I can’t believe how fast time seems to pass. I started this blog two years ago in direct response to the proposed regulations that would have required permits for virtually all public photography in the City of New York. Along the way I kept stumbling upon stories of photographer harassment throughout the United States and abroad and the blog took on a life of its own. The proposed permit requirements in New York never passed, but the harassment continued culminating in an arrest of a photographer earlier this year for taking pictures on the subway, something that is specifically permitted by affirmative statute. The NYPD has since issued a directive to its officers that photography is legal yet as the recent incident in Red Hook, Brooklyn reminds us the harassment has abated but has not ended.

In the two years that we have been operating we have posted close to 400 stories. That is one incident every other day. Since we can only post the incidents that we become aware of through sites like Flickr or major news reports, we can only imagine that there are countless other stories that are going unreported.

Our goal is to keep reporting each and every incident we find out about in the hope that public exposure and embarrassment will finally convince the authorities (police and private security) to end this harassment once and for all. We will continue blogging until we can truly report that carrying a camera will draw no more attention from a police officer than carrying a newspaper.

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