This blog post and the accompanying video are hilarious, especially if you live in Washington, D.C. It’s a pretty good illustration of the bizarre marriage of bureaucracy and everyday life that makes up part of the city’s character. Apparently, security guards at Union Station, our gorgeous Beaux Arts Amtrak station/mall and the most-visited tourist attraction in the District, don’t like it when people take pictures of the building. According to the Fox report, Amtrak does not prohibit photography, but the company that runs the mall declined to comment on whether or not they have a policy.
As one commenter on the DCist post pointed out, in D.C. you may get in trouble for taking pictures of a train station, but in certain parts of Florida and Oklahoma, it is ok to take pictures up women’s skirts (via Feministing). That’s right. A public train station needs to be protected from photo bugs, but a woman shopping at a bookstore can’t legally expect protection from someone sticking a camera up her dress because she left her house?
Where are the overzealous security guards when we need them?
