In another instance of a brain-dead security policy, French freelance writer Emmanuelle Richard Welch was stopped for using her cameraphone to take photos of the Academy Awards ceremony last night, according to an item I saw in picturephoning.org. However, she did manage to fire off several good shots on her Buzznet moblog.
Although I'm all for appropriate security measures, stopping Welch from taking camera phone photos is pure stupidity. As film and digital camera snapped thousands of photos and broadcasters interviewed stars outside and inside the theater, Welch was singled out.
Why? Here's what she writes:
"Unfortunately I had to stop moblogging after a while because a security person kindly told me camphones were forbidden and would be confiscated. I complied so no more pics!"Funningly, regular cameras are OK, but not camphones or PDAphones because... by moblogging you could tip off terrorists!! I thought the terrorists would watch TV if they really wanted to know what's going on - I just hope they're nowwhere near."
Techno-dolts
Welch hits the nail on the head. Terrorists could get a much better overview of the real-time situation at the Academy Awards by watching television. It's one more illustration of how techno-dolts determine security policies.
I guess we need cameras with wireless capabilities -- either built-in wide area radios to transmit directly or Bluetooth radios that could transfer photos to a cellular phone for transmission -- to foil this type of inappropriate security policy.
I find it ironic that those same stars were given camera phones prior to the event, if only they had Buzznet photoblogs as well. Well maybe they will set them up this week.
http://www.textually.org/picturephoning/archives/002982.htm
Posted by: marc brown | Monday, March 01, 2004 at 02:39 PM