Your national paranoia state at work

the resolution on the zoom is outstanding. you can see the friggin’ snow globes on the counter at the news stand. amazing.

Errr, your summary wasn’t quite accurate. Union Station is a place of business ordinarily open to the public. That means that they can’t get you arrested for trespassing without first telling you that you must leave. But once they tell you you have to leave, you have to leave if you don’t want to get arrested for trespassing. And yes, they do have the right to tell you not to do anything, cuz it’s their property, and no they don’t need to be consistent.

On the other hand, were they on public property, there are VERY FEW restrictions on what you can photograph (U.S. Military installations are one example). Most people who tell you you can’t take a photograph when you are on public property are simply wrong.

I’d be inclined to argue that if a privately owned space is opened to the public (has no apparent admission or discrimination of entrants) that it is therefore a public space and the public should have the same rights as if in a publicly owned space, i.e. ejection not on a whim of the private owner, but due to public nuisance, obstruction, etc. Naturally, everything perceptible to the human senses in such a space should be permitted to be recorded without constraint (as in a publicly owned space).

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