Goddammit so mad - I had written up a huge response to you and my browser crash.
I work in security and risk management - a significant portion of what I do involves analyzing physical security. So I have some idea what I'm talking about.
Fundamentally we may agree, but on some of your points, you are very, very wrong, and I'll try to point out why.
The very basis on which risks and threats are handled whenever "terrorism" is concerned is flawed.
"but hostile reconnaissance takes place in places frequented by the publc and airports"
"Terrorists" do not rely on camera reconnaissance in the kind of Bourne Identity KGB Warsaw Pact 1337 Spai way that you are thinking of. Put yourself in the shoes of someone planning a hypothetical (more on that later) attack - you would use (a) some clean-cut guy to walk around and mentally note things (one of my clients once fell victim to industrial espionage from a guy with a photographic memory who surreptiously joined a tour group in a new factory) or (b) existing images online. Search Google images for "Heathrow airport security" - two of the very first pictures to show up are a clear view of one of the armored glass security gates, and an overhead view of an entire check area from the Daily Mail.
Second, stopping photographers does nothing. I will either (a) use my 400mm from a bush, or (b) hide a camera in an anorak collar (think of how good an iPhone 4S camera is? Now think of how small it is - you can buy good tiny spy cameras for low double digits online). The entire idea is wrong. It's the same reason why it's hilarious that people advertise the Zenit Photosniper (hi styru!) as a "KGB camera". If you were a KGB agent trying to take pics discreetly, would you really carry around a massive black chunk of metal shaped like a grenade launcher?
"stations, shopping areas and sports stadia are favourite places for terrorist attacks"
Populated areas are favorite places for terrorist attacks. Stopping photographers does _nothing_ to prevent this. Every single documented attack on, say, an airport, ranging from the Athens, Rome, and Lod shootings in the 1970s over Vienna in 1985 and Glasgow in 2007 was a brute force assault on the most vulnerable, crowded area in an airport - the bit
before the security check. The Glasgow attack was stopped by a simple, cheap method (barriers) in use by jewelry stores for years, and the only reason the Rome attackers were able to get on a plane and start throwing firebombs is because there was
no security inspection. None. Even a basic barrier could have stopped them. Remember this old chestnut that I like - "when you're in a group of people running from a bear, you don't need to be the fastest, just don't be the slowest". The high-tech international terrorist who will stop at nothing to bring down a hardened, challenging target is myth.
Furthermore, just about no successful "terrorist" attack in the past 20 years that I can think of relied on the kind of "reconnaissance" being "prevented" - neither the IRA mortar bombs against Downing St., nor the ETA Corte Inglés bombings, nor 7/7, none of these. It was guys walking into a populated area and setting off (or leaving) bombs, or just plain shooting up the place. Nothing nearly as intricately planned and complex as what's being suggested. Do you know why there have not been more terrorist attacks in the UK than there really were? To a degree, it's because of good investigative police and intelligence work. But that is only a small part of it. Most of the reason is because people really don't hate you that much! And of the ones who do, even fewer have the intelligence and determination to do something nasty. Cool, huh?
In fact, focusing on photographers is actively dangerous insofar as it sends the message that "something is being done" - when nothing is being done. This is an element of what Bruce Schneier calls
"Security Theater" - it sends the impression that "the authorities" are being proactive, while disregarding underlying real threats.
Importantly, there is the economic argument -
The Economist lists ca. 7,500 deaths from "terrorism" (very broadly defined) worldwide in 2010. That is less than three times the number of road deaths in the UK. Think about that for a second. Most of those were in places like Pakistan's tribal areas, Southern Thailand, Mindanao, or other areas where there's as much tribal and ethnic conflict as anything else, or in areas with at least a semblance of open guerilla warfare (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.)
Now compare the cost of countermeasures to imagined threats to the economy to their actual result. The ratio is HUGE and disproportionate.
Those acts of terror that have hit the UK could not have been stopped by surveillance (7/7 for example) or by limitation of photographic reconnaissance. They simply could not have. Just like the Bali discotheque attacks, as well as the bombings in Marrakech, Madrid, and elsewhere, not a single such attack could have been foiled by anything but difficult, expensive police work. Even, arguably, the information that something was afoot before 9/11 could have been acted on. I even maintain that a focus on "Maginot Thinking" like banning guns on planes contributed to the impact of the latter attack, by detracting from proven countermeasures (like passenger / public education - you'll note that this is what stopped two separate bombing incidents on airliners in the 2000s). I repeat - 7/7 could
not have been stopped by
any "active" countermeasures, horrible as it was. What might have stopped it, at least partially, is more people paying attention - "report abandoned bags" is one of the cheapest, most sensible, most effective ways to increase public attention and limit the likelihood of bombings on those very very very rare occasions when they do occur.
"we shouldn't take our liberty so much for granted anymore."
The hell we shouldn't. This is exactly the kind of thinking that underpins ineffective, expensive policies that DO NOTHING. Read that again. They have NO result. There is a reason why you should oppose this even beyond the philosophical "having your rights stepped on" aspect - and that is that it condones a sloppy, lazy approach to security that targets entirely the wrong people.
You cannot stop a determined attacker, even if he exists. You can prevent, and mitigate attacks, however. But that is hard work, and makes for neither good electoral politics nor newspaper sales.
Think about that for a second.
