Man arrested for videotaping Charlotte skyline

A brief article in my daily newspaper told of a Pakistani man arrested for videotaping the Charlotte, NC skyline. I found a more complete article here http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/9388667.htm?1c . He is being held on immigration charges. His wife holds a greencard and had approval for his permission to stay in the country but he did not file the necessary paperwork.

The debate is whether this man is being unfairly targeted by a Big Brother government or if his actions were legitimate cause for alarm.

Other articles relating to the story are located here http://www.al.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/base/national-29/1093356894141020.xml&storylist=national (the last paragraph or so)

and

http://www.jquinton.com/archives/001496.html

The Charlotte article requires registration. However, from the other articles:

So, the police see a middle eastern man in an SUV videotaping a bridge. They stop to question him and determine that he is wanted for a material witness charge, so they detain him. I don’t see the problem. He didn’t have any reasonable expectation of privacy on a bridge. The police caught a lucky break. Good for them for paying attention and nabbing the guy.

Debaser, maybe I shouldn’t have linked to the article about Elbarasse. The only mention of the Pakistani man in that article is at the bottom of that article. Kamran Akhtar is the Pakistani. He is being mentioned in articles with Elbarasse. AFAIK, Kamran Akhtar is not charged with anything other than immigration charges. The news articles do not provide enough information for me to determine whether his actions were alarming. One article mentioned that Akhtar “had illegal identification”. Another article implied that he had approval for staying in the US but had not filed the proper forms. It is unclear to me whether he filed forms at all or whether he just didn’t file the forms correctly.

I would agree that people need to be in the country legally. I am concerned over whether a Pakistani videotaping in public should be considered suspicious activity. The news articles do not indicate that he videotaped in restricted areas. To me they read as if he was thoroughly documenting his trip.

My apologies, when I first googled the information, the Charlotte.com site did not require registration. Apparently now it requires free registration.

You can get to the article from the front page without registration. It’s only the backdoor that stops you because that makes it think the article is already archived.

http://www.charlotte.com

It’s 2:00AM. I can’t sleep. I’ve been thinking about this.

Google three words “Pakistani”, “videotaping”, “Charlotte”; the resulting list will be news articles with varying levels of information. The crux of which seems to be that the suspicious activity this man engaged in was videotaping in public places. That’s it. Is it the videotaping that makes it suspicious? Anyone videotaping in public is suspicious? Or is the crucial piece of information that he was Pakistani and videotaping in public? One article quotes a police officer saying that the video tapes didn’t appear to be the kind that tourist shoot but were more like surveillance tapes. What??? What does that mean? Other articles say that he had zoomed in on street signs. . . . That’s suspicious? —Maybe. I don’t know.

His charges are of the immigration variety. Apparently he came to the US in the early 90s and used different names (according to one article). Other articles stated that he entered illegally through Mexico. My given name is David. Sometimes I go by Dave because there are less Daves than Davids where I work. I know a Melissa who as a child went by “Lissa”. Now she’s Lisa —signs her name that way.

As of yesterday, I could not find anything but sketchy information on this Pakistani guy — this Kamran Akhtar.

But the more I think about it, the more concerned I am over the fact that the thing that brought attention to himself—the thing that raised the big red flag —the thing that got him in trouble ----was videotaping in public. Even if he turns out to be the hardest of hardened terrorist, I am still troubled that his transgression that brought attention to himself was videotaping in public. It reeks of racial profiliing or maybe descrimination . How dare he videotape in public???

I, being the whitest of white Americans, am I going to be subject to such scrutiny? What about if I’m videotaping a bridge’s support structure? Am I going to be subject to scrutiny because I am fascinated with structure and foundation as opposed to taking a more traditional “tourist” shots?

Oh I get it. According to this site http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4408181,00.html
(last paragraph)

Bush administration officials have said intelligence has indicated al-Qaida wants to strike financial institutions, and the government also has issued a request to the private sector and operators of infrastructure such as dams and nuclear reactors for information about anyone showing unusual interest in their facilities, including ``photographing or videotaping assets.’’

We’re not allowed to videotape in the US.

grrrr. It’s late here. Please note that the paragraph in the previous post is a direct quote from the listed cite. thanks. I’m going to bed.

That actually might make some sense. Outside of New York, the US city that has the greatest concentration of banking assets is Charlotte. It is world headquarters for both Bank of America and Wachovia. Every building more than thirty stories is a bank, and a Federal Reserve is right smack in the middle of them. The uptown financial district is vulnerably situated on a hill higher than the rest of the city. It is a port of entry and has an international airport (the hub for US Airways). Plus, both McGuire nuclear reactors are at extreme ends of the city, one in the northeast area at Lake Norman, and the other south of the city at Lake Wylie. If Al-Qaeda has done its research, it knows all this.

Correcton: Lake Norman is northwest.

Here is a Wikipedia article on the city, with a public domain image of the skyline. Bank of America is the tallest building in the photo:

[slight hijack]I work for a film company but also have some independent projects (in the most infant of stages) germinating on the side. Several of my screenplays involve multiple locations (cities) around the U.S. So whenever I’m in one of those cities, I scout around to look for possible real-life locations. This is always very helpful in giving me additional ideas (in story-telling details) as well as lending a greater air of authenticity that I want to convey.

So two years ago I’m arriving in Logan Airport (Boston) for a professional conference, and while I’m waiting for my bags, I decide to take a couple of pictures of the baggage claim area (downstairs, and far away from any gates, ticketing, or security areas), since a critical scene involves the arrival of a group of characters into that airport. It’s really early in the morning (I took a red eye) and nobody’s around, so I take a few pictures (3-4) of luggage conveyors and the end of the tunnel that spits you out into the baggage claim area.

Out of nowhere, this woman comes up to me and asks what I’m doing. Not a security person, just a stranger. I tell her I just wanted a couple pictures of this area, and she proceeds to ask Why? I then explain that I’m scouting locations for a movie I’m involved in (which was theoretically true, even though this movie didn’t exist anywhere outside some pages I’d written). She seemed begrudgingly satisfied and left quietly, though the whole incident creeped me out, since I knew what she was thinking (though, honestly, I would think the place where passengers get off the plane would be of the least interest to terrorists).

Did I mention I’m Middle-Eastern looking? (I’m actually not from there, but everyone mistakes me for it) I understand this was post-9/11 and in the airport that several of the planes took off from, but there was never any doubt that that (and other airport incidents I had at the time) almost certainly wouldn’t have happened if I looked more, uh, American. [/slight hijack]

Actually, a pretty straight-forward (and much easier than doing something on a plane) scenario comes to mind.

Back to the OP…So long as people aren’t actually being arrested for taking pictures, I don’t see what the problem is. An officer asking you ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ while you are in a public place doing something unusual (not illegal, granted, but how many people do you see videotaping a frigging bridge or office building?) seems to be good sense.

I guess I don’t really see the problem either. Police are SUPPOSED to ask such questions, no? Its their job. I would assume that they would ask the same questions of anyone who was doing something strange, though I’m sure racial profiling comes into it.

And if I was from Pakastan visiting post 9/11 America and decided to film buildings and bridge supports…well, I would not be shocked if a police officer asked me some questions.

-XT

Why are you so paranoid?

Suppose that, instead of bridge foundations, you think happy,smiling children are a good subject for videotaping? That’s perfectly natural–every parent in the world films his kids.So you go to the local elementary school, and start filming.
In today’s society, everybody would naturally think “potential pervert!–lets see if he’s a child abuser”. But back in , say, 1940 nobody ever mentioned child abuse, and nobody would suspect you of it.

We keep our antennas on the lookeout for the type of crime that we have experience with, and seems realistically likely to happen.

And, unfortunately, we have experience with middle-eastern men and collapsing buildings.

there has been a bizarre preoccupation with videotaping as The Chink in Our Armor Which Must Be Guarded!..

To my knowledge, none of the “troves” of info allegedly unearthed, seriatim, in the “rollups” has included the videotapes from which dastardly plans would shortly have materialized.

Considering that thousands of americans seem capable of videotaping up women’s skirts without being caught9so I am informed by Jerry Springer…) its hard to imagine that a real terrorist, REALLY accumulating those vital images, is going to stand there like Buster Pointdexter in Cecil B. Demille Drag.

there has been a bizarre preoccupation with videotaping as The Chink in Our Armor Which Must Be Guarded!..

To my knowledge, none of the “troves” of info allegedly unearthed, seriatim, in the “rollups” has included the videotapes from which dastardly plans would shortly have materialized.

Considering that thousands of americans seem capable of videotaping up women’s skirts without being caught

(so I am informed by Jerry Springer…I myself would never encourage this bestial practice by clicking on those awful websites)

its hard to imagine that a real terrorist, REALLY accumulating those vital images, is going to stand there like Buster Pointdexter in Cecil B. Demille Drag.