Photography rights: Snappers to descend on Scotland Yard

Nail 'em up now!!!

I work near Piccadilly in London, a quick wander around the area will show hundred of tourists happily snapping away at Buck House in full view of the plod! Then you walk over to Clarence House, more of them there terrorists, with plod still doing nothing!!! FInally you come around St Jame's Palace and there are armed military AND Police grunts, yet more terror-tourists snapping without a care in the world! I have even seen Plod grunts posing with tourists in the photos, in front of said places!

This is simply not good enough and want our beloved Home Sec that wondeful Mr Smith to come over from her office and witness this blatant disregard for the laws she valiantly fights to put in place for our protection!

So I Can't Ask my Family

"The new law makes it an offence to elicit or attempt to elicit information about an individual who is or has been a member of Her Majesty’s forces, a member of any of the intelligence services or a constable, "which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or publishes or communicates any such information"."

WTF, so potentially asking either my dad (former copper) or my 92 year old grandfather (former WW2 squaddie) where there planning to go on his holidays is illegal?

Or asking anybody over the age of 16 about "something of a kind likely to be useful to a terrorist" ,without checking whether they'd been in the forces or police, is fraught with the danger of being charged.

Stupid stupid stupid

Well...

...this is what you get for voting in a communist government. You all wanted it, because you voted for it. Twice.

So fuck you all. STFU and reap what you sowed.

Tossers.

Blatant Double-Standards Piss-taking

Meanwhile ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7883181.stm

Everything is illegal but...

they only use the laws against the bad people. If you are doing nothing wrong then even if it's technically against the law you will be OK.

Weeeellll, generally this is the case, BUTon occasion police do things which really are not right. The police we have now are not the same as in the past.

Example, during this weeks floods, traffic was having problems navigating through the deep water where the river had flooded onto the road. What was needed was someone to control the traffic flow to make it easier for people to drive through. Ofcourse the (plastic) police were on the next street with a speed gun looking for speeders to nick.

I've got an idea: pre-printed excuses!

"In line with the model used in related laws, the offence itself is "strict liability": it is the gathering of information that will be deemed to be the offence, and a defence that the person had a "reasonable excuse for their action" is only allowed after the offence has been charged."

While the "reasonable excuse" only counts "after the offence has been charged", I'm sure the police wouldn't mind knowing, in advance, what that excuse is likely to be.

So, how about pre-printed excuses?

When the police officer first intervenes, just say, "Here's the excuse I'll use in court if you try doing me for taking photos." Hand the officer the sheet of paper concisely stating the planned excuse. Then the police officer can see what the court will be told by your defence team if it ever goes to trial.

Of course, plod might decide to ignore the pre-printed excuse. "Okay," you say, "have it your way, and leave yourself in the dark." Even if plod persists in keeping themself at a disadvantage, you've still got that evidence of your excuse for use in your defence during your trial. And when, during your interrogation down the local nick (or in Paddington Green police station, because you're a terror suspect), they ask you why you were taking photos, just refer them to the pre-printed excuse as your answer.

But what should such a pre-printed excuse say? A lawyer's help in drafting it would probably be a good idea. But one idea, for use when photographing demonstrations and protests, is the following:-

"My reasonable excuse for taking these photos is for use as evidence in the event of police officers abusing their powers against a lawful demonstration."

And at the bottom of the pre-printed excuse, be sure to have something like the following, in big print and bold:-

"IF THE POLICE AREN'T DOING ANYTHING WRONG, THEY HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE, AND NOTHING TO FEAR."

Don't they realise

1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a fucking "how to" manual

The problem is enforcement...

Soon you will see headlines to the effect:

"Police Photographed In Brutal Camera Confiscation."

And there's the rub. Even if you wanted to take cameras off the streets for your own sinister purposes, there will always be some kid with a camera phone and a youtube account watching while you do it. Let's face it, the last decade has turned cameras into even more of a cultural phenomena than ever before. The image of hundreds of people raising their phones up above the crowd to try and get a shot has become inexorably become linked with practically every major event to take place since the common pairing of those two devices.

1888 cabled guys, they want their legislation back, STOP.

@Well

"...this is what you get for voting in a communist government. You all wanted it, because you voted for it."

Well at the last general election (2005) only 61.3% of people bothered to vote and only 35.3% of them actually voted Labour (compared to 32.3% Tory and 22.1% Lib Dem).

So only 21.6% of the set of all voters "wanted it" whereas 39.7% "wanted something else" and 38.7% failed to express an opinion.

Please check your facts before running off at the keyboard all cross eyed and frothing.

(and last time I checked the Labour party were more right wing than the Tories, hardly communist, although they have now started nationalising the banks which was part of their manifesto in the 80's when they were communists)

Time to remind people ...

... the police are public servants whilst on duty. Unless there is a specific reason, such as working on a covert mission, they have no rights to anonymity. Certainly, if in uniform, they should have no rights to act without the observation of the general public. That is how control of the forces of government is maintained.

Time to get a camera with a live link to a server somewhere else, I think, prior to leaving this stinking country forever.

AC for obvious reasons.

Yet another Govenment pilice for Police to enact.

ON top of all the legislation and new laws introduced in Labour's tenure there is now another almost unenforcible piece of law that will please the anti terrorism spin doctors from the government and add more work for the police. I see police and pcos who have there photo taken all the time around London particularly on Westminster Bridge, are all the tourists going to be stopped from taking photos and arrested, I doubt it, when there is a crime scene are all the people who are clearly journalists going to be stopped and arrested, somehow I think the police resources would be busy dealing with the crime itself. I think that within reason the police would have questioned those they were suspicious of taking hostile photos of them under the TA2000 so its not necessary for the new piece of legislation

This will solve itself

Since it is illicit to obtain identification information about these groups, they cannot:

A) visit any area under CCTV surveillance, since this will identify them. This includes most shops, so it should be hard for them to obtain food.

B) be admitted as patients at any medical facility. This requires them to be identified

C) get any banking services, due to the identity again

D) Travel by plane

E) receive any public service or pension.

etc.

It will also be a crime for the press to give coverage of any politician that has civilian-dressed New Scotland Yard bodyguards (this includes the entire government). Good thing their opposition will get all the press coverage, isn't it?

obtw, I just added UK to the same list as USA: Places I'm not likely to visit before their laws are made to be in compliance with the international declaration of human rights.

//Svein

Protest

Well, I attended the protest. About 300 people in all, a good mix of amateurs and professionals, TV and print media. The Guardian and Associated Newspapers had journalists interviewing protestors, so there's a good chance I'll be misquoted in the Daily Mail tomorrow.

I now have a nice 'I'm a photgrapher, not a terrorist' sticker as well