Was photographer wrong to shoot pictures of military special forces exercise?

If you happen to spot fit-looking men lurking around your neighbourhood, they may not be baddies. The could be, as Robert Westbrook discovered recently, Canadian commandos.

The Port Hawkesbury, N.S., resident found his patriotism challenged recently when he stumbled on a secret training exercise by Canadian soldiers, including possibly members of Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), two blocks from his home.

According to CBC News, the 46-year-old freelance photographer went down to an abandoned telephone call centre near his house in the small Cape Breton town on Oct. 25 to check out some unusual evening activity. He thought perhaps the building had a new tenant, with the prospect of jobs for local residents.

As he approached and started taking photos, two men in civilian clothes confronted him, Westbrook told CBC News. One identified himself as a military policeman and the other, who called himself "Adam," said he was handling security for a military "training evolution," at the 10,000-square-metre building, which once housed 300 employees.

[ Related: JTF2 command 'encouraged' war crimes, soldier alleges ]

Westbrook told the men he was a freelance photographer. Adam later demanded to know his name and why he was taking pictures, CBC News said.

"He immediately got more aggressive and asked if I was patriotic, which I thought was quite a strange question, and I didn't really answer that because I didn't think it was relevant, and I said so," Westbrook told CBC News.

Westbrook, who recorded audio of the encounter on his smartphone and posted it on YouTube, said he was threatened with arrest and worried at one point Adam would hit him.

"He takes a few steps back and clenches his fist and jaw angrily," Westbrook wrote in an account he posted online. "I truly think for a moment that he's going to take a swing at me."

Adam suggested that Westbrook risked exposing the identities of Canadian soldiers to potential enemies, even though the photographer had not shot any pictures showing people's faces.

"By taking pictures and exposing Canadian Forces training, sometimes you're giving up secrets to people," Adam said, according to an account on FrankMagazine.ca.

Westbrook, who noted he hadn't known it was a military exercise until Adam told him, stood his ground when Adam said he knew the local RCMP detatchment commander, Sgt. Shelby Miller.

"So, I don't want to call Shelby Miller and have him come down here and deal with this," said Adam. "Clearly, you're not patriotic. Are you here as some sort of anti-government movement?"

Westbrook is an American married to a Canadian, and became a Canadian last August, CBC News said.

Adam left eventually but Westbrook said in his video that another man came to stand beside him until he packed up and left.

[ Related: Special forces deploy to Mali ]

CBC News learned the exercise involved members of Canadian Special Operations Force Command (CANSOFCOM), which includes JTF2, as well as the Canadian Special Operations Regiment.

"CANSOFCOM will provide the Government of Canada with agile, high-readiness Special Operations Forces capable of conducting special operations across the spectrum of conflict at home and abroad," a government website says.

JTF2 is the best known CANSOFCOM unit. It has its own Facebook page but details of its operations are closely held.

The unit operated in Afghanistan and the Toronto Star reported in 2010 that JTF2 was part of Task Force K-Bar, an international special operations unit set up in the first days of the Afghan war and tasked with gathering intelligence and killing top-level Taliban and al Qaeda leaders.

“It gave us credibility around the world,” one of the 40 Canadians involved in the mission told the Star.

The Frank Magazine piece said a post on Reddit supposedly written by a serving soldier suggested Westbrook may have stumbled on Frontier Sentinel, a joint Canada-U.S. military exercise in Nova Scotia last month.

It's hardly secret, having its own Facebook page that identifies Port Hawkesbury as a training location. And it includes photo of soldiers involved in the training.