Home > How Code Orange Wrecked My Career as a Photographer
"Residents, workers and motorists near the IMF and World Bank and elsewhere should expect disruptions," reports the Washington Post. In other words, they should expect police state conditions-militarized cops with automatic weapons like you’d expect to see on the streets of San Salvador. "We will be more aggressive in making traffic stops of cars, trucks and limos," D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said in an interview.
"In New York and New Jersey, stepped-up security was expected to complicate the start of the workweek on Monday," reports the New York Times. "Tens of thousands of employees, customers and visitors to Wall Street, Midtown Manhattan and downtown Newark were warned to expect tighter personal screening, closer scrutiny of backpacks and packages, more parking and traffic restrictions and other disruptive precautionary measures. … Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said teams of officers would be posted at ’sensitive and symbolic’ sites throughout New York City, including landmarks, major subway stations and train and bus terminals, and on bridge and tunnel approaches, where trucks and other large vehicles are to be halted at random and searched for explosives."
Even so, these fake al-CIA-duh turr’ist alerts shouldn’t stop you from spending money or going to work. Go about your business-fearful, but go about your business nonetheless.
"If you go to work around these buildings, if you are going to go shopping, if you are going to have friends for dinner, go about your business. This is our way of life. This is our strength," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams. In other words, don’t let al-CIA-duh stop you from spending money. Just get used to the presence of heavily armed cops on the street.
Our way of life, our strength, even if far too many of us believe a gang of al-CIA-duh sleeper cells are just around the bend, ready to strike with trucks bombs, according to "credible" information released by the Code Orange for Political Gain Ministry. Never know if the person in the next seat on the bus or in the next car on the highway (complete with "random" checkpoints and searches) is a sleeper cell guy. Ridge wants us to keep our eyes open, report any Ay-rabs with cameras or McDonald’s sacks.
"Williams and Ramsey urged people to notify authorities of suspicious activity, including strangers photographing possible targets and people or vehicles making unusual movements."
Unusual movements? No explanation provided.
Even though I don’t live in Washington or New York, I no longer take my camera out in public. Last year a border patrol cop threatened to take it away from me. Earlier this year I was chased away from some office buildings by corporate security types for taking pictures of trees. I now keep my turr’ist instrument in a drawer at home for safe keeping. All my film is past the expiration date. Remember: they hate us for our freedom.
"Several episodes in the United States have recently drawn scrutiny from counterterrorism officials, including the apprehension of a Pakistani woman in Texas with a suspicious passport as well as reports from passengers on a recent flight to Los Angeles about odd activity by a group of Syrian musicians. But officials said that neither of these incidents was a direct factor in the decision to go to Code Orange."
No, it was a political decision, considering Bush’s dismal approval ratings. As for those Syrian musicians-this turned out to be total BS, a sensationalized non-event based more on racist paranoia than anything else. "As things turned out, although the events [Annie Jacobsen of the Wall Street Journal] claims to have witnessed on her flight did occur (more or less), her interpretation of them (that they involved a group of terrorists making a dry run for building a bomb in-flight) was erroneous," writes the Urban Legends Reference Page. "The men she observed on her flight were exactly what authorities told her they were: a group of Syrian musicians who had been hired to play at the Sycuan Casino & Resort near San Diego. Like any other group of passengers, the men in the musical ensemble talked to each other, moved around, ate food, and used the restrooms while the flight was in progress." But then, of course, these were Arabs-and Syrian Arabs to boot-not simply "any other group of passengers."
I am not surprised that a Fake Code Orange alert would be based in part on something a group of Arabs did or did not do on a commercial airliner. They loathe our way of life, of course, even though one of the aforementioned Arabs supposedly had a McDonald’s sack. Ms. Jacobsen figured this was a turr’ist instrument, just like my 35mm camera was considered a sneaky and nefarious turr’ist instrument to the aforementioned border patrol cop. I guess he thought I was passing his picture on to al-Zaqarwi.
Thanks to Osama and al-CIA-duh, my career as a street photographer is pretty much in the dumpster. And it will be for the interminable future since, as Bush says, the war against those who hate us for the way we live, for our freedom to take photos unmolested, will probably last for decades, maybe forever.
I guess it’s time to sell the photo equipment on e-bay.