Starting this week we will begin an in depth look at how each of the 50 United States perceives photography by looking at each state’s Department of Homeland Security web page. We will start with Alabama and then move to Alaska. From there, we’ll continue alphabetically through all 50 states, compiling them in our list, “The United States vs. Photography.”

The process should take a couple of weeks to complete, and each state will be graded using our own Photography Advisory System, which is a parody system based on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Advisory System. But rather than using our system to manufacture terror and instill fear in the public, we will do the opposite, and use our system to show how paranoid our government is when it involves people taking photos in public.

We also hope that our research will help advise photographers and tourists on which states are not friendly to them. We don’t want anyone unlawfully detained, harassed or arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights within a state that will happily take your money but not respect your constitutional rights.