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.