A photographer, whose work has been published in several newspapers, was harassed by police and issued an order banning him from entering any business establishment because he exercised his CONSTITUTIONAL right to take pictures on PUBLIC STREETS. According to the article in SEVEN DAYS:

For the last year or so, he’s spent many of his lunch hours shooting artsy, black-and-white photos of people on Church Street: homeless people, the elderly, families with children, anyone who catches his eye. He insists that all his photos are taken on public property, not inside stores or through the windows or blinds of private homes.

Dan Scott’s work has been featured in both the Burlington Free Press and Seven days. However he is primarily an amateur who posts most of his pictures on Flickr. Security guards and business owners who have no concept of first amendment rights or what freedom means tried to get Mr Scott to stop taking pictures. They reported his NON CRIME to the police who harassed and questioned him repeatedly. The police finally showed absolutely no respect for the constitution by issuing an order banning Mr Scott from doing business in Downtown Burlington. All this from a state which supposedly prides itself on a motto that includes the word “Freedom. How Ironic!

The article continues:

David Mindich, who chairs the journalism department at St. Michael’s College in Colchester, calls that approach “blatantly outrageous … Some guy who is exercising his First Amendment right to take pictures in a public place is being punished for it. That’s about as fundamental a right as I can imagine. I have no idea what could be the possible justification.”

Mr Scott is escalating the matter to the ACLU – we can only hope that they take up this cause and make the town of Burlington and its police force respect Constitutional Rights!

Photographers should contact the Mayor of Burlington and express support for the freedom to take pictures.

Here are the pictures Mr Scott takes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/38261591@N06/
It is unbelievable that the town of Burlington wants to stifle what is clearly artistic expression!

BWI Airport Loop,
originally uploaded by seikoesquepayne.

A photographer was harassed, detained and questioned for over 2 hours and then illegally forced to delete his pictures by police at the Baltimore Washington International Airport. According to the photographer:

A State officer arrived on the scene 15 minutes into the ordeal. Whereas the MTA cops were willing to live and let live, the State Trooper was on a Patriotic Mission to defend his country. He sat me down for over 2 hours questioning me and running warrants, convinced that I must have been up to no good, being less than a mile from a busy Internation Airport. His reluctant release of me was matched with a firm threat that if he saw me in the area again he’d have me thrown in jail. On what charge I’d love to know.

These incidents should be reported to the local chapters of the ACLU and lawsuits filed against the police departments involved. There is no excuse for the treatment this photographer received.

In a recent editorial Trains Magazine is fuming over Amtrak’s photography policy which targets railfans. According to TRAINS:

However, let me say I see one very serious issue, Amtrak’s sad blunder in continuing its sad policy that railfans can’t take pictures on Amtrak open-air platforms. This accomplishes nothing and actually takes one small step in removing some of our freedoms. A platform is public unless there is a compelling reason (perhaps a chemical spill) to evacuate the area, or unless some railfan does something stupid like walking in the middle of the tracks. In those cases, there should be removals. Lets also make no mistake about it. This rule is aimed ONLY at railfans. Terrorists would never make an open spectacle of themselves, and the rule says it’s perfectly fine for passengers or their families to take photos on the platform of Aunt Jane or cousin Joe boarding the train.

[...]

At the conference, Amtrak chose its wonderful police chief John O’Connor to break the bad news to us. O’Connor is a pure civil libertarian and perhaps the best cop I’ve ever known. He cast the rule as something that Amtrak never claimed till now — a way to let Amtrak know we are there so local citizens and police can be informed we’re legitimate unthreatening photographers if someone asks. Sorry, Chief, good try and I know you mean it, and it’s true that we’ll almost never be approached if we do take platform photos. But we’re still technically banned from places that have been open to us for more than a century. Something needs to be done about that.

The photo policy only allows ticketed passengers to be on the platforms even those that have no specific barriers or restricted entrances. And even ticketed passengers are allowed to take pictures only for a few minutes while waiting to board a train or within two or three minutes of having gotten off an arriving train. The policy is very restrictive and contrary to the virtual open door that Amtrak had given railfans for many years.

Railroad photographers have been important in documenting railroad history for over 100 years. Amtrak’s policy ensures that days, months and even years of potentially historical events and equipment moves will be lost. We too urge them to reconsider this anti-railfan policy. After all railfans are their biggest supporters and should be encouraged rather than shunned.

A Canadian photographer has decided to hang up his camera with respect to certain types of photojournalism. As we have been saying here, repeated harassment by police is taking its toll, it is having a chilling effect on public photography. We will never know how many photographers are afraid to take their cameras out in public because not all blog about it. Here is one photographer who tells his story and this paragraph is particularly moving:

The other stressor that has led to my decision to leave photojournalism is the attention I’ve received from police. Being surveilled many times over the past two years while exercising my guaranteed freedoms under the Constitution of Canada, in covering news stories for The Tyee and Megaphone Magazine, freelancing for such local NGOs as Pivot Legal Society and the BC Civil Liberties Association and supplying photos to the City of Vancouver’s Corporate Communications department, has left me with a chill. Should photojournalists who cover the underbelly of an extravagance like the Olympic Games expect to be made to feel as though we are under suspicion for … ? Regardless, I am unnerved by this enough to leave photojournalism/social justice photography behind altogether. It has a way of wearing on a person’s soul. Nice job policing the Games, VPD, but please leave the photographers alone … even those you may consider illegitimate.

While there are other reasons behind this photographer’s decision (click the link above to read the entire story), we feel that this paragraph stands out because this is precisely what the authorities want to accomplish one photographer at a time. We have seen railroad enthusiasts and bus fans hang up their cameras in the face of repeated harassment. Since they cannot pass laws against photography they are instead making life miserable for photographers with the intention of making them give up their hobby or profession. Score one for Canada’s finest.

We can’t make this stuff up:

Photojournalist Carlos Miller, who operates the Miami-based Photography is Not A Crime Blog was treated to a first hand account of the War on Photography as it is being carried out North of the Mason-Dixon line. He was visiting with a friend and happened to climb onto a pile of snow so that his friend could take a picture with his cellphone. No sooner had his friend clicked the shutter than an angry security guard appeared spouting such nonsense as “photograph is prohibited” and the classic:“This is private property. This belongs to the state.”

WHAAT!!! Private property belongs to the state?!?!? Making matters even worse the guard’s supervisor repeated the same lies. I guess neither of them care that New Jersey Transit has a photography policy that expressly permits photography in all “publicly accessible areas”. Imbeciles.

The text of Carlos’ story along with some pictures and a recording of the conversation with the guards can be seen and heard at the link above.

Watch and listen to the police LIE:

The photographer is NOT impeding traffic – the cop is a PATHETIC LIAR!

In an article entitled Photography Under Threat, the London Times is reporting on the United Kingdom’s crusade to virtually end all street photography. The problem in the UK is so widespread that it has gotten the attention of its mainstream media. According to the article:

Many photographers believe more is at stake than a few lost shots of iconic buildings. Eyeing up the fading light, they see darkness falling on personal freedoms and a whole strand of social history. “Look at the Victorians and Edwardians,” says Hobson. “Photographs tell us so much of what it was like then. We’re in danger of losing that.” And Simon Moran, a photographer who hosts the UK Photographers’ Rights Guide on his website, says: “Some of the greatest pieces of photographic art we have — reportage and street photography and cityscapes — wouldn’t be possible if people didn’t have the freedom to go around and take pictures without being stopped.”

One of the most beguiling properties of photographs is their ability to expand over time. When you capture an image, often spontaneously, it is a single moment framed in stillness. A child’s innocent smile, perhaps, a lover’s glance, a silhouette etherised against a sundown sky. Look again in 5, 10 or 50 years and that image will have grown far beyond a 7×5in print into a lost world all of its own: a life that might have been; a culture vanished; a childhood of happy, crazy days. Did we really wear those fashions? And look at that hair!

This is precisely the reason we support those who take street photographs. Police action is having a chilling effect on those who would otherwise freely go out and record their moment in time. Who knows what significance that picture may have in the future? Perhaps it will be the only picture of an obscure location.

For example a debate rages on today amongst rail historians as to whether or not the early 20th Century rail and racetrack mogul August Belmont ever used his private subway car to go to the races at Belmont Raceway, which he owned. Unfortunately there is no photographic proof so historians who made that claim are now being dismissed as having fallen for an urban legend. What evidence will there be that a Starbucks existed at a particular location if there is no photographic proof to support it 100 or 200 years in the future? What evidence will we have that a certain style of dress was in fashion or even popular in a given decade?

What also amazes us is how many people love to look at pictures of the past and marvel at the architecture and fashions. Yet those same people want to virtually shut down all public photography today. How do they think those pictures got into those books? Someone had to take them and those someones were public street photographers.

For whatever reason governments are engaging in open wars against photographers. This needs to end if we are going to have memories to look back upon.

This story is not about the War on Photography per se but we share it with our readers since it does contain a photography element. A pro photographer was taken for several thousands of dollars by scammers who set up a fake website purporting to promote a Wedding Expo. They then stole money from both prospective visitors and vendors alike. Watch the report:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act of 2000, which is responsible for the harassment of thousands of photographers across Britain, may very well be on its way out if Lord Carlile has his way. According to the London Evening Standard Lord Carlile, who is responsible for reviewing terror legislation:

said the use of Section 44 powers was having a “disproportionately bad effect on community relations” and had become “counter-productive” in the fight against terrorism.

He also revealed that not a single arrest for terrorism offences and only “morsels” of intelligence had resulted from more than 200,000 such searches carried out last year — 151,000 in the Metropolitan Police area alone.

Lord Carlile said this lack of success meant it was now time to repeal the legislation.

Police forces on this side of the pond should take heed. Harassing innocent photographers who are not breaking any laws serves no purpose other than to make people lose respect for authority and the law. Although the US does not have an equivalent law, police forces here are taking it upon themselves to act as though we do. All it has accomplished is to make photographers resent the police who harass them. As Lord Carlile said:

“The power given by Section 44 continues to cause a disproportionately bad effect on community relations, with the often inaccurate but genuinely felt belief that it is used in a discriminatory way. It has certainly been used in some instances without reason, let alone suspicion.”

Photographers know it all too well.

A photographer taking historically significant pictures of the Downtown Transportation Center in Las Vegas, was harassed and threatened by the goons who patrol the building. The building is going to be closed and demolished, therefore it is important that photographers are able to document its last days for historical reasons. Preventing photography of such sites constitutes preventing the recording of history and is unacceptable on that level alone.

Besides there is no posted sign that states that people cannot take pictures. The guards were rude and abusive. According to the photographer who tells the story in her blog:

Things got ugly. They demanded I erase, yes, erase, my photos. So I switched off my camera, showed them a blank screen and said they’re erased and they believed me. Next they told me I’m 86’d from the DTC, so now I’m trespassing. I showed them my bus ticket and said O.K., I’ll catch a bus. They said no buses for me anymore and I have to leave the property and they escorted me out. I pointed to across the street and asked if that’s their property. They said no, so I planted myself and took more photos. After 5 minutes I saw more gorillas coming my way, so I fled.

First of all – the guards LIED. The Downtown Transportation Center is NOT private property, it is owned by a government agency – the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada. According to the RTC website:

Downtown Transportation Center
300 N. Casino Center Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV
The Downtown Transportation Center, owned and operated by the City of Las Vegas, is a key transit operation and transfer site with RTC routes, City of Las Vegas City Ride bus routes and taxi and shuttle services using its facilities. The DTC has been operating at its full capacity for a number of years with an average of 48 departures per hour and the number is expected to continually increase based on demand. RTC representatives are available at the DTC to answer your questions about routes and schedules, sell bus passes, and process applications for CAT reduced fare photo ID cards. The Customer Service Booth operates seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 6

Nowhere on the website did we find a prohibition on photography. Then adding insult to injury the goons chased the photographer even when she had left and was on the public sidewalk and then prevented her from boarding her bus to return home.

Thanks to Photography is not a Crime for the heads up on this story