All I know is that if we even had ten, twenty more people like Sean Tevis, we could start reversing this trend of government-sponsored, taxpayer funded perniciousness. Donate to a Sean Tevis, run your own campaign, start a local paper or a blog, get active.

  1. or “PWN!” if that suits you [<]

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Posted in Government, Morality, Religion, Science | 7 Comments »

Why Stop at Creationism?

Monday, July 21st, 2008

According to Jerry Bergman, at Answers in Genesis, we should be teaching Creationism in public schools.

Here’s his reasoning:

Fifty studies were reviewed that surveyed opinions on teaching origins in public schools. The vast majority found about 90 % of the public desired that both creation and evolution or creation only be taught in the public schools. About 90 % of Americans consider themselves creationists of some form, and about half believe that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years. In America, about 15 % of high school teachers teach both evolution and creation, and close to 20 % of high school science teachers and about 10,000 scientists (including more than 4,000 life scientists) reject both macroevolution and theistic evolution. Although the vast majority of Americans desire both creation and evolution taught in school, the evolutionary naturalism worldview dominates, revealing a major disparity between the population and the ruling élite.1

I agree!

I think we should be teaching alternate theories of existence in public schools. And here is how I propose we set up the curriculum:

Monday

1st Period: The Earth was nothing but water and darkness, ruled over by Mbombo, the white giant. One day, he felt a terrible pain in his stomach, and vomited the sun, the moon, and the stars. The sun shone fiercely and water steamed up in clouds. Gradually, the dry hills appeared. Mbombo vomited again, this time the trees came out of his stomach, and animals, and people, and many other things: the first woman, the leopard, the eagle, the anvil, monkey Fumu, the first man, the firmament, medicine, and lighting. Nchienge, the woman of the waters, lived in the East. She had a son, Woto, and a daughter, Labama. Woto was the first king of the Bakuba.2

2nd Period: The Creator split a tree into three pieces. He gave a piece to each tribe, one being a spear, the other a hoe, and the third a bow, and these recipients became the three tribes of people, the beginning of humanity.

3rd Period: Mangala was an entity made up of four divisions, and two sets of dual gendered twins. Being tired of keeping it all inside, Mangala compiled all the matter into a seed, which was the world. And the seed exploded, disappointing Mangala, who destroyed it. Then Mangala tried again with two sets of twin seeds, which, after having been planted in an egg-like womb, along with other sets of seeds, emerged as fish, representing fertility. One of the male twins tried to escape from the egg. This trickster, Pemba, stole a piece of the womb’s placenta and threw it down, creating the earth. He then tried to refertilize the remainder of the womb. Mangala castrated and killed Farro, Pemba’s brother, to save creation, and then Mangala raised Farro from the dead. Mangala then took the remainder of the placenta and transformed it into the sun, leaving Pemba for the darkness and night. Mangala transformed Ferro into a human, and was taught the language of creation. Farro’s newly created twins came and joined him on the earth, and they all propagated humanity.

4th Period: Lunch

5th Period: Damballah created all the waters of the earth. In the form of a serpent, the movement of his 7,000 coils formed hills and valleys on earth and brought forth stars and planets in the cosmos. He forged metals from heat and sent forth lightning bolts to form the sacred rocks and stones. When he shed his skin in the sun, releasing all the waters over the land, the sun shone in the water and created the rainbow. Damballah loved the rainbow’s beauty and made her his wife, Aida-Wedo. The revelations of the loa (deity) descended upon the first faithful in Ifé, a legendary city located in Nigeria. Therefore, everything in life and all spiritual strength comes from Ifé. In death, the higher soul will return to Ginen (the world of the dead, said to be under the water below the earth) to reside with the loa and the ancestral spirits.

6th Period: In the beginning, there was only water and chaos. The supreme being sent Obatala or Orishanla down from the sky to create some land out of the chaos. He descended on a long chain (umbilical cord) and brought with him a rooster, some iron, and a palm kernel. First, he put the metal on the earth and the rooster on top of that. The rooster scratched the metal and spread it out to create land. Then he planted the palm seed and from it grew the earth’s vegetation. Olurun named earth “Ife” and the first city “Ile-Ife.” Orshilana created humans out of the earth and got Olurun to blow life into them.

Tuesday

1st Period: Physical reality (space, matter and/or energy) is eternal, and therefore does not have an absolute origin. The Creator is an architect and organizer of pre-mortal matter and energy, who constructed the present universe out of the raw material (demiurge). There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; we cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.

2nd Period: Xenu was the dictator of the “Galactic Confederacy” who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Their essences remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm.

3rd Period: Auditing practice.

4th Period: Lunch

5th Period: Everything begins in a state of chaos where nothing exists but two gods named Tiamat and Apsu, who give birth to the first generation of gods, which one is Ea. Apsu cannot sleep because of these god children so he plans to kill them. Ea finds out and kills Apsu and Tiamat plans to avenge her husband. Ea has a son named Marduk. Tiamat assembles a huge army to avenge her husband and names Qingu the commander. Marduk is named as commander of the younger gods as long as he kills Tiamat; which he does through an arrow to the throat. Marduk splits her body in half and uses the back half to make the sky (which holds back the cosmic ocean) and the front half to make the earth (which holds the subterranean ocean). Marduk takes out Tiamat’s eyes and allows some of the subterranean ocean to flow out into two streams that become the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Finally, Marduk and Ea (and other gods) decide to create human beings to bear the burden of the gods, so that they can rest and not have to do all the hard work. Marduk creates people by killing Qingu and mixing Qingu’s blood with clay.

6th Period: The Ground of Being is the First Cause.

Wednesday

et cetera.

I think this would be an excellent way to introduce much needed mythological and spiritual awakenings in students, letting them know that plenty of other people around the world actually believe this stuff, AND, since they do believe this stuff, that makes this stuff VALID as alternate theories to evolution, and that no “theory” is better than any other belief in creation. I mean, it only makes sense that we give everyone a fair shot, right? I’m all for that. I’ll have to get my kid an afterschool tutor so he can learn to do some basic math, but it’s worth it for all the myriad wonders of creationism he will learn! Now that’s tolerance!

So, now that that point has been conceded and taken care of, I propose we move to the next item on the agenda, regarding tolerance, fairness, and whatnot: required programs for every religious institution.

All religious institutions shall, with their own funding, thoroughly and objectively instruct their staff, members, and guests, with government oversight, in the following areas:

-Heredity
-Variation
-Mutation
-Sex and recombination
-Population genetics
-Mechanisms
-Natural selection
-Genetic drift
-Gene flow
-Outcomes
-Adaptation
-Co-evolution
-Co-operation
-Speciation
-Extinction
-Evolutionary history of life
-Abiogenesis
-Common descent
-Evolution of life

-The scientific method
-Basic and intermediate mathematics
-Logic
-Philosophy
-Classic literature
-Civil rights
-Constitutional law
-World history
-Domestic history

Religious institutions will be required to hire experts in these fields who are unaffiliated with any religion (lest there be an unfair bias in favor of one “theory” or religion over another), and will be subject to strict scrutiny with regard to the curriculum and teaching standards. Standardized exams will be given, and religious institutions will have adjustments in funding and tax exemption based on the scores.

It would be my honor to assist in implementing this fair and balanced program. I hope it gets kicked off right away!

What a great day for tolerance!

  1. Teaching creation and evolution in schools, Jerry Bergman, Answers in Genesis. http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/teaching.asp. [<]
  2. This, and the following excerpts, quoted and paraphrased from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth [<]

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Posted in Atheism, Government, Logic, Religion, Science | 8 Comments »