Taking photos at airports- illegal?

surreal1221 said:
You can't find me responsible for doing something illegal if I've never been told it is illegal.
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While I sympathize with the stupidity of this particular rule, I wouldn't use this as a defense in court.

In most crimes, an intent is required to prove guilt. In other words, you have to a)know something is illegal, and b)intend to do it anyway. SOME crimes, however, are classified as "no intent" crimes. Probably the most common one you come across is speeding. In other words, it doesn't matter if you didn't see the last speed limit change and you therefore didn't know you were speeding--you're still guilty if they catch you speeding.

Again I wouldn't expect that this instance would fall in that category--just commenting on the general "you can't hold me responsible if I didn't know" thing, which can get folks in trouble.
 
Fly4Pay said:
In most crimes, an intent is required to prove guilt. In other words, you have to a)know something is illegal, and b)intend to do it anyway. SOME crimes, however, are classified as "no intent" crimes. Probably the most common one you come across is speeding. In other words, it doesn't matter if you didn't see the last speed limit change and you therefore didn't know you were speeding--you're still guilty if they catch you speeding.
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Actually, no. The "intent" requirement requires only that the state prove that a defendant had knowledge that he/she was doing the things that make up the elements of the crime. It is not generally necessary that a defendant have been aware that the doing of those things was a crime. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
 
My friend and I have been all over the DFW, DAL and IAH airport taking pictures. We know every service road around the entire fenced parameter. Most of the time we never get spoken to once. We usually take the car just in the back of the truck with the scanner and take pictures. There have been like two or three times where we have been ran off. All three times we got ran off because we were somewhere were are aren't suppose to be (side of the road under the approach lights). So we say yes sir and move on. We have never been bother by that.

When I am flying I always have a camera in hand and if I have time I walk to terminal looking out the window and taking pictures. I have never been bother in the terminal once at all.

O, and the 3 times we've been ran off we were at DFW and have never been ran off at IAH or DAL
 
Minnesota_Flyer said:
Actually, no. The "intent" requirement requires only that the state prove that a defendant had knowledge that he/she was doing the things that make up the elements of the crime. It is not generally necessary that a defendant have been aware that the doing of those things was a crime. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
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So I guess the question to ask is the same one that Patrick Smith asked.

Is it illegal to take pictures of an airport?

If so, then Google's in a lot of trouble. They've got pictures of every single airport in the world on there!
 
Besides, if the department of homeland (in)security would take their collective heads out of their butts for two seconds, they'd realize that having people around the airport who enjoy taking pictures of the facilities and airplanes would be BENEFICIAL to security. You'd have extra eyes on the premises and if they hang out at the airport enough, they'd be able to know what to expect and something unusual could be reported.
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That's exactly what the BNSF Railroad does. They started a camiagn of their photographers to look out for anything. Then later UP Railroad came a policy stating the opposite, banning photography of their trains. So it makes no difference which mode of transportation we are taking pictures of. We will get heckled. I read a story of a guy going to jail for taking pictures of trains on public property, and the police deleted all his pictures and pretty much ruined his whole vacation.

So we can argue about it being illegal or not all we want. But when the TSA has us detained and strip searches us, is it really worth it?
 
saxman66 said:
So we can argue about it being illegal or not all we want. But when the TSA has us detained and strip searches us, is it really worth it?
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I highly doubt it would get that far. I'm sure some supervisor would say, nope, he can go ahead and do it because there's nothing prohibiting him from doing so.

If they do detain you and there is no law on the books prohibiting people from taking pictures of planes on public grounds, then I think you would have grounds for the mother of all lawsuits for false imprisonment.

Of course, filing that lawsuit would put you at risk of getting sent to Gitmo without charges ever being filed against you so....
 
tonyw said:
So I guess the question to ask is the same one that Patrick Smith asked.

Is it illegal to take pictures of an airport?

If so, then Google's in a lot of trouble. They've got pictures of every single airport in the world on there!
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I doubt it is illegal anywhere as long as you're not disruptive, and the constitutionality of laws banning airport photography, if anywhere they exist, would be seriously questionable.
 
I know alot of people get upset about this country and there are alot of things that can be improved upon...but this is no North Korea or China. Have pride...take steps to improve, though.
 
I believe that the law that makes it illegal is the trespass law. If it is the policy of the airport authority not to allow photography on the premises and you are on the premises taking pictures, that's trespassing. Same as walking into a store that has a policy of no guns if you have a gun and a CCW permit.
 
grnclvrs said:
I believe that the law that makes it illegal is the trespass law. If it is the policy of the airport authority not to allow photography on the premises and you are on the premises taking pictures, that's trespassing. Same as walking into a store that has a policy of no guns if you have a gun and a CCW permit.
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The substantial difference is that a store is private, an airport authority (generally) is a public, governmental authority. As long as I'm not disruptive or in a place I'm not allowed to be, the government could no more cite me for trespassing for violating a no pictures rule than it could cite me for violating a rule against wearing political stickers in an airport.
 
Minnesota_Flyer said:
The substantial difference is that a store is private, an airport authority (generally) is a public, governmental authority. As long as I'm not disruptive or in a place I'm not allowed to be, the government could no more cite me for trespassing for violating a no pictures rule than it could cite me for violating a rule against wearing political stickers in an airport.
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Did I say store? I meant courthouse.
 
You do realize that you're arguing with an attorney, right?

If anyone knows the law, he does.

Seriously, nobody has been able to provide anyone with a specific law that prohibits taking pictures in a public place.

Even the cops who went to question Patrick Smith couldn't come up with one.

So it looks like there is no law against taking pictures at an airport.

Feel free to snap away!
 
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