Hope this isn’t too long. My first post—wooohooo!
Labor Day weekend of 1996, a friend and I were in Laredo, Texas and we walked into Nuevo Laredo via the bridge over the Rio Grande to drink, shop, etc. It was the first time I’d ever been west of New Orleans, much less into a foreign country, so it was kind of a big deal to me and I was taking pictures of most everything like the typical doofus tourist would. Anyway, as you come back over to the Texas border, there is a building on the U.S. side that pedestrians must pass through to be “screened†and occasionally have their bags searched. Well, before we entered this building, I took a couple of pictures of it. One of the uniformed LEOs inside came out pretty quick and told us that taking pictures of this building was not allowed—I’m pretty sure he was Border Patrol, but it’s been a while, so I’m not 100% sure. I really couldn’t imagine what harm these pictures could cause plus I’d had a little to drink so my initial thought was to answer with a three-word response that begins with “kissâ€. However, since we had yet to enter this building and the thought of a body cavity search inside said building didn’t sound real appealing, my response was something along the lines of “sorry about that—won’t happen againâ€. We were passed on through with nary a problem.
So… I don’t guess this really answers the original poster’s question about his friend’s incident, but this did happen to me eight years ago, so it definitely predates the Patriot Act. Now, what law, policy, rule, etc. this did fall under is a mystery to me…
-Chris W.