Brown != Terrorist; does Photographer == Terrorist?

A few weeks ago I was nearly arrested on the Boston Subway for taking out a camera and trying to take a photograph through the front window of a Green Line car while we were emerging from a tunnel. I thought it was a beautiful photo (it was, actually). The driver told me that the rails were “restricted“ and I would be arrested if I snapped the image.

Well, apparently I’m not alone. At Brown Equals Terrorist you can find the story of a half-black, half-Scottish American community college student who was taking photographs of the Ballard Locks in Seattle when he was approached by two DHS agents because somebody reported that he was looking “suspicious.“ Several police ended up coming to the students house and nearly detained him. You can find a further write-up in Robert Jamieson Jr.’s column in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.