At Minnesota’s Mall of America, writing in a notebook, or taking a photograph or a video has earned some a police record. People are supposedly “randomly selected,” yet studies show that African-Americans, Asians, and Arabs are among the most-interviewed. Salon.com reports:
The interviews at the mall are part of a counterterrorism initiative that acts as the private eyes and ears of law enforcement authorities but has often ensnared innocent people, according to an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting and NPR.
In many cases, the written reports were filed without the knowledge of those interviewed by security. Several people named in the reports learned from journalists that their birth dates, race, names of employers and other personal information were compiled along with surveillance images.
In some cases, the questioning appears to have the hallmarks of profiling — something that officials at the mall deny. In nearly two-thirds of the cases reviewed, subjects are described as African-American, people of Asian and Arabic descent, and other minorities, according to an analysis of the documents.
For example, there’s this:
Bobbie Allen, a musician who lives in downtown Minneapolis, was stopped for writing in a notebook. As he waited for a lunch date on June 25, 2007, Allen jotted down some words, which caught the attention of security guard.
One guard wrote in Allen’s suspicious activity report: “Before the male would write in his notebook, it appeared as though he would look at his watch. Periodically, the male would briefly look up from his notebook, look around, and then continue writing.”
Guards asked for his name and for whom he was waiting. Allen, who is black, felt singled out for his race, according to the report. The guard responded that he was “randomly selected” for an interview.
The guards called Bloomington police, after deciding Allen was uncooperative and his note-taking “suspicious.” Allen was cleared, but a suspicious activity report was compiled, complete with surveillance photo, age, height, address and more. Much of that information ended up in a Bloomington police report.
And they offer this example too:
On Nov. 9, 2008, [Bloomington resident Francis Van Asten] videotaped a short road trip from his home to the Mall of America. Van Asten, now 66, planned to send it to his fiancée’s family in Vietnam so they could see life in the United States.
As he headed down an escalator, camera in hand, mall guards caught sight of him.
“Right away, I noticed he had a video camera and was recording the rotunda area,” a security guard wrote in a suspicious activity report.
Van Asten, a one-time missile system repairman for the Army, was questioned for approximately two hours, records show. He was asked about traveling to Vietnam and how he came to know people there. The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force was alerted. He was given a pat-down search, and the FBI demanded that his memory card be confiscated “for further analysis.”
Authorities were concerned about his footage of an airplane landing at Minnesota’s nearby international airport. They also worried Van Asten was conducting surveillance of mall property.
Exhausted and rattled, Van Asten had trouble finding his car after the ordeal was over.
“I sat down in my car and I cried, and I was shaking like a leaf,” Van Asten said in an interview at his home. “That kind of sensation doesn’t leave you real quickly when you’ve had an experience like that.”
The ACLU notes:
Taking photographs and video of things that are plainly visible in public spaces is a constitutional right — and that includes the outside of federal buildings, as well as transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties.
However, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs or video in public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply.
The ACLU, photographer’s groups, and others have been complaining about such incidents for years — and consistently winning in court. Yet, a continuing stream of incidents of illegal harassment of photographers and videographers makes it clear that the problem is not going away.
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