There Are Buildings You May Not Photograph - Just Don't Ask Which

Ah, thank heavens for the Department of Homeland Security for keeping us safe. To prevent terrorists from getting information that could be used by terrorists. Of course you want to prohibit people from photographing critical buildings. But you don't want to tell them, because, well, then they might not take the pictures.

It might sound like something out of a Joseph Heller or Kurt Vonnegut novel, but it's actually happening in the US. According to this Washington Post column,Keith McCammon innocently enough took a picture of 3701 N. Fairfax Drive in Arlington, VA. How was he to know that the office building housed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which does the DOD's high tech research? (They are the people who originally commissioned what would become the Internet, back in the late 1960s.)

You can find lots of public information indicating that the agency is there, but there's no sign on the outside. McCammon was asked for personal information, presumably so they could watch him in case he took a picture of another building that he shouldn't so they could catch him doing something that can't tell him not to do in advance because, well, he might not do it. Catch 22 - it's the best catch there is.