Thank you, @macoolette! :)

Your initial thoughts were correct: you cannot simply take photos on NASA's property without a special pass (which many of my friends, pictured, had). I didn't have a pass (though I'd like to in the future), so was on a public beach in Port Canaveral.

Unless you mean my earlier photos from Kennedy Space Center? Those were in the visitor center, and they don't have rules about photos there, but it's just a museum complex, not a working facility.