The Dept. Of Justice released a video encouraging police officers to treat Americans with cameras as suspicious.

Excerpt from The Dept. Of Justice (DOJ) video:

"Photography, observation, or surveillance of facilities, buildings, or critical infrastructure and key resources beyond casual, tourism, or artistic interest, to include facility access points, staff or occupants, or security measures."

Photography and other similar activities are protected activities unless connected to other suspicious activities that would indicate potential terrorism. This may cause the officer to conduct additional observation or gather additional information—again taking into account the totality of circumstances.

As you document and report these or other types of suspicious activity, protection of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties is paramount. Just as you do in your other daily law enforcement duties, you must:

Collect information in a lawful manner.

Protect the rights of the individual.

Avoid collecting information protected by the Bill of Rights.

Ensure information is as accurate as possible.

Every state and many major metropolitan areas have developed intelligence fusion centers to make sure that terrorism and other criminal information is analyzed and forwarded to the appropriate jurisdiction for follow-up investigation.

When you collect and document suspicious activity information, that information is routed to your supervisor and others for evaluation in accordance with your departmental policy. SAR information is then entered into a local, regional, state, or federal system and submitted to a fusion center for review by a trained analyst or investigator. The reviewer determines whether the information has a nexus to terrorism and meets the criteria for sharing nationwide. If so, it is forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) for investigative follow-up.

DOJ video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41o1zTxmH_A

http://publicintelligence.net/sar-training-video/

NSI Instructional Video: Public photography is terrorism.

The video instructs officers to consider photographers as possible terrorists who should be singled out for additional interrogation.

According to the video, street photography and photography of public buildings provides “justification for further analysis,” although the video emphasizes that photography “and other similar activities are protected activities unless connected to other suspicious activities that would indicate potential terrorism. This may cause the officer to conduct additional observation or gather additional information – again taking into account the totality of circumstances.”

“Photography, observation, or surveillance of facilities, buildings, or critical infrastructure and key resources beyond casual, tourism, or artistic interest, to include facility access points, staff or occupants, or security measures,” the video instructs.

The “acquisition or storage of unusual quantities of materials,” including cell phones and pagers, is considered to be a suspicious behavior.
http://www.infowars.com/nsi-instructional-video-public-photography-is-te...