A Lesson on the Intersection of Press Freedom and National Security
Mariam Jukaku
LAST week, I received my first real-world lesson on the intersection of free press and national security. As a journalism student, I've read in my textbooks about the rights of journalists and what the First Amendment guarantees. In my ethics and media law classes, we've discussed journalists who are fighting to uphold their constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. But Thursday, as I walked out of my introductory photography class, snapping pictures on a public sidewalk, the implications on our everyday lives of the level of fear in our society became painfully apparent.
I was not planning a civil rights experiment. I wasn't even covering a story. I was just testing some of the functions on my brand new Nikon D40, which I had just purchased for class. I was snapping pictures of a row of flags and signs in front of a VA hospital across the street from my campus. (Ironically, one of the signs read, "The price of freedom can be seen here.")
As I turned to leave a few minutes later, a VA security officer speed-walked over to me and demanded I hand over my camera. She ordered me to delete several of my photographs and took my student ID. Another officer approached and asked for my driver's license. They took me into their office and questioned me about my "motives" and "purpose." More of my pictures were deleted. My ID cards were photocopied.
Until this point, my biggest fear had been that the officer swinging my camera in her hand might drop it.
(We were just lectured that you always wear the neck-strap when handling expensive photography equipment). Then I was told by one of the officers it was illegal to photograph federal property without permission. My immediate thought was "So when I photograph the White House I should ask the President first?" but I bit my tongue. Then I was told it was illegal to photograph veterans (some of whom were in the background when I was taking pictures). Then for added emphasis, I was told I couldn't even take pictures of the security officer. (Well, there go my plans for the afternoon.)
When you're a South-Asian Muslim woman wearing long sleeves and a headscarf on a 90-degree day in early September, the thought that security guards are overreacting solely based on your appearance tends to creep around in the back of your mind. You tell yourself you're just being paranoid. But then you get asked if you're a U.S. citizen – and the creeping thought lands with a resounding thud.
Then came the reassurances that I was not going to be arrested, which of course made me wonder if I actually committed an offense so grave I could be arrested. Eventually, I was "briefed" by the VA's head of public relations, handed back my camera and IDs and was walked out of the building.
I've been reassured by my professors, my advisers at the Post-Standard where I'm an intern and by the dean of my school that I did nothing wrong. I was on a public sidewalk and I have every right to take pictures. The security officers were wrong in deleting my photographs. I can't prove they were profiling me because of my race or religion. I like to believe they were not. But what is more important and more obvious to me is that the environment of fear we are living in is so great, it makes security guards nervous when students do something as innocuous as take pictures of a building. It makes them so nervous they feel that the only thing they can do is delete the pictures, demand identification and detain the student for questioning.
This is just another example of fear making people act irrationally. If they had taken a moment to think it through, it's pretty obvious that taking pictures of a building, which is plainly visible from a public sidewalk, is not a threat to national security, nor is it a threat to the privacy of patients going in and out of the hospital. But my guess is that the security officers' only thoughts were that they didn't want to be held responsible if something happened later. And that fear – that "something is going to happen" – is so prevalent because of the constant harping and fear-mongering by our current leadership.
A Lesson in Press Freedom from America
Mariam Jukaku is a student from the minority community in the USA. Last month this Muslim girl student of journalism from the South Asian community was stopped from taking pictures of public building. Here is her first account of the brush she had with the authorities. More
http://www.southasiapost.org/2007/20070915/media.htm#2
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