# The desert sunset photograph > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The desert sunset photograph," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-desert-sunset-photograph/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The half-hour standoff John Kiriakou describes with Saudi security after photographing a desert sunset that happened to include the Ministry of Interior in the distance, resolved, he says, only when he produced his black diplomatic passport. He also explains that the ban on photographing American embassies from the street is Office of Diplomatic Security policy rather than law, because such pictures can be used to case a building.* - **Place:** Saudi Arabia - **Subject photographed:** A desert sunset, with the Ministry of Interior in the distance to the left - **Reaction:** Security attempted to seize his camera - **Duration:** A standoff of about half an hour - **Resolution:** Kiriakou produced a black diplomatic passport - **Related rule:** US embassy photography barred by Diplomatic Security policy, not law Asked by a viewer why it is forbidden to photograph the outside of an American embassy, John Kiriakou drew a distinction he considered important and then illustrated the wider problem with an incident from his own service in the Gulf. ## Policy, not law Kiriakou rejected the premise that a statute is involved. "They're not laws that you can't take photos," he said. "They're policy." The State Department's Office of Diplomatic Security does not permit photographs of embassy exteriors, he explained, "because they can be used to case the embassy."[1] He described the enforcement as physical and immediate: guards posted on the roof, others watching closed-circuit television, and a readiness to "run out and grab your camera."[1] The distinction matters to his account. The prohibition is a security practice maintained by the mission itself, not an offence a photographer could be prosecuted for, and the response to a breach is confiscation rather than arrest. ## The sunset in Saudi Arabia Kiriakou then offered his own experience of the same instinct in a host government. In Saudi Arabia, he said, he was photographing a sunset "that just happened to have the Ministry of Interior off in the distance to the to the left."[2] Asked whether the authorities tried to take his camera, he answered that they did.[2] He did not surrender it. "I stood my ground and it was a standoff for a half an hour," he said, and the Saudis "finally backed down when I pulled out the black passport."[3] The black passport is the diplomatic document issued to accredited American personnel; in Kiriakou's telling it was the only thing that ended the confrontation. He was insistent that the picture was what it appeared to be. "I don't care what the interior ministry looks like," he said. "I was genuinely taking a picture of a desert sunset."[3] [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall), who had raised a comparable experience of his own in a former Soviet republic, told him he believed it.[3] ## The two halves of the rule The episode places two mirror-image restrictions side by side: an American embassy that will send guards down to the street over a photograph of its own facade, and a host government that will hold a Western diplomat for half an hour over a ministry glimpsed at the edge of a landscape shot. In Kiriakou's account both proceed from the same worry, that a photograph is a step toward casing a building, and neither depends on the photographer's intent. The same conversation covered why American embassies overseas are built so large in the first place. ## See also - [Bigger than the Russian embassy](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bigger-than-the-russian-embassy) - [Embassy fortification after 9/11](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/embassy-fortification-after-9-11) - [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall) - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) ## Sources 1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-29), at 52:45. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsS7xFWrR6o&t=3165s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-29-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-29), at 53:17. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsS7xFWrR6o&t=3197s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-29-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-29), at 53:48. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsS7xFWrR6o&t=3228s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-29-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-desert-sunset-photograph/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt