Are all photographers terrorists now? (update)

I have blogged previously about the way that photographers are being increasingly targeted by the "powers that be", do read my old articles on this subject. Today I read in The Independent that:

"Reuben Powell is an unlikely terrorist. A white, middle-aged, middle-class artist, he has been photographing and drawing life around the capital's Elephant & Castle for 25 years.

With a studio near the 1960s shopping centre at the heart of this area in south London, he is a familiar figure and is regularly seen snapping and sketching the people and buildings around his home – currently the site of Europe's largest regeneration project. But to the police officers who arrested him last week his photographing of the old HMSO print works close to the local police station posed an unacceptable security risk.

"The car skidded to a halt like something out of Starsky & Hutch and this officer jumped out very dramatically and said 'what are you doing?' I told him I was photographing the building and he said he was going to search me under the Anti-Terrorism Act," he recalled.

For Powell, this brush with the law resulted in five hours in a cell after police seized the lock-blade knife he uses to sharpen his pencils. His release only came after the intervention of the local MP, Simon Hughes, but not before he was handcuffed and his genetic material stored permanently on the DNA database. "

and that:

"In the summer, armed police swooped on a group of trainspotters known as the Steam Boys as they waited with high-powered photographic equipment to capture a 1950s engine called The Great Marquess as it crossed the Forth Bridge near Gordon Brown's constituency home in Fife.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has also taken up the cause, highlighting the case last month of the photographer Jess Hurd, whose camera was taken from her when she was detained for 45 minutes under Section 44 while documenting a traveller wedding in London's Docklands. Last week police were filmed obstructing photographers covering a protest at the Greek embassy in London. Scotland Yard promised to investigate."

I also read in The Mail that:

"A Tory MP was stopped and searched by police on suspicion of being a terrorist after taking photos of a cycle path, he revealed yesterday.

Andrew Pelling was taking the pictures to highlight a 'long-neglected bicycle and pedestrian route' in his Central Croydon constituency to Parliamentary colleagues.

But as the cycle path was near the town's main train station, two police officers stopped him on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack.

Even when Mr Pelling, 48, showed the officers his House of Commons pass and explained what he was doing, they insisted on searching his bag.

After finding nothing of interest they sent the MP on his way. A police spokesman confirmed the December 30 incident, saying: 'The officer conducted a stop-and-search - taking into account the current terror threat - as he (Mr Pelling) was taking pictures in the vicinity of a major transport hub.' "

I have news for The Independent and the Mail, this is not about preventing terrorism, meeting crime detection figures or getting people onto the DNA database; it is about the Government through their uniformed wing showing the public who is in charge and who is in control and keeping the general populace cowed in fear and obedience.