As the NYCLU tells the story in their release, Wiita, who was taking pictures with his digital camera for a project to photograph 468 subway stations, was stopped by a police officer, handcuffed, and held on the street corner for half an hour. During that time, two more plainclothes officers arrived, asked questions, and requested to see Wiita’s photos before releasing him.

The Times of India reports that earlier this year, the police settled a suit brought by NYCLU on behalf of Indian documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma, who was detained in 2005 for filming with a handheld camera on a Manhattan street. Sharma's award-winning documentary Final Solution is a chilling look right-wing politics in India, specifically around the Hindu-Muslim violence in 2002. Ironically, the film frames the right-wing politics in India as similar to those of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Sharma has a detailed account of the harassment he faced by a plainsclothes police officer, plus a copy of his complaint letter in which he asks:

Do visitors to New York need police permission to click photographs and take random, candid shots on the streets of Manhattan? If not, was I deliberately misinformed and misled by one of NYPD detectives? Further, what should a visitor do when accosted by a seemingly 'off-duty' police officer and falsely accused of taking shots of "sensitive buildings"? Is the Metlife building a sensitive building and if yes, why are there no signs prohibiting photography? Did the officer have justifiable cause to detain and interrogate me for a prolonged period and cause my humiliation in front of hundreds of passers-by and customers at the local Starbucks outlet? Was the officer right in confiscating my passport? Though I was never arrested formally, I was not free to leave, not allowed to use my cellphone, not even allowed to buy water from Starbucks, right outside which I stood 'detained' on the sidewalk for nearly two hours!

Last year, I met another South Asian artist who was taking shots of a friend riding up and down escalators in a mall in Southern California – it wasn’t long after that Homeland Security started calling his house and coming over for awkward interrogation sessions. Part of me finds this whole thing semi-ridiculous because I know so many artists who find their inspiration taking pictures of the modern world: tunnels, bridges, subways, escalators, buildings, etc. I mean we are a generation influenced by the industrial/natural montages of Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi – what can we do? Perhaps the best way to remedy this situation is to do sensitivity trainings for the police, FBI and all Homeland Security employees by forcing them to smoke some weed and watch these films. Then maybe they’ll get why some people might want to take hours of footage of the sun glinting off the Brooklyn Bridge and leave us the fuck alone.