CULTURAS IN VITRO
Say Cheese, for Airport Insecurity and for Art: A year ago a Canadian artist named Isabelle Devos discovered that certain camera-toting tourists going through airport security after Sept. 11 were being asked, as she said, to take a photograph to prove that their camera was not a security risk. [...]
Then airport security stepped in.
What was the problem? It was not that Ms. Devos had photographed airport screening machines and guards or that she was being irreverent about security. The problem, it turned out, was with the screeners. The practice of making tourists take snapshots to prove their cameras aren't weapons goes against American and Canadian policy.