U.K. police allowed to set their own restrictions on public photography
If you think it’s getting bad for photographers in the United States, just be bloody glad our forefathers broke allegiance from the King of England centuries ago.
After all, United Kingdom Home Secretary Jacqui Smith recently declared that local Chief Constables (police chiefs) have the right to restrict or set their own standards for public photography, according to the British Journal of Photography.
In other words, police in England will not only enforce the law, they will also interpret the law when it comes to photographers.
Smith announced the news in a letter to the National Union of Journalists, which had raised issue with the Home Secretary after it was determined that police were photographing and keeping a file on photographers and journalists documenting protests.
So while police in England are free to photograph photographers, photographers are restricted from photographing police.
Judging by this video, this decision is not going to be taken too kindly by the English people.
Smith stated the following in her June 26th letter:
‘First of all, may I take this opportunity to state that the Government greatly values the importance of the freedom of the press, and as such there is no legal restriction on photography in public places,’ Smith writes. ‘Also, as you will be aware, there is no presumption of privacy for individuals in a public place.’
However, the Home Secretary adds that local restrictions might be enforced. ‘Decisions may be made locally to restrict or monitor photography in reasonable circumstances. That is an operational decision for the officers involved based on the individual circumstances of each situation.
‘It is for the local Chief Constable, in the case of your letter the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force, to decide how his or her Officers and employees should best balance the rights to freedom of the press, freedom of expression and the need for public protection.’
The Home Office does not produce any guidance on photography in public places, and has not produced any specific guidance to [Forward Intelligence Team] officers, the Home Secretary says. ‘I recommend, therefore, that the questions in your letter are best put to the Commissioner.’
However, the NUJ is expected to meet with Member of Parliament Tony McNulty – Minister of State for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing – to further discuss the issue.
The issue came about because Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, had written a letter to Smith protesting against police surveillance of journalists and photographers.
Dear’s letter, sent to Jacqui Smith on 22 May, states that journalists and photographers are being monitored and recorded by the Metropolitan Police’s Forward Intelligence Team (FIT), adding that this surveillance amounts to virtual harassment and is a serious threat to the journalists’ right to carry out their work.
‘As you will be aware,’ he writes, ‘the FIT team have a responsibility to provide intelligence to police units in respect of individuals who may be involved in public order issues. “Targets” whose likenesses are retained by the police are given four-figure Photographic Reference Numbers and held on a database.
It appears that this “War on Terror” that the United States and United Kingdom have been engaging in is nothing but a War on Photographers. Or more precisely, a War on Civilians.
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Comments
Welcome to the Police State.
THE LARK PROGRAM
A Lady liberal wrote a lot of letters to the White House complaining about the treatment of a captive insurgent (terrorist) being held in Guantanamo Bay .
She received back the following reply:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20016
Dear Concerned Citizen,
Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Quida detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba .
Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinion was heard loud and clear here in Washington .
You’ll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like yourself, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the ‘Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers’ program, or LARK for short.
In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care.
Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday.
Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of complaint. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers.
We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter.
Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his attitudinal problem’ will help him overcome these character flaws.
Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home schooling.
Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group. He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.
Ahmed will not wish to interact with you or your daughters (except sexually), since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that he will recommend as more appropriate attire.
I’m sure you will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the burka — over time.
Just remember that it is all part of ‘respecting his culture and his religious beliefs’ — wasn’t that how you put it?
Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you keep us informed of the proper way to do our job. You take good care of Ahmed – and remember, we’ll be watching.
Good luck!
Cordially, your friend,
GEORGE W. BUSH
Jorge P. Bush, is that you?
I think you hit the nail on the head there, Carlos. What other Jorge has the resources to embark on these trips and score tickets to these exclusive venues?
It’s nice to know your politicians also watch lots of films, and like so many others, believe crappy plot devices like the terrorist scouting a location. SLR sound effects on top of freeze frames provides all the establishing shots and kills time so that a narrator can fill in the backstory. Everyone knows this is how terrorists prepare for an attack, from Omagh to London to September 11 to the USS Cole.
Next you’ll have to register digital memory cards (CFs certainly) since tairists with SLRs take lots of pictures and would clearly be the ones walking around with a pocket full of Utra-III 8GB cards.
[...] will not only enforce the law, they will also interpret the law when it comes to photographers.
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