In a message dated 7/15/04 12:30:04 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/181978_robert14.html
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
We've seen the enemy, and he is us
Photo student experiences the 'real threat' to America
By ROBERT L. JAMIESON Jr.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
Ian Spiers is ... a terrorist?
A threat to homeland security? A spy out to wreak havoc on the Ballard Bridge and Hiram Chittenden Locks?
BACKGROUND
- Original police report
- Text of ACLU letter to U.S. Army Corp of Engineers on behalf of Ian Spiers
- Text of ACLU letter to Ian Spiers
If Ian is any of these things then this is his weapon of mass destruction: a 35-millimeter Olympus camera.
What recently happened to the longtime Ballard resident is one of those wrenching and uncomfortable stories of post-Sept. 11 America, and it is far from being black and white.
Try difficult shades of gray.
The whole thing would seem like a bad joke if the experience didn't leave Ian crushed and confused.
Ian is an amateur photographer.
In May he was taking photos for his Shoreline Community College class at the Ballard locks, where waves of tourists flock to take pictures and where no signs prohibit shutterbugging.
Paul Joseph Brown / P-I
Ian Spiers was taking photographs at the Ballard locks for a class at Shoreline Community College when Seattle police and federal officers detained him.
Ian says he suddenly found himself surrounded by more than a half-dozen guys wearing black. He says they glowered, brusquely asked what he was doing and demanded his identification.
He tried to explain he was a photo student who had done nothing wrong and shouldn't have to show his ID. One of the men, Ian says, erupted: "See this badge! This is a federal badge! I'm with homeland security!"
Intimidating tactics are one thing. A presumption that Ian -- who says he tried to be cooperative while not forfeiting his rights -- was guilty of something sinister is another.
What made the camera episode especially troubling for Ian, who was not arrested, is this: Other people around him happily toted cameras and clicked away, but he was the one singled out.
What gives?
Here's a reasonable conclusion: Ian's skin color is to blame.
Someone saw him and saw no good. He was profiled.
If you look at Ian's smooth, light-brown complexion you could jump to the conclusion that he is vaguely Middle Eastern looking or Latin, maybe even Muslim.
Put a camera in his hands and place him near federal property such as the locks and Ian transforms into, well, what else? A potential terrorist.
"So upsetting," sums up Shoreline instructor Chris Simons, who taught Ian in Art 100 -- Beginning Photography.
Ian, 36, is half Scottish, half African-American. He is a Christian Scientist who has lived in Ballard for 10 years. He chose to photograph near the locks and bridge because he knows those places well.
Ian's camera trouble started even before the May incident.
In April he went near the locks to take snapshots and returned home. Before he knew it, he says two uniformed Seattle police officers were at his door.
"Were you just at the Ballard locks? Taking pictures?" he says one of the officers asked.
Ian said yes, said he was a student. Ian said he showed the officers his notebook with shutter speeds and aperture settings.
Had he done something wrong?
The officers said no. Ian said they asked for his identification.
"If I've done nothing wrong why do I have to show identification," Ian asked them, feeling fear.
A Seattle police report of the April incident described a man of medium skin tone acting "suspicious" at the locks and "photographing the bridge and writing notes."
The officers who visited Ian took down his information and left.
On May 26, Ian returned to the locks to finish his class assignment.
He set up his tripod to take snapshots of passing boats. Within moments, he says a security guard -- with a gun at his side and a German shepherd -- was in front of him. The guard asked for ID. "I told him my constitutional rights were being infringed upon," Ian recalled during an emotional interview.
Ian said the guard walked away.
Next, Ian saw a Seattle police cruiser pull into the area, followed soon thereafter by several men donning black. They approached him.
"Let's see some ID! Now," Ian says a uniform Seattle officer asked him. A federal special agent flashed his badge, huffed about being with homeland security and lectured about Sept. 11, Ian said.
Before leaving, Ian said the agent made a request: "You ought to let me take your picture."
The photo student felt devastated. "The real threat to America," he said when we spoke, "is what I'm experiencing now."
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns and operates the locks, said they weren't involved in what happened. "Anyone who comes to the locks can take pictures," a spokeswoman said. "We want people to come."
"Obviously someone saw something suspicious," says Seattle police spokeswoman Deanna Nolette. "The department has been asking people, should they see something suspicious, to call and report it."
Leigh Winchell, a senior official for the Department of Homeland Security, paints a painful truth: "We have to respond to calls -- that's the day and age we live in. What would the public reaction be if we didn't follow through?"
Yet, authorities should have an obligation to use their training and common sense to assess a situation. They should be able to quickly determine a student taking class photos from a terrorist. They should be able to do their job without resorting to intimidating swagger that leaves a grown man in tears.
Authorities can ask folks for their IDs but people are not necessarily required to show them in a lot of situations. "This is one of them," says ACLU spokesman Doug Honig. "The justification they were citing doesn't apply to Ian."
The ACLU, which is following up on the case, obtained paperwork that explains why the folks with badges badgered Ian for identification. Basically, authorities used a law that cracks down on spies, Honig said.
But I don't think Ian's a spy. Ian loves America. Ian's crime was being a brown man with a camera in hand during a time of runaway fear. The law took action for the sake of the sockeye.
Should we really feel any safer?
P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. can be reached at
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