Pixiq

This isn’t the first time they’ve done this sort of rediculous nonsense. I’m still surprised they haven’t been taken to court over it.

This isn’t even a partisan issue , this attitude is pervasive regardless of which party is in power. Over the years the Secret Service has evolved into a Praetorian Guard. This was not the first incident of this type – when Michelle went to visit a coffee shop the SS collected all of the cellphones and cameras from any patron that was already in the shop.

I would prefer if presidents and their families just stayed in the White House. Their visits are extremely disruptive. For example, huge swaths of territory are shut down as opposed to just the street the presidential motorcade follows. Did we elect a president or a king?
NYCPhotorights´s last blog ..Secret Service Threatens to Confiscate Cameras

Well you never know just who may be hiding a bomb in their cell phone camera. At least that’s what I was told.

I agree with NYCPhotorights. Stay in the White House and watch the play on TV if you’re going to cause all that disruption in public.

The worst part about this is that some State Governors think they need the same protection as the president. When I was living in NJ Corzine had a fairly large protection force. Yet the only time he came close to dying that we know of was when that force was driving so fast they had a wreck.

I’m sure all these forces will go out of their way to show they are needed.

It’s also interesting that the private sector is following along with this type of protection for executives. The incident that really kicked this off was the kidnapping of the CEO of Exxon. That was done by the body guards.
Duane Kerzic´s last blog ..Weather Station

That’s to bad. I would have continued to take photo’s and wish they would have taken my camera.

It wouldn’t be all that hard to set up a cell phone or cell phone-like electronic device to continuously record and transmit video and audio while appearing to the layman and causal testing to be asleep or powered-off. You could even install a back-up power supply to support such functionality.

Considering the near paranoid attitude that some security agents have regarding secrecy and photography, just knowing that such devices exist would give pause to seizure of electronics like cell phones and cameras.

Making the SS nervous is not a crime, neither is photography. I thought it was telling that the original article only mentioned this in a passing, almost dismissive, way in the middle of the article.

Shows how accustomed we’ve become to this kind of treatment.
Josh Saint Jacque´s last blog ..RWWOTD: Shelly Roche

Who gave the treasury department the ability to take away civil liberties?

What next, NASA employees confiscating your computers if you have a flight simulator?

Theater employees are always at least that bad about picture taking anyway. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people threatened because they want their friend to take a picture of them before, during, or after a play. Because if you had a cell phone picture of a person with a little bit of the theater behind them, they could build their own identical theater, and steal all the business!

If you want to make a Secret Service agent furious, remind them that they moved from Treasury to DHS in 2002. [I don't recommend this]

You elected a king, King Obama. Pretty soon those in power will be harvesting the organs of the populace, using our bodies to prolong their life, who knows what else. Government is nothing but a virus that attacks and kills everything it comes into contact with, we need a vaccine, so we cn kill the virus once and for all.
Jody´s last blog ..Mike and Jamie from Wheels off Liberty- train wreck of an interview.

I really wish the Obama Brigade would come to San Diego… I think that tangling with the secret service photographically might be fun. I think a photo of an individual being slammed to the ground, while having a memory card destroyed by the SS would make for some great satire.

The Patriot Act lets that same administration listen to our phone calls, see what library books we check out, and gives more money to ghost warriors for surveillance than children get for education… I’d think I’d like a photo of that!
Rob´s last blog ..Technomania Circus: Invasion of the Oojaians

I can understand–though not support–the idea of not wanting a zillion candid pics of the First Lady showing up in the media. But THEY FAILED. The story clearly states that a bunch of folks already had pics. Dire warnings past that point have zero-point-zero-zero percent chance of accomplishing their goal. It’s thuggery solely for the sake of thuggery.

As someone who works in the theatre, I have to wonder if perhaps this was a clumsy attempt by the Secret Service to lessen the disturbance caused in the theatre by the presence of the Obama family. Photography during shows is often prohibited for a few reasons, including the idea of copyright of the scenic and lighting design, but also (and I think more importantly) because of the distraction to other audience members and to the cast. It could be just that the theatre staff asked the Secret Service how they could help getting audience members to put away their cell phones so that everyone could watch the show, and the Secret Service thought that this was the appropriate way. I do not know the facts of the situation, I just suggest that perhaps this was not quite as much thuggery as much as a lack of finesse in problem-solving.

And after reading the article again, it really does seem like they were just trying to stop the photographs in the theatre itself, since they only made the threat to confiscate cameras/cell phones at intermission, so obviously it was aimed at the people inside the theatre, not on the street. The first line of the blog post here sort of implies that the Secret Service was threatening people outside of the theatre as she entered the theatre, though I don’t see this being supported by the linked article.
Kevin McCoy´s last blog ..PGP public key

I have attended Broadway shows and people do snap pictures of each other before the show and during intermission. No-one was taking pictures during the performance itself.

You also should take this Secret Svce announcement in the context of their previous actions when the president’s family has visited other locations. For example the SS rounded up the cellphones and cameras of all patrons of a coffee shop the first family was about to enter specifically to prevent photography.

This isn’t an isolated incident.

You’re saying that no one was taking photos during the show in this case, or in the case when you went to a Broadway show? I have seen plenty of people who think it’s okay to take pictures during a show under normal circumstances, so I can only imagine the number of people doing so during a show where Michelle Obama is present.

@ Kevin: I’ve rarely seen flashes fire during a performance so I do not think that was the issue here. In light of the coffee shop incident I am inclined to believe that the announcement was prompted by the presidential family visit. Otherwise the announcement would simply have said “photography during the performance is illegal”.

This is not an isolated incident of this kind – the secret service has prevented photography of the first family at other locations where copyright and performances were not issues

I see flashes go off at the show I work on every night, without exception. And even without flash, the display screens of phones and cameras are a huge distraction as well. Of course this incident was prompted by having the presidential family visit — when else do you have Secret Service officers in the theatre who can make such an announcement. My point is that this seems to be a case of exaggerating the facts to make the incident seem more oppressive than it really is. The blog post here certainly implies that the Secret Service was trying to prohibit photography in a public place like the street, rather than the different issue of trying to prevent photography inside the theatre itself. Trying to prevent it on the street indicates that they’re doing it because they feel they have something to hide. Trying to prevent it in the theatre can have a much less sinister motivation, like trying to reduce the distraction to the cast and to the audience members who paid a lot of money to see the show. The blog post here certainly seems to demonize the situation more than the actual news article did, and it makes me wonder and worry about how often this sort of biased writing is occurring on this site. I’d hate to see valid complaints about abuse of power derailed because of shoddy, biased writing.

“It matters not. He is your king”

Federal statute grants specific authority to the Secret Service to secure facilities and control the public in any area or building being visited by persons it protects. When this law was challenged, several times in fact, the United States Court of Appeal has affirmed, in these situations, that the Secret Service may confiscate cameras from members of the public.

The Secret Service is only doing its job as mandated by federal law within the parameters defined by Congress. If you don’t like how the Secret Service may take your camera in certain situations, you should speak to your Congressional representatives and ask them to amend federal law. You can’t blame the Secret Service for the laws Congress passes.
Jaguar´s last undefined ..Response cached until Tue 20 @ 20:46 GMT (Refreshes in 23.88 Hours)

I think people are kind of forgetting that it isn’t just camera’s here, it’s cell phones with cameras. What better way for a party setting up to do some mischief than to take extensive pictures of the Obama’s; where they are sitting, what they are wearing, what exact time it is; GPS coordinates (unlikely because it’s inside, but still).

Then transmit them to others not there, who can use the images to plan an incursion, since they know where they’ll be the next hour or so.

Yes, sometimes, security does have to take priority over things.