"Dudley Henriques" wrote:
"Emily" wrote:
The best approach to unfair legislation and scare tactics is NEVER
quiet cooperation.
You state up front the following;
"I once had a cop come up to me at the observation area and ask why I
was taking pictures. I told him that it wasn't illegal and I wasn't
under any obligation to explain myself to him."
This in my opinion was an unnecessary and overly agressive response to
this situation.

When you consider the location (an observation area), that it was a white
woman, and the question itself, most people would realize the cop was using
the question as a mechanism of intimidation. Under the circumstances the cop
was clearly being overly aggressive himself and Emily's response seems to
have been proportionate. In my humble opinion of course.

By your own word, he simply asked you why you were
taking pictures. He had every right to do that,

Personally, I like to avoid arguments with people carrying side-arms. :-)
That said, just because someone has a right to say something doesn't make it
a good idea. Cops probably expect 1 out every N people will fail to be
intimidated by deliberately intimidating questions, but so long as N stays
large, they'll keep using them. As N drops toward 1, they generally stop
using that tactic. Being a policeman is sometimes a thankless and dirty job,
despite being a large value to maintaining a civil society. So there is no
reason cops should be using tools that are actually uncivil toward the
innocent and fundamentally don't accomplish anything of value toward making
our society civil.

(I obviously have no problem with people who have an anti-authority streak.
But I suppose that can sometimes make for a less-than civil society. I guess
I just can't win! :-)