ACLU Lawsuit over Suspicious Activity Reporting Program

Hat Tip:  SLR Lounge, Wired


The ACLU recently filed a lawsuit over the Federal Governments Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Program.


Two of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit are photographers.


I'm a bit conflicted when it comes to the lawsuit.  Neither of the photographers actually did anything "wrong".  It was the subject matter of their photographs that brought them to the attention of the Federal Government.

The first was taking pictures of a Natural Gas Storage tank, and the second was taking pictures of oil refineries.  Both are obvious targets for terrorists.  The Federal Government does need to monitor these types of installations for suspicious activity.

The problem seems to stem from the lack of common sense when it comes to determining what activities are actually suspicious.


Standing on public property and taking a picture of something that is a local landmark is not suspicious activity.  This includes the natural gas storage tank above due to how it was painted.

Standing in the open, on public property and taking photos at night (with a tripod) also fails the common sense test when it comes to "suspicious activity".  Is a terrorist really going to go through all that trouble and stand in the open for a long period of time while taking pictures of a target?

Hello?  Cell Phone?  (Or telephoto lens used where the photographer can't be seen.)


This seems to be the problem with the program.  The people responsible for reporting suspicious activity have no clue as to what that actually entails.  They don't seem to be asking themselves whether it is activity an actual terrorist would be engaged in before reporting it to the Federal Government.

If it's not something a terrorist would be doing, is it really "suspicious"?