Yet another story has surfaced about the authorities being overly heavy handed in response to photography. This time, it a Japanese man threatened and detained because he was taking photos from the window of a moving train. There are two important responses to this trend. The first is to stress that it is useless for security purposes. If there is a situation in which taking a photo would help a terrorist to achieve their objectives, no enforceable anti-photo policy will deter them. Anyone willing to plan or undertake a terrorist attack will be able to tolerate any punishment that could conceivably be imposed for taking photos. They are also likely to be able to take photos in a way that will not be noticed: either with sneaky hidden cameras or with a simple camera phone or by developing an awareness of when the authorities are watching. Banning photography in places like vehicles and bridges punishes photography enthusiasts and serves no security purpose.
Secondly, the ability to take photographs is an important check against the abuse of authority. Without the infamous videotape, it is likely that the Rodney King beating would never have received public attention and that the officers involved would have been able to lie their way out of the situation. Similar abuses, such as the inappropriate use of tasers, have been appropriately documented because people present had the capability and initiative to make a recording. Photos, videos, and other recordings can provide a vital record of interactions with authority: both allowing people whose rights are abused to provide evidence and allowing frivolous claims to be dismissed. A security force that is serious about good conduct and oversight has nothing to fear and much to gain from a bit of public surveillance.
More generally, banning photography is symptomatic of the demise of open society. While there are legitimate security risks that exist and reasonable steps that should be taken to protect against them, reducing oversight and individual liberty both undermines the very things we are trying to protect and creates new risks of abuse at the hands of modern society’s burly new enforcers.
[Update: 15 November 2007] This post on Classical Bookworm, about a recent incident at the Vancouver airport, highlights how important it is for private citizens to be able to record the actions of police and other security officials.
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Mama Don’t Take My Kodachrome
By fandango_matt on rights
Your Rights As A Photographer: As most of us are no doubt aware, the right to take photographs in the United States is being challenged more than ever–people are being stopped, harassed, and even intimidated into handing over their personal property simply because they were taking photographs of subjects that made other people uncomfortable. Recent examples have included photographing industrial plants, bridges, buildings, trains, and bus stations. Print and carry this pamphlet in your wallet, pocket, or camera bag to give you quick access to your rights and obligations concerning confrontations over photography. [via]
Related: UK Photographer’s Rights Guide, NSW (Australia) Street Photography legal issues, and the Legal Handbook for Photographers.
Busted
By Sylvia
There was an incident at the Vancouver airport one month ago. Four big white guys jumped a new immigrant to Canada, killed him, and then claimed it was self-defense. If not for a bystander who videotaped the whole thing, they would have gotten away with it. Oh, did I mention that the four guys were policemen?
Video Release Shames Vancouver
The video of the Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, age 40, being tasered to death at the Vancouver airport was released this weekend. I’d expect something like this to come out of the U.S. (certainly the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq) but to see this man tasered to death by the RCMP in Canada is astonishing (Dziekanski’s own actions are also unsettling). The footage was captured by a civilian with a camcorder that was then taken by the police, who refused to return the tape.
Tasered man’s last moments
IAN BAILEY
Globe and Mail Update
November 14, 2007 at 10:18 PM EST
VANCOUVER — Astonishing video footage released yesterday shows Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski did not resist police or confront them before officers zapped him with a taser, setting off a struggle that ended in his death in the international arrivals area of Vancouver’s International Airport.
The footage, shot by Victoria resident Paul Pritchard, was released to the news media yesterday and widely broadcast, providing a raw look at events that have prompted a furious debate in B.C. about the police use of tasers.
The debate isn’t security versus privacy. It’s liberty versus control.
You can see it in comments by government officials: “Privacy no longer can mean anonymity,” says Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence. “Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.” Did you catch that? You’re expected to give up control of your privacy to others, who — presumably — get to decide how much of it you deserve. That’s what loss of liberty looks like.
It should be no surprise that people choose security over privacy: 51 to 29 percent in a recent poll. Even if you don’t subscribe to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it’s obvious that security is more important. Security is vital to survival, not just of people but of every living thing. Privacy is unique to humans, but it’s a social need. It’s vital to personal dignity, to family life, to society — to what makes us uniquely human — but not to survival.
If you set up the false dichotomy, of course people will choose security over privacy — especially if you scare them first. But it’s still a false dichotomy. There is no security without privacy. And liberty requires both security and privacy. The famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin reads: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” It’s also true that those who would give up privacy for security are likely to end up with neither.
The War on Photography
What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are?
Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.
Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.
NYPD’s enforcement of non-existent subway photo-ban costing taxpayers a fortune in lawsuits
By Cory Doctorow on Photo
“A story about police in NYC citing non-existent rules to arrest subway photographers. Not only are they harassing innocent photographers, but they’re costing taxpayers thousands from the inevitable lawsuit settlements that follow.”
US ‘cell assault’ video released
US prosecutors have released video footage of a sheriff’s deputy striking a 15-year-old girl and throwing her onto a cell floor.
The video is evidence in the case against Washington state Deputy Paul Schene, accused of using excessive force against the girl in November.
Police brutality
The camera is mightier than the sword
Apr 16th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Mary Poppins’s best friend assaulting demonstrators
DESPITE the threats to destroy capitalism and hang the bankers, the real hero of London’s G20 demonstrations on April 1st may turn out to be an American fund manager. The anonymous capitalist accidentally filmed a policeman assaulting Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper vendor who was making his way home through the protest. Mr Tomlinson was clubbed from behind with a baton and shoved to the ground as he walked away from a line of officers, hands in his pockets. He subsequently died of a heart attack.
Just as the shock of that footage was receding, another video nasty emerged. In it a woman at a vigil for Mr Tomlinson on the following day is slapped and baton-thwacked by a different officer. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is now investigating both cases. Given that most of the 5,000-odd protesters had cameras, more may well emerge.
The Police – Your Freindly Guides
Film-maker Darren Pollard was clearing up flood rubbish from his front garden when he noticed the police and a teenager opposite his house. Darren retrieved his camera and this is what he filmed!
Fake DHS “photography license” for fake no-photos laws
By Cory Doctorow on Happy Mutants
All around the world, cops and rent-a-cops are vigorously enforcing nonexistent anti-terrorist bans on photography in public places. If you’re worried about being busted under an imaginary law, why not download these templates and print yourself an imaginary “Photography license” from the DHS? Who knows if it’s legal to carry one of these — probably about as legal as taking away your camera and erasing your memory card for snapping a pic on the subway.
US police fired over beating film
Five US police officers in Birmingham, Alabama have been fired for beating an unconscious suspect who had crashed his car in a police pursuit.
The attack on Anthony Warren took place in January 2008, but police video footage has only just been made public.
It was uncovered in March by prosecutors preparing a case against Warren for assaulting an officer, for which he was later convicted.
Officials said other officers had seen the video but never reported it
Sussex cops try to suppress publication of damning traffic-cam photos by claiming copyright
By Cory Doctorow on politics
The Sussex, England police are trying to suppress publication of images from speed cameras — images that show technical shortcomings in the cameras — by claiming that they are copyrighted. Copyright is meant to protect creativity; I’m not sure who the aggrieved artist is meant to be here. Is there some tortured constable who spent hours on a ladder getting the composition of the camera’s shots just right?
“It has been brought to our attention that the photographs from the Gatso camera, produced for your recent court case, have been published on TheNewspaper.com website,” Sussex Police Solicitor Alexandra Karrouze wrote to Barker in a June 28 letter. “The content of these photographs are the property of Sussex Police and publication of them is a breach of copyright. They should be removed from the website forthwith. If they are not removed further action may be contemplated.”
Sussex Police did not send any copyright notice to TheNewspaper, nor did Karrouze respond to requests for clarification and comment. The agency became particularly upset with Barker in May after he threatened legal action against the Sussex Speed Camera Partnership for insisting that he had been speeding even after his court acquittal. The agency had no choice but to issue a swift apology.
YouTube video sparks uproar at Western
Shows what appears to be six campus police holding a man down and periodically punching and hitting him
Anna Mehler Paperny
Toronto — Globe and Mail Update Published on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009 10:56AM EDT Last updated on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009 1:06PM EDT
A video of several campus police beating a suspect pinned to the floor of a campus building at the University of Western Ontario is causing an uproar after it was posted to YouTube Wednesday.
Famous architecture photographer swarmed by multiple police vehicles in London for refusing to tell security guard why he was photographing famous church
By Cory Doctorow on waronphotography
A crack squad of London cops — three cars and a riot van — converged on a famous architectural photographer who was taking a picture of Christopher Wren’s 300 year old Christ Church spire. Grant Smith, the photographer, refused to tell a Bank of America security guard what he was doing (he wasn’t on B of A property) and so the guard called in the police. When the police arrived, Smith was searched and questioned under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act.
Last week, the Association of Chief Police Officers issued a stern warning to British police officers to stop using Section 44 to harass photographers, saying, “Photographers should be left alone to get on with what they are doing. If an officer is suspicious of them for some reason they can just go up to them and have a chat with them – use old-fashioned policing skills to be frank – rather than using these powers, which we don’t want to over-use at all.”
Apparently, the message hasn’t been received.
“A camera, as a weapon, suits my fighting style much better than a gun or knife or stick. It poses little threat to children or innocent bystanders. It’s difficult for even me to endanger myself with one. And cameras require no special training to use (I did have to ask my twelve-year-old to show me how my cell phone’s camera worked). Best of all, cameras force people to stop focusing on how their violent behavior is making them feel at the moment, and consider how it is making them look, to others. When your intended victim turns a camera on you, you’ve lost control of the fight. It’s not just the two of you anymore. Whether your tantrum shows up on YouTube or CNN or in a court of law, everyone is going to see you doing this. Can you explain it? Can you justify it? Do you think you’re going to get away with it? Perhaps it’s the mom in me that wants to confront attackers with these questions, rather than blowing holes in them. “