3 Suspected of Photographing Area Refineries

WPVI (ABC Philadelphia) ^ | 3/17/2004 | Michele McCormack

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Hey you - I just saw these guys on the news...... sure looked Middle Eastern to me.......

[oceanview]

fire up the Patriot Act.

[Sir_Ed]

"Taking pictures is now an arrestable offense?"

I was taking pictures of a beautiful mountain behind our house, and a woman came out of the house that was at the base of the mountain and began yelling at me, saying I had no right to take a picture of her house.

I explained that I was taking a picture of the mountain, but she still got angry, basically telling me to get away from her house, even though I was standing in the middle of the street!

Seems like Americans are sure becoming touchy these days...

Ed

[Sir_Ed]

"My husband finished reading David McCullough's history of the Brooklyn Bridge a short time ago. He thought it would be neat to take pictures of the bridge and show them to his physics students. Then he realized he would not really want to do that."

My goodness...I have dozens of pictures of the B'klyn Bridge, the Verazzano Bridge, etc., do you mean to tell me that taking pictures of BRIDGES is now something that is forbidden???!!!

I also have numerous pictures of Hoover Dam. If they ever start up the4 Hardhat Tours, believe me, I'll go and take a whole bunch more pictures...is THAT also bad??

Ed

[Dark Glasses and Corncob Pipe]

"All the security mania also helps me realize I did the right thing. It's insane to fly. Just drive. Or don't go."

Most Dangerous Mode of Transportation Injury Facts® compares four modes of transportation: scheduled airlines, railroad passenger trains (including Amtrak and commutation), buses, and passenger automobiles (excluding vans and pickup trucks). In general, buses, trains, and airlines have much lower death rates than automobiles when the risk is expressed as passenger deaths per passenger mile of travel. (Automobile drivers are considered passengers but operators and crew of planes, trains, and buses are not.) In 2000, the passenger death rate in automobiles was 0.80 per 100 million passenger-miles. The rates for buses, trains, and airlines were 0.05, 0.03, and 0.02, respectively.

**********

Stacks up as 40 times safer to fly scheduled airlines than to drive the same distance! And since one is about 100 times more likely to be injured rather than killed in an auto accident, one is probably at least 1,000 - 2000 times more likely to be injured or killed driving the same distance as flying on scheduled airlines!

Or, as you suggest, one can stay home...(but keep one's driving to a minimum!)

[Dog Gone]

Well, that's not a stunning surprise to anyone here. The problem is quickly connecting them to any terrorist organization or something which will justify detaining them longer than if they caught you taking a picture of a refinery.

Dang it, we know the problem is arab terrorists, but we've hamstrung ourselves to the point where we treat them equally with elderly Americans. AAAARGH!

[baseballmom]

If ME people are taking pictures and hanging around oil refinery, take them in for questioning. They apparently lied about why they were there.

alQuaeda (so they claim) sent a letter to London right after the Madrid bombing, telling them that they were 90% complete on a "Winds of Death" strike for us. We had better be on top of everything.

[Monty22]

Don't give me the ol' stats. I've seen them before, my mind on flying is made up forever. I was already phobic, and now I won't put up with the fear or security again.

[Tribune7]

We had better be on top of everything.

Exactly

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Well we are talking about Philadelphia - perhaps they can accuse them of taking pictures without having first hired a UNION photographer and/or a UNION driver to take them to the site of the refinery......THEN we'd have something to charge them with.......... ;^)

[ApplegateRanch]

Not something that would happen in the America I supposedly knew.

Oh, you mean like, at 27; blond, 5-10, 180; bare, untattooed arms, and walking on the street with my mother...getting slammed against a wall & frisked...threatened with arrest; ordered to 'shut up, HE would ask the questions', all because the cop mistook me for a wanted suspect?

A suspect, 15-17...red haired, 5-3 to 5-5, 110-120, with LARGE tattooes on BOTH forearms? Happened, Redding, CA 1959.

[foreverfree]

For a good view of the Delaware Valley's industrial past and present, nothing that I have seen beats the view from the Amtrak (or in my case, SEPTA) train from Wilmington up to Philly. Particularly the 4-mile run between Edgemoor (home of a DuPont plant) and Claymont, DE (home of CitiSteel [formerly Phoenix Steel, formerly Worth Steel]) where the rail line is wedged between the DE River and and I-495/US 13. Although most of that stretch is residential (with a welfare motel here and there).

foreverfree

[baseballmom]

LOL Good one.

[Eva]

Who owns that refinery now? I think it used be Sun Oil.

[Eva]

My husband was school teacher when he first graduated from college and used to sail on those Sun Tankers into Marcus Hook during the summer.

[TheDon]

"they never tell us if they were MEs"

(Don't tell anyone, but it's the code. When they don't mention the ethnic makeup of the suspects, it's ME.)

[piasa]

fyi

[3catsanadog]

But were the photographers swarthy looking middle eastern men between 17 and 44?

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Crude Oil doesn't explode. It burns.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

I once had the security guard at the Valero Refinery in Paulsboro come running out after me merely because I pulled off the side of the road to admire the pretty green Baldwin switcher engine their contractor uses to shuffle tank cars inside the refinery. Hadn't even had an opportunity to take a picture yet.

Apparently, so he claimed, "This is a free trade zone. Its a violation of federal law to photograph our facility."

Uh huh! Never mind that I was on a public street and considering a photo of the contractor engine crosssing the public street.