I believe pretty much what you wrote. Having discussed it with friends who are both former deputies, they said a lot of what I heard from Disney Security was just made up. As you say, it’s a tactic. Sadly, it’s a stupid tactic that really doesn’t accomplish anything positive for the business that they’re supposed to support. At the time, I wasn’t aware of Guest Relations. Should this ever happen again, I’ll take that advice and visit their office to see what happens.

I think you’re putting way too much faith in what Don said to you. There are a lot of dumb people who think cameras and terrorism go together but I doubt that he’s one of them. I think he was jerking you around.

For many years until 2008, I lived in Orlando and have a good friend who worked at Disney World Security for 8 or 9 years. He said that sometimes the topic of photographers would come up. Some of them felt that they should be suspicious of people with fancy cameras or lots of equipment being professional photographers but others thought that was ridiculous and they shouldn’t bother people just because they have a nice camera.

At least one of those security officers you encountered didn’t believe you about being a hobbyist– despite any conversations you had with them– or they wouldn’t have gone to a supervisor. They wanted to make you go away because they suspected you of being a professional photographer. You didn’t get the hint and leave on your own right away so they escalated it. They never thought you were a terrorist. That was a load of garbage they fed you to make you nervous and throw you off balance. The people at Disney World Security are smart enough (well, most of them are) to know that cameras aren’t terrorist threats. As you noted, it’s a well photographed place and your comments to them about that didn’t change the situation because it didn’t really have anything to do with the situation. Unless they are concerned about an immediate danger, they would not confront a suspected terrorist but would discretely contact the authorities and the person would be followed.
The terrorism thing was an excuse of convenience to harass you and make you go away and not want to come back. How can you defend yourself? By telling them not to be concerned about terrorism? How can you, or any of us, prove that you aren’t a terrorist? It’s a head game they play. A stupid game, for sure, but a game nevertheless. So was insisting on your ID and taking pictures of you leaving and following you out. They believed you were a professional who was lying about being a hobbyist and they wanted you to leave. They got what they wanted.

Don’t believe everything security people tell you, especially if you are in a confrontational situation. Very often their goal is to manipulate you in the easiest way they can think of. Remember, they deal with lots of people every day and they can be a lot better at this than most people.