Keep track of your camera with CameraTrace
The most photogenic festivals in the world
Red eyes and how to avoid them
A love story
Nikon PB4 Bellows Reborn
Worlds Fastest Camera
Photojojo iPhone Telephoto Lens review — AudioCast
Photo Accessories that Fail Security Checks
My week with Q
Studio equipment buying guide for beginners
VSCO Film Studio Review
The wild blue yonder of straight horizons
Photo Tips
Shoot with Love
Photographing Children in the wedding party 
One Man Show: My 25 Years With Digital Photography
Sheer Heaven: Valentine Day Photo Techniques
How to Use Multiple Lights for Dramatic Portraits
Making your own flash diffuser 
Software Review: Tiffen Dfx 3.0 Suite
LR4 free presets: Faded series
A gift of flowers: unfold your senses
On Set of "Love & Robots" the Film
My Night with Ilford Galerie Gold Silk Fibre
FOTOMOTO - Why I Left
25 Wedding Photos That Break the Mould
Silhouettes & Photo Contests
Cyan, not just another color
Our 26 best photo projects of 2011
A Year of Blogs In Review About Experimental Digital Photography By Rick Doble
Family Ties That Bind
Animal Group Portraits
GALLERY — 5 Dead Saguaro Cacti On A Cloudy Day
Gallery: Embedded with the Territorial Army
10 case studies in exposure for outdoor photography
How to photograph Lord of the Rings landscapes
Interview with Vincent Laforet — Photo Journalist, Commercial Photographer, & Film Maker
Interview with Photographer Martin Evening - Photographer and Photoshop Author
A Brief History Of Light & Photography: Part 3 of 3
A Brief History Of Light & Photography: Part 2 Of 3
Decades of Evolving Personal Imagery in Photography
Lightroom Interview: Kevin Tieskoetter
Easy technique to select, edit and sequence keywords for web
How much should you charge for a photograph?Washington AG Calls Cops On Man Videotaping Him In Public Meeting
Republican gubernatorial candidate not happy videographer was Democrat
Washington State Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna was speaking to a group of fellow Republicans Wednesday night when he spotted a man with a camera.
He stopped speaking to confront the videographer.
“Hi, who are you?” McKenna asked. “Who are you with?”
Zach Wurtz told him he was with the Washington State Democrats.
McKenna told him he had not given him permission to record.
Wurtz reminded him that he was a public official speaking in a public venue at an event that was open to the public.
That seemed to cause all kinds of confusion for the Young Republicans inside the North Bellevue Community Center, who tried to block his camera, then finally called the cops.
Publicola, a Seattle news site, said that Wurtz was being paid by the Democratic Party to record the meeting.
And he was fully prepared for any type of confrontation.
Wurtz showed me a copy of the Bellevue Parks & Community Services Department facility use request form which states:
“The applicant agrees that, during the use of the Parks & Community Services facility [Name of Group] will not exclude anyone participation in, deny anyone the benefit of, or otherwise subject anyone to unlawful discrimination or harassment.”
He also showed me a letter he had from his attorneys at Perkins Coie that stated: “Please be advised that the individual carrying this letter is present on your property to gather information on behalf of the Washington State Democratic Party on matters of public interest. This individual’s presence and activities on your property—including filming political activities—constitutes core political activity robustly protected by the First Amendment … and [the] Washington State Constitution…”
The cops arrived and Wurtz left on his accord after telling them he was simply there to listen to McKenna speak.
But McKenna had already left, proving that he is unable to speak to the public if it doesn’t meet his strict standards.
And that tells us that he would only govern for the people that meet his strict standards.
UPDATE: The Seattle Times is covering the incident.
Comments
Let me say this now - Do not make this a Republican Vs. Democratic or a Democratic Vs Republican party thing - it could go both ways. Let's not talk politics here. I would be interested in the police response. Did the police encourage Wurtz to leave or did he leave because McKenna left? The video seems to cut off just as it started getting good. I don't know if I would have given my information to a third party on the phone with the police with a whole room full of people listening.
I think it's fair to say the Republican made this about not wanting to be recorded by someone working for the Democrats. He did ask who the photographer was with before telling him he didn't want him to record.
I think TS's point was that while it was a Republican who called the cops on a Democrat in this case, the reverse could also be true, and that to reduce this to mere political partisanship of Evil Totalitarian Republican vs. Heroic Freedom-loving Democrat runs the risk of missing the larger picture of photographer vs. anti-photographer, of which there are individuals on both sides of the political divide.
No doubt the party affiliations of those involved here played a part in the cops being called, but's it's not a stretch to imagine the same thing happening if the party labels were reversed. Turning this into a debate of whether Rs or Ds love freedom more isn't likely to be productive in this context.
Full disclosure: I'm a registered R, so it is appealing to me to not have this thought of as a bad R vs. good D thing. That said, I think it's reasonable to ask that this be debated in terms of the merits of photography, not of party affiliation.
"...to reduce this to mere political partisanship of Evil Totalitarian Republican vs. Heroic Freedom-loving Democrat runs the risk of missing the larger picture of photographer vs. anti-photographer, of which there are individuals on both sides of the political divide."
It seems like you just did exactly that by adding all of incendiary adjectives before republican and democrat.
Instead, you could have said something like, regardless of party affiliation this issue is more about all politicians and public figures being transparent and truthful and the public's right to document them in public.
Ah yes, because I discouraged the use of incendiary adjectives and provided examples of what I meant, I was actually encouraging the use of incendiary adjectives. Got it.
Edited to add: Alright, on second thought I admit that perhaps I should not have provided examples. Fair enough.
Actually, what I should have said was something along the lines of "no one appears to be making this an R vs. D thing until you just brought it up in the first comment. Carlos was just reporting who was who in this particular instance."
Yeah, it's reasonable to ask that it not be debated in terms of party affiliation, but at least let the debate start before being all concerned. Besides, it obviously doesn't help that much, anyway.
Agreed, Michael.
You could reduce this to the point of the fact that the man who is insisting that it's illegal for Wurtz to tape him is the Attorney General for the state and he either doesn't know the law or knows it and knowingly attempts to violate it.
This crap attitude of IOKIYSR goes back to Ed Meese.
The man is the AG he should already know the law.
How can you tell a politician is corrupt?
He is breathing.
dont make it a dem/rep thing. the reps already did that. this would never have happen at a DEM gathering of any type. the DEMS dont and would never act like that! never!
i find it very disturbing that no one there spoke up for him in that whole group of REPS, seems there were no Dems there? oh heck i would have loved to be there when this happened, he was as polite as anyone could have been, and they all were attempting to bully this man! a tactic well known to be done by the REPS!
"this would never have happen at a DEM gathering of any type. the DEMS dont and would never act like that! never!"
Why because party persuasion determines whether you like free and open government? Are you truly that delusional that this could never happen at a Dem meeting, I somehow doubt that. You ought to be careful about always and never, you will be proven wrong.
This is not a Dem vs. Rep thing it is a RIGHT vs. WRONG thing, as a lifelong Rep I am strongly unhappy about this behavior and I will be contacting the campaign about it. Here is a question for you to ask yourself, if the parties were reversed and your guy had done this, would your response be the same? If the answer in not absolutely YES then you are a hypocrite. Fundamental fairness demands the same treatement regardless of party affiliation. Double standards only serve to sully YOU and show what kind of person you are.
I don't care that this guy is of my party, if you are wrong you are WRONG.
is it my fault that Republicans are hateful and DEMS are not?
dont blame the messenger as it were.
and no I am not a DEM, i happen to hate just about all politicians, what Iroc says happens to be true. the only ones you can trust are the ones that are not alive! i just happen to hate reps more then dems for a very good reason, they are more evil by nature!
I like the announcement at the end, "Notice how we are all being civil." There is nothing at all civil, about denying someone there civil rights.
It is a republican vs democrat thing. That's obvious from the video.
This incident was obviously a R vs. D thing. The general issue of photography vs. anti-photography is not a R vs. D thing.
It shouldn't be an RvD thing, it should be a violation of civil rights thing.
I'm from Washington. I like what Rob McKenna has done as Washington State Attorney and I'm glad that he is running for office. However, I don't like what he did in this case. It's not smart and he shouldn't have made a scene about it.
I've worked on several Democratic campaigns (state and federal) and can tell you that for the last five years or so you rarely go to a public meeting with an elected official or a campaign rally/meeting without seeing someone from the opposite side (or a local blogger) with a video camera. A few years ago a videographer may have stood out a bit, but not any more.
Occasionally, the pol will say something like "we're being recorded here tonight, but that's okay, I'm not going to say something I wouldn't say to whole state!" (That's usually a good applause line). I've also seen a lot of eye rolling and the occasional quip towards the camera man about "getting a real job" or something like that (never from the pol, just the audience, maybe an uninformed campaign worker).
Its not left vs Right, Dem vs Rep. There are stupid people on both sides and occasionally, though not often in my experience, you get confrontation simply because its politics and tempers can flare.
Finally, any good Communications Director will tell their candidate to maintain full composure during a public event. (Silent) protestors are common and so are questions asked by an opposing party member (sometimes a plant by the opposing candidate, sometimes not). The worst thing a politician can do is claim the person is being rude or inappropriate by participating in the group / asking questions / holding a sign and, of course, video recording. This guy appears to not have read that memo... or he's just a really lousy campaigner.
Hey partisan pukes! So you want to push off the myth that dems are always nicy nicy to reporters while nasty repubs are always mean? I've got a wake up call 4 U right here: http://www.businessinsider.com/massachusetts-democrat-senate-campaign-th...
You can see my opinion of partisanship in general here: http://www.youtube.com/helmutdoork#p/a/u/2/Y2kz9bY_MJM
As far as I'm concerned as AG he broke the law and should withdraw from the race, resign as AG and remand himself to polce custody for criminal charges, however I bet not even an apology will be forthcoming.
Like others have said, it is completely stupid to make this a Republican vs Democrat thing.
The issue is openness of photography.
The tone and slant of this story, like many others here, ruin a lot of the content and quality.
Notliberal
"The tone and slant of this story"?
Do you honestly think if the videographer had responded that he was from the Young Republicans, he would have been asked to stop filming?
So Carlos, you prefer your site to go down the path of democrat vs republican political debate? Choose sides of who is better/worse for photographers? That should be "fun" to watch.
Do you prefer I just ignore this story altogether because it will cause some republican readers to get all defensive?
I never said it wouldn't have happened had the parties been switched. It has happened and I've reported about it.
But in this case, it's the republicans who did not want to be recorded and that's how I reported it.
I didn't say ignore stories.
I have great respect for this site and you, but isn't the framing of the issue - photographer/videographers against government (which is compromised of 99.9 democrats & republicans) and it's over-reach and the illegal abuse and arrest of us. From police and even the politicians themselves (Bob Etheridge assault on videographer on public street) on up to the DHS, TSA etc… with all the stories you have reported.
To break this down into one side political side vs the other - WE lose. And all the incredible work you have done is in the ether. IMO.
Our fight is not among photographers if republican & democrat. And you can see just by some posts here, it get sink fast and get snarky pretty quick.
We are photographers/videographers having our rights abused and infringed. As you so well enlighten and defend.
I can't help it if this particular story involved a republican politician who called the cops on a videographer who happened to be a democrat.
Those are facts of the story that can't be ignored.
So party affiliation was the reason for stomping on a videographers rights in a public forum? When you wrote "It is a republican vs democrat thing. That's obvious from the video." So it's not about the abuse of a photographer/videographers rights? It's about politics?
"Do you honestly think if the videographer had responded that he was from the Young Republicans, he would have been asked to stop filming?" I guess we will never know that. If I had guess - I would say yes. We have politicians of both parties that really don't think WE have rights - they do and control ours. And this should be the concern. No?
One could then wonder if it was a democrat who did the exact same thing to a Young Republican videographer - would the Seattle Times even have reported it? Or you? If so, from the same perspective you did?
Question. Was Emily Good the democrat or the republican in that story? Same for the cop? Which photographer/videographer has more rights? Republican or democrat? Who were the republicans or democrats at the Taxicab Commission Hearing ordering the arrest of reporters? That wasn't clarified in the story. Why?
We're into the politics of photographers/videographers rights and who tramples them the most. As too the issue of a politician threw a videographer wrongly out of a public forum - again!
So now I wonder, which party supports that Photography Is Not A Crime?
"So party affiliation was the reason for stomping on a videographers rights in a public forum?"
In this case, yes.
"So it's not about the abuse of a photographer/videographers rights? It's about politics?"
The reason that I wrote about it in the first place is because it is an abuse of a videographer's rights. But that abuse stems from political differences.
"One could then wonder if it was a democrat who did the exact same thing to a Young Republican videographer - would the Seattle Times even have reported it? Or you? If so, from the same perspective you did?"
I would have reported it in the same manner. Why would you doubt me?
"Question. Was Emily Good the democrat or the republican in that story? Same for the cop? Which photographer/videographer has more rights? Republican or democrat? Who were the republicans or democrats at the Taxicab Commission Hearing ordering the arrest of reporters? That wasn't clarified in the story. Why?"
I really think you're going off on a tangent here. The answers are obvious. I really don't have to time to break it down for you if you don't already see it.
"So now I wonder, which party supports that Photography Is Not A Crime?"
It's pretty much multi-party. We're a mix of republicans and democrats with a strong dose of libertarians and even a few communists.
It never fails. My republican readers once again prove to be ultra-sensitive when some idiot from their party acts like an asshole.
I've written countless articles of democrats doing the same to republicans.
But where were all the PINAC readers pointing out that this wasn't a partisan issue?
This incident was a partisan issue. That was evident when the AG ordered him to stop filming only after he identified himself to be from the Democratic party.
http://www.pixiq.com/article/gop-aide-accuses-union-organizers-of-forcin...
http://www.pixiq.com/article/congressman-assaults-student-videographer-o...
http://www.pixiq.com/article/congressman-etheridge-committed-battery-not...
http://www.pixiq.com/article/videographer-cries-foul-after-getting-tempo...
Carlos; OT, but did you see today's AP article on police loving the use of officer-mounted video cameras? http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/jul/09/police-say-wearing-tiny-video...
Good idea, actually, for lowering the number of false "officer soandso called me a suchandsuch, my civil rights were violated!" complaints; I do wonder, though, how many tapes will be erased as part of "standard procedure" when the cop *is* misbehaving...
I've been meaning to write something about these cameras. Police departments all over the country are beginning to use them more and more. Thanks.
But I'm wondering if we are going to have the issue where videos end up "missing" that could lead a police water into hot water.
HOW WILL IT LOOK WHEN THEY ARE CAPTURED TURNING THEM ON AND OFF DURING ONE STOP,ARREST,SITUATION OR INCIDENT? EXACTLY! AND THE FIRST PROVEN INCIDENT OF THEM ACTING AND TALKING DIFFERENT WHEN ON VERSUS OFF WILL CERTAINLY DAMAGE THEIR CREDIBILITY WITH THOSE. THAT TYPE OF PHOTOGRAPHY WOULD BE A CRIME. READ THOSE OFFICERS LIPS,PROFESSIONALS CAN DO THAT! DISCOVERY THAT..........VENTRILOQUISM..ARE THEY GOING TO TEACH THAT IN THE ACADEMY. THINK OF WHAT THEY WOULD LOOK LIKE WHILE DOING THAT OR ATTEMPTING TO DO THAT. CHECK NEWSCASTS PAST AND SEE JUST WHAT THOSE COPS SAY AND ARE TALKING ABOUT. JUST SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT. FUNNY ISN'T IT! CAPTURE ON MR. CARLOS MILLER. THANK YOU
This is going to be interesting.
We see every day, this site and news - of cops ordering us to not take photos or video them while we each are in public space. Illegally.
So now they are going to carry hidden (?) camera/audio devices?
IF a cop now stops us on a public sidewalk, do they have to divulge they are recording the event? And why can't we now order them to stop? We all now have a new question when stopped though - "are we being video and audio recorded by you officer?"
And what of a car stop? Will these wired cops need to first alert the one stopped they are being recorded while in their private car? And can we order them again to stop recording like they do? And if we then start our video camera or iPhone recorder if they are - I bet they will still demand we stop. What about those two way consent laws cops use all the time? hey they apply to "the people too". Not in our coming police states mind though.
The police departments now going down this road, may end up solving some of our problems. If they can in public? We can? If they can order us to stop? We can order them to stop too?
"it protects the officers" - love that line. Why do they think we record too?
Scary article with some of those quotes from law enforcement. More police state mentality IMO
Yeah, kinda like Obama. He only governs a select group that meet his criteria. The rest of us as left to fend for ourselves.
Here is the Seattle Times coverage of the incident.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politicsnorthwest/2015552541_democ...
"He added that "if a group doesn't want themselves recorded they should have that right. It's common courtesy, if not law.""
Yeah right, ..... gee I'm a in a group called the public and I don't want police recording us or any security cams recording us either. what a d-bag.
I love this video! The people hosting the meeting, and the speaker were quite civil, and so was the guy recording. Fairly clear cut, their use permit allowed him to attend, nothing prevented the recording, and he is quite correct that by running for office the speaker had no expectation of privacy (and shouldn't act surprised when he doesn't get it), and everyone else have incredibly shaky cases in almost all states that they have an expectation of privacy in a public meeting...
The great part of this is seeing an AG get that deer caught in the headlights look when confronted with the legal position he was taking, and I haven't looked it up, but it really would be great if he had sponsored legislation used to protect the actions of the recorder :)
Post new comment