Archive for the ‘Photography and the Law’ Category

A Canadian photographer has decided to hang up his camera. 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.

This is precisely what the authorities want to accomplish one photographer at a time. 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:

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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

We are not surprised – here is yet another story emanating from the country that has declared open war against photographers. In this incident a photographer who took some snapshots of what appeared to be a newsworthy event of police swarming on Kidlington High Street was himself detained and harassed by a police officer who demanded that he delete the pictures. According to the story:

Mr Russell said: “They told me to delete the photos and I said ‘no’.
“It is not illegal and he should have known it is not illegal.
“There was nothing wrong with taking photos of police in the street but he would not listen. I thought if I tried to stop him it could turn nasty.”
[...]
When the details came back clear, Mr Russell demanded paperwork for the stop-and-search.
The form says Mr Russell was stopped for ‘taking pictures on High Street, Kidlington, of police. Refused all details. Not recognised [sic] by officers’.

The United Kingdom is going from bad to worse every day….

In what appears to be becoming a daily occurrence yet another photographer was harassed in Britain. This time he was accused of being a pedophile for taking pictures of HIS OWN SON!

“A few minutes later a policeman walked in and approached me, so they must have been tracking me on the CCTV.
“He said he’d received a complaint that a man matching my description was taking pictures of children and wanted my name and address.
“I told him it was ridiculous because it was my own son. He then started asking me what I was doing in Sunderland, asked for my name and address and told me he had the right to delete my pictures.
“I got annoyed and raised my voice a bit, then he threatened me with arrest for breach of the peace.”

The rude and insensitive security guard that initiated the encounter and contacted police told the photographer that there is a big problem with pedophiles at the Bridges Shopping Center. If the problem is so big then perhaps it is time that families with children avoid going to that place.

The photographer should sue the guard, the officers and the shopping mall for defamation of character and slander!

A photographer taking pictures of smokestacks in Champaign, Illinois was harassed by three police officers because he had the nerve to pursue his hobby of public photography “In this day and age” As the photographer tells the story in his blog:

Eventually two other cops showed up, one of whom repeated the line about “this day and age” and whether I understood why they stopped me, while the other amused me by asking if I was part of any ecological student groups on campus.

What we do not understand is that comment by the officers. The law has not changed “in this day and age” – public photography is PERFECTLY LEGAL and cops have no excuse for not knowing that (ignorance of the law is no excuse officers!!). Unfortunately photographers simply complain in their blogs or on the internet instead of filing formal complaints with the local chapters of the ACLU. Legal and political pressure must be mounted against these police tactics until all harassment of photographers ends.