No doubt there are Russian spy-sat pix available with incredible resolution for sale somewhere online for $5 ... without the hour-long wait and the interrogation.

I wonder what could be the ratification of the agent to request that she deletes 2 photos. It seems like an insignificant act.

He explained to her that he didn't want to be identified personally with pictures of their car / license plate. That's reasonable on an individual level.

The problem is that in that situation he had a large amount of threatening influence, and used it to censor a journalist. There should be clear training and guidelines for how to handle this kind of thing, because letting individual guards make up rules on the spot to protect themselves isn't ok.