Citizens Keep Watch on Photographers

Via the Nobody's Business blog by colleague Rogier van Bakel, Colorado has been busy:

Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as "Terrorism Liaison Officers" in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for "suspicious activity" — and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.

The term for the people is "terrorism liason officer." One type of suspicious activity? Taking photos "of no apparent aesthetic value." Is part of their training a crash course in deconstruction and art theory?

Future terrorism "is going to be noticed earliest at the most local level," said Robert Riegle, director of state and local programs for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Washington.

So when those terrorists try to corrupt our moral fiber with badly-taken photos, we'll be ready. The problem, of course, is that now so much can get classified as "suspicious." There are some famous photographers who took pictures of ordinary places and items who could technically get into hot water these days.