Woman Photographing Capitol Triggers Police Response

Albany Times Union | December 20 2004

ALBANY -- Ashley Miner didn't think taking pictures of the state Capitol would rise to the level of a terrorist plot. The building has been photographed only a jillion times.

She thought the photos would help with her final paper in a University at Albany history class. But as Miner sat in her car taking pictures last Thursday, parked between the Capitol and Empire State Plaza, somebody walked by and got the idea she was a threat. The person dialed 911 and gave the Albany Police Department her license plate number.

At 7 a.m. the next day, Miner got a call from her upset mother, Carol, in Rhode Island. The police had called Carol Miner to find out what her daughter, a UAlbany senior planning on going to law school, was doing with a camera alongside New York's Capitol.

"The police officer was really nice," said Ashley Miner, who said the cop was just doing his job.

Carol Miner was worried because she figured a call from the authorities so early in the morning could only mean bad news.

"They said, 'This is the Albany police,' and my heart just automatically stopped," she said.

The officer questioned Carol Miner for about five minutes before being satisfied that Ashley was, indeed, just a student. "She's never been in trouble," Carol Miner said proudly.

Detective James Miller, a spokesman for the city's Public Safety Department, said the officer's response to the 911 tip was typical. Any slight inconvenience, he said, is outweighed by the ultimate safety of the community.

Ashley Miner wound up calling the officer to explain herself. She said the officer told her the 911 caller believed Ashley was staring at him and looked suspicious.

She said she knew right away who the officer was talking about.

"He stopped in front of my car and was staring at me -- that's why I left," she said.

Miner couldn't muster up anger at the conspiracy theorist, either. "Because if something had happened, people would be praising him," she said.

What's sad, she said, is that "we've created a society where we're that paranoid."

If Miner has come to grips with her ordeal, none of it sits too easily with Warren Roberts, who taught the "Albany, the City and its Architecture" class.

He said he is upset that the Sept. 11 attacks have made many people overly suspicious.

Roberts' specialty is the French Revolution. He sees parallels between now and then. "There were committees of surveillance. There was pervasive paranoia," he said.

Melanie Trimble, executive director of the Capital Region chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said many people are aware of such issues today. But changing a fearful climate is a tall order.

"It is very disturbing to feel that Big Brother is indeed watching you in the form of your neighbor, your friend, your office worker," she said.

Photographers, professional and hobbyist, are encountering more difficulties in the pursuit of pictures. New York City transit officials have proposed a ban on taking pictures and movies in New York City's subway system.

"It's been a big problem for a while now," said Bert Krages, a Portland, Ore., attorney who has written the "Legal Handbook for Photographers." "Things have certainly gotten worse since 9/11."

Which is confusing to Krages. "I really take a big issue with the notion that photography (gives) any sort of substantial assistance to terrorists," he said. "If you go back and consider the significant terrorist events of the past 20 years, none of them have involved photography."

In the end, Miner wound up squeezing just three frames before she drove off.

None of them came out.

But Roberts gave her an "A" on the paper.

She sure does look like a terrorist to me.