Skywarn are mostly crazy ham radio operators who climb on their roofs when sane people are going down into their basements. Before modern doppler radars their sightings were the primary source for tornado warnings.
Posted on 10/08/2012 8:42:36 AM PDT by Altariel
A man who snapped photos of a brewing storm last month received a visit Friday from an FBI Agent, inquiring why he would want to take such photos.
Michael Galindo explained that he was simply volunteering for the National Weather Service.
And FBI Agent David Pileggi seemed to be satisfied with that response.
But Galindo was left wondering whether he now has a permanent FBI file.
“He told me, ‘you’re not a threat and you are doing a public service but just be careful next time,’” Galindo said in a telephone interview with Photography is Not a Crime.
The problem arose because Galindo happened to be taking photos near the Lyondell Refinery outside of Houston on September 13, even though he was never standing on the refinery’s property.
Someone from the refinery spotted him and called police, whom apparently arrived after he had left.
Police then contacted the local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, which bills itself as “nation’s front line on terrorism.”
“I was pretty freaked out when he came but I had no idea what it was about,” said the 26-year-old man. “The worst thing I’ve done is get speeding tickets, but I haven’t gotten one in three years.
“He said I was spotted near the refinery but I couldn’t even remember doing that. I thought it had to be somebody else.
“It wasn’t until he mentioned my camera that I made the connection.”
Galindo told the agent that he volunteers for a NWS program called Skywarn that trains citizens to monitor the weather in the name of “protecting lives and property.”
He said when he pulled off to the side of the road and began taking photos of a brewing storm and potential tornados, he didn’t even notice the refinery, but made sure there weren’t any “no parking” signs around.
“I told him I had been looking for a clear line of site and I had found it,” he said.
Although Pileggi seemed a little surprised by that response, he pulled out a three-page document and began asking questions off it, inquiring whether Galindo had ever been in the military or had ever traveled overseas and about what schools he had attended in the past.
“I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything,” Galindo said.
The 20-minute visit took place less than a week after a scathing report was released on the inefficiency and ineptitude on urban fusion centers, such as the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Homeland Security Bureau, which was monitoring my Facebook page because of my blog, as well as the Houston fusion center, which produced a video depicting photographers as terrorists.
Joint Terrorism Task Forces are a little different than fusion centers but they both operate under the Department of Homeland Security and are under the assumption photographers are terrorists.
Good to see our federal bozos are on the case...
For any of you who might have thought that the US population today is any different from the German population of the early 40s: Here we have citizens turning in a fellow citizen to the feebs much as germans would turn in jew the the gestapo. HE WAS TAKING PICTURES!!!
Ah, the KGB is alive and well. They just found a new home in the USA.
Anyone feel safer yet?
Skywarn are mostly crazy ham radio operators who climb on their roofs when sane people are going down into their basements. Before modern doppler radars their sightings were the primary source for tornado warnings.
For any of you who might have thought that the US population today is any different from the German population of the early 40s: Here we have citizens turning in a fellow citizen to the feebs much as germans would turn in jew the the gestapo. HE WAS TAKING PICTURES!!!
I agree with you. Unfortunately many on this site and elsewhere would be screaming to the treetops and beyond if this refinery was the target of an terrorist attack and the failure to interview this gentleman would have stopped it from occurring.
It’s a Catch-22 world we live in today.
Meanwhile BO is releasing confirmed enemy combatants and terrorists from jail.
For those familiar with usenet, there’s a group “alt.binaries.pictures.weather” that’s still somewhat active.
FBI, TSA, DEA, ATF, etc... = GESTAPO.
There here
I am an advanced trained weather spotter for our local Amateur Radio Skywarn program and I will share this article with others in the group.
How do you access these usnet groups?
yet you can go to google earth and get an aerial view of all the refinery’s in Houston.
I'm a photographer, As long as you are on public property and the thing or person you are photographing is visible, you can take all the photos you like. The only exception is using a long lens to invade privacy. Like seeing into someones home.
And the lesson transmitted was to submit. Comply. What would have happened has the photographer told the agent to leave and not come back without a warrant and asserted his rights not to answer questions without an attorney present?
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Several years ago I stopped on a snow covered bridge on Hwy 412 near Ft Supply Oklahoma to take a photo of the ice covered river.
I barely got out of my truck when a law enforcement officer pulled up and began to grill me on ...”Why have you stopped on this bridge! Didn’t you see that prison there! Move on!”
I simply said, “just as soon as I get my picture”. I then snapped a few photos of the frozen river, then got in and left.
There just to the west of the river was a new prison next to the highway, and on the hills to the north lots of wind farms.
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