US imposes controls on a new security threat - birdwatchers

[Eugene]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1522968,00.html

US imposes controls on a new security threat - birdwatchers

Gary Younge in New York
Thursday July 7, 2005
The Guardian

US security agents have come up with a new target for increased
scrutiny in their battle against terrorism: birdwatchers. Birdwatchers
in certain areas are being forced to provide photographic
identification, submit themselves to background checks, and even pay
for a police escort.

Law enforcement officials say that because the birdwatchers have
equipment such as binoculars, telescopes and cameras, they have the
potential to commit acts of espionage. The areas they use are
sometimes close to military bases, dams and sewage plants.

Because they have "sophisticated gear and looking at things not
normally photographed by the common citizen in this area, they may be
stopped and asked a few questions," Lieutenant Jamie Rickerson, of
the US coastguard service, told the Los Angeles Times.

more


Homeland Security sounds more and more like police state paranoia.

[tk2kewl]

1. I guess hunters that carry all of the same equipment

plus high powered rifles will be next. :eyes:

[The Traveler]

2. ROFLMFAO!!!!

Back in the seventies and eighties, the world fair crawled with bird watchers in the employ of the KGB and the CIA! Seriously! Everybody knew about it. But NO ONE handled it this way! Oh my fuckin' god these guys are bumbling idiots.

[Deb]

3. It's the birders who should be paid

They're really looking for aluminium tubes hidden in the trees. :-)

I know a few Repub birders to share this with, thanks.

[OneBlueSky]

4. ok . . . I've officially fallen down the rabbit hole . . .

this is absurdity at its finest . . . Lewis Carroll couldn't write this stuff . . .

[Doc Bottom]

5. Birdwatching, and cops

There are all sorts of air-force bases and aerospace engineering and lockheed-martin foos around here, and I have, in fact, been stopped by the police while birdwatching and asked what I was doing and why I was pointing a camera or binoculars at some bigjob government weapons contractor's place that I had identified as 'building, uninteresting.' Happened before 9/11, too.

I know an old guy who says he was visited by the FBI, after they saw him birdwatching near the Mexican border. He said he got rid of them by pretending to Witness to them for Christ, and called their office the next week and asked them if they'd been to church.