How do THEY like it? Not very much, it seems

Two students in Missouri are ticketed for jaywalking, admittedly illegal but kind of a ticky-tack violation. How do they respond? They spend several days taking pictures of several law enforcement officials doing the exact same thing. Apparently they have some nice shots of police officers in full uniform violating the law in the very intersection that they were ticketed in.

From the article:

"The duo say that on the first day they took pictures a Greene County deputy told
them it was a violation of the Homeland Security Act for them to photograph government buildings and told them to stop. Greene County Chief Deputy Jim Arnott says it isn't a violation of the act, but authorities are wary of such activity.
"With any public building, officials are concerned with people photographing them because of security concerns," Arnott explains. They could be drawing maps to plot bombings or other terrorist attacks. "He can stand on the sidewalk, but not on private property. If you're going to be photographing those buildings, we will approach and ask what you're doing."

It's not private property, Deputy. It's a GOVERNMENT building, which by definition IS public. The students have every right to take pictures of whatever they wish on that property, as they pay for it. You can ask them all day long what they're doing, and they can tell you to go pound sand.

The part of the article that disturbs me is the fact that another deputy told them that it was illegal to take pictures of government buildings. I have heard of airport police doing the same thing in pickup lanes outside of airports. It is amusing that the police want to put the public under constant surveillance, but don't want the same thing to happen to them. A free society must be able to document their government, in order to hold them accountable. Putting public places "off limits" to recording or photography is ludicrous and a dangerous precedent.

Keep the pressure up, boys.