Wednesday, February 11, 2009

the blurring of the line between criminal and creative photography

Personally I don’t mind too much.
Western society does need to be aware of the possibility of bombs in public places. So if the police take down your name and details for taking photos then I think it’s a small price to pay to ensure that they have records of who did what. But if it comes to more than that, if they are intending to hold people with nothing stronger than suspicion, then I do have a problem. Especially as the gvt can hold you with out charging you.
So for this part of the civil rights issue that I defend and publicize and may attend this flash (heh) mob protest. The plan is to turn up to New Scotland Yard this coming Monday 11am and take photos the day this ambiguous law is passed. The law basically says

you are within your rights to take a photograph anywhere that is public property. Unless a policeman says you are not allowed, and then you are not.




On the same issue, Conservative MP Dr Rachael Joyce is on my side in this, but misses the point somewhat. She is annoyed that under the same law, PCSO’s have stopped her and a friend while taking photos outside Harrow Bus Station. She says
we were clearly not terrorists
as if there is a standard template of people who constitute terrorists. She seems to be saying that the police are wasting their time taking down the name of these particular individuals based on their physical- which must also incorporate their genetic- attributes.

2 comments:

Mandy said...

I find it weird that I moved from South Africa - where they used to detain people without trial and now that is against the law - to the UK where they can now do the same thing. Human beings just don't learn from the mistakes of the past.

Fantastic Forrest said...

I saw your comment at Emm's and came to check out your place. Very fun!

I'm intrigued by this post. Did you go to the protest? What happened? I think this law is dangerous.

Love your comments about Rachael Joyce's failure to understand the issue.

I'm teaching a social justice popular culture film course, and by odd coincidence the film I just showed, Come See the Paradise, set during WWII, showed Japanese-American internees' luggage being searched. Guards confiscated cameras. Excuse me? These people were being herded into camps.

Fear makes governments do very bad things.