MAN HAD VIDEOS OF BUILDINGS IN SEVERAL MAJOR U.S. CITIES

Austin American-Statesman ^ | August 11, 2004 | Tony Plohetski and Steven Kreytak

[mtbopfuyn]

Pakistani man held in North Carolina on immigration charges spent several months shooting video of mass-transit systems and skylines of Austin and other major cities in Texas and the South, including New Orleans and Atlanta...

A Pflugerville resident who says his wife is related to Shaikh said the Austin videotaping was innocent. After speaking with people who had seen the tapes, Baker said: "Unless this guy is a student of current American architecture, it suggests a little more attention to detail. What would come after this type of surveillance is that these tapes would go back to an operations type of person, who would take a look at them, look at the type of buildings and potential targets, and they would determine, 'We want to do more detailed surveillance on buildings X, Y and Z.'"...

Pervaiz Khawaja of Pflugerville said in an e-mail to the Austin American-Statesman that FBI agents questioned him Aug. 3 about the visit by one of his wife's relatives from New York in July. "Our family took him to tourist places like Mansfield dam on Lake Travis, downtown and capitol building," the e-mail said. He said he saw no signs prohibiting photography or videotaping. "These places are tourist attractions and are visited by thousands everyday."...

Shaikh is a 35-year-old resident of Elmhurst, N.Y., who also uses the name Kamran Akhtar. Federal court filings refer to him as Shaikh.

[mtbopfuyn]

Since when has Mansfield Dam been a tourist attraction? They better find the other video tape quickly because that's not the dam they're going after (my .02). They've already beefed up security and fenced off one dam after LE questioned some ME men fishing filming a different dam a couple years ago.

[TommyDale]

Yeah, right! And the two buildings he was caught videotaping in Charlotte just happened to be the headquarters of Bank of America and Wachovia, two of the largest banking conglomerates in America. Just a normal "tourist attraction".

Side note: I can't recall a single "tourist attraction" in Charlotte.

[Dallas59]

Some people seem to think so...Yahoo pictures search...

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=Mansfield+Dam+&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-img-t&cop=mss&tab=3

But at least HLS is questioning the right kind of "tourist".

[Publius6961]

BUMP

[Deguello]

They would blow up the dam how? It is 213 ft thick at base and 30 feet at the top of concrete.

http://www.lcra.org/water/mansfield.html

It would be easier to blow up the bridge that houses the Mexican Freetail Bats.

[Dallas59]

Again....some people like architecture....Yahoo picture search...

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=Bank+of+America+Charlotte&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-img-t&n=20&fl=0&x=wrt

Bank of America Charlotte Again...looks like HLS questioned the right kind of "tourist". I would hate to think we get like the old Soviet Union and have "watchers" on every corner making sure that people don't take pictures of Dams, Roads, Buildings....etc.

[commonerX]

(o)

[Sender]

This guy comes from Pakistan to Mexico, sneaks into the US illegally, spends MONTHS videotaping non-tourist buildings and infrastructure, and we're supposed to believe he's just a video buff hanging out?

Uh huh.