"My cameras don't explode"

[RML]

I read a cool book years ago called "A Prayer for Own Meany". The underlying premise was that everyone had an important role to play in life. Few feople ever discover the nature of that role but it is there nonetheless.

Bill Mattock: your role in this life is to form a photographers' rights group and become its president and most outspoken member. Think big and make it international. I'll sign up.

As odd it may sound, it could be a good idea. And I guess Bill would make a good president and spokesman.

 

[bmattock]

I read a cool book years ago called "A Prayer for Own Meany". The underlying premise was that everyone had an important role to play in life. Few feople ever discover the nature of that role but it is there nonetheless.

Bill Mattock: your role in this life is to form a photographers' rights group and become its president and most outspoken member. Think big and make it international. I'll sign up.

You're probably right - I keep rotating around to this, don't I?

And here I thought my role in life was to be an annoyance.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

Another take on this:

My wife is young and attractive. When we lived in London she went swimming every day, one straight hour of lengths. So she's fit too.

Once every couple of weeks a guy would show up, same guy every time, with a videocam and film her swimming up and down.

It made her feel very uncomfortable.

Jon,

I don't know what the laws in the UK are regarding this - and I do not know if your wife and the video dude were 'in public'. All I can do is transpose the situation to the USA to address it.

First, I am not surprised that it made your wife uncomfortable. It would make me uncomfortable, too. The question has never been whether one is 'right' to feel uncomfortable, unsettled, angry or as if one's privacy has been invaded. Of course it is understandable that she would feel that way.

The question is, what should be done about it? Should it be a crime that someone else be made to feel uncomfortable? And if that is true, where do we stop? There are many things that happen to me when I am in public that make me feel uncomfortable, shall we pass laws to attempt to prevent this from happening?

I have said this before - in the past, it seemed that we all understood that being in public meant 'taking no offense' - now it seems we have rotated that to the point of 'giving no offense'.

Laws are seldom scalpels - they are bludgeons. Let's say that we decide that your wife, and all women in similar situations, should be protected from creepy men with video cameras who make them feel uncomfortable. So we pass such a law, and now when your wife sees the fellow, she calls the police and he is arrested. Justice is done, your wife can swim in peace.

Of course, the fellow who used to take photographs in the public square is now netted by this law too, because someone complains that they are made to feel uncomfortable and the law is so broadly-written that he is swept up in it. The fellow at a football game who is taking photos of the players is reported by the father who thinks he is actually taking photos of his teenage cheerleader daughter. Even the paranoid parent at a graduation can have all the photographers there arrested because it makes them uncomfortable that their precious child is being recorded by who knows whom for God knows what reason.

Am I taking this too far? Would this never happen? I don't think so, it has happened in Texas already. A law designed to prevent perverts from taking bathroom and upskirt photos is stopping them, all right, but is also resulting in the arrest and near-prosecution of just your regular average photographers who like to take (innocent) photos. And the thing is, there was already a law on the books that made bathroom photography illegal - the lawmakers were just overreacting to a (quite proper) outcry against the nasty little upskirt photographers. As is usually the case, they went overboard with their law.

And so I ask you - is this the price we want to pay to prevent your wife being made to feel uncomfortable?

I am not making light of your wife's discomfort. As I've said, it is quite understandable. What I've been attempting to say is that in a free and open society, where we wish to preserve the maximum liberty possible while keeping people safe, it sometimes means we have to put up with being made to feel uncomfortable - if the alternative is an unwarranted clamp-down on the rights of those who have done no wrong as well as those who it is intended to stop.

I worked in a modern hi-rise building once where one guy had his desk turned around to face outside instead of the rest of the desks, which were all angled inwards. I asked about it, and was told that the guy who sat there had bulging eyes (like Grave's Disease victims) and he had been complained about by several of the female employees on that floor. They were made to feel uncomfortable because he 'stared at them with those creepy eyes.' And his eyes WERE creepy, no doubt about it. But to protect their feelings, he had to turn his desk around and avoid looking at people, or lose his job.

I feel there is a limit to what one can or should be able to legally do about being made to feel uncomfortable.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Bill

I agree with you 100%. Thank you for such a complete response.

If my wife had complained I am sure the pool management would have banned photography.

But where does that leave the mother who wants pictures of her own kids on their first day at the pool?

 

[Andy K]

I worked in a modern hi-rise building once where one guy had his desk turned around to face outside instead of the rest of the desks, which were all angled inwards. I asked about it, and was told that the guy who sat there had bulging eyes (like Grave's Disease victims) and he had been complained about by several of the female employees on that floor. They were made to feel uncomfortable because he 'stared at them with those creepy eyes.' And his eyes WERE creepy, no doubt about it. But to protect their feelings, he had to turn his desk around and avoid looking at people, or lose his job.

If I was that guy I would have sued the company for discrimination and for causing me undue distress and humiliation.

 

[Andy K]

It surprises me that someone was allowed into a public swimming pool with a video camera. I have always been under the impression that cameras were not permitted in swimming pools in Britain unless there was a sporting event taking place. It is certainly somewhere I would not dream of taking a camera.

 

[Nikon Bob]

I think Bill, and others, are absolutely right when they say that you loose something a little at a time. What to do about it and when are the contoversial points and authourity likes it that way. The old divide and conquer principle. I have seen this happen in another hobby than I used to enjoy and it took 20/25 years to get to the point that I quit. Nwcanonman is also right in that the security that we have today is just a public pacifier to make people feel good. The very term Homeland Security brings shudders to my spine as it conjures up visions of The Vaterland. The situation mentioned at the start of this thread is laughable now but will it be in years to come?

Bob

 

[bmattock]

If I was that guy I would have sued the company for discrimination and for causing me undue distress and humiliation.

He was a contracter like me, and he was afraid of losing his job. Frankly, he was a broken man. He stared at the floor and refused to look at anything except people's feet when talking to them. It was only by accident that I actually got a look at his face once and could see how 'weird' his eyes were. I don't think you could have done anything more to him, he was all done.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Andy K]

Bill, words cannot describe how horrifying, sickening, disgusting I find it that someone could be so blatantly discriminated against purely because of the way they look.

 

[bmattock]

I think Bill, and others, are absolutely right when they say that you loose something a little at a time. What to do about it and when are the contoversial points and authourity likes it that way. The old divide and conquer principle. I have seen this happen in another hobby than I used to enjoy and it took 20/25 years to get to the point that I quit. Nwcanonman is also right in that the security that we have today is just a public pacifier to make people feel good. The very term Homeland Security brings shudders to my spine as it conjures up visions of The Vaterland. The situation mentioned at the start of this thread is laughable now but will it be in years to come?

Bob

Although I am tempted at times to believe in a conspiracy involving 'them' and their desire to curtail our rights, I am actually more likely to believe that it is often enough a series of well-meaning laws passed by generally well-meaning politicians who just aren't all that bright, or that caring. Not that their aren't conspiracies, large and small, but rather that most such things are the result of the 'slippery slope principle' and sloppy law-making that over-reaches.

Yes, "Homeland Security" is a creepy term. Here's my paranoia - I saw this coming in 1999, when the Rand Corporation released their study recommending the creation of a Department of Homeland Security - two years prior to 9/11. I downloaded it and studied it, and told my wife that if she ever heard a President say "Homeland Security" to be ready to run for cover - freedom as a concept is pretty much over.

I was less correct about that (it is taking awhile and meeting some resistance), but yes, I saw it coming, and I got a few 'told-ya-sos' in .

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Krasnaya_Zvezda]

OK, finally got around to posting the photo of the building they were afraid I might be plotting to blow up.
Don't bust a gut laughing. As I said before, it's already blown up!

 

[Nikon Bob]

Bill

The first rule on conspiracy theories is to not believe the do not be paranoid rule. A certain amount of paranoia is healthy especially today. Have a good day and I hope you don't get to say too many "I told you so's" on the same subject in the future. Me, I am a cynic and hold little hope of that.

Bob

 

[DougK]

Whew, I thought I was the only one who was creeped out when I first heard "Homeland Security"... I guess my history degree WAS good for something after all 🙂.

On a side note, a while back at a previous job, I refused to manage a project implementing certain provisions of the Patriot Act at a large financial institution (which gave the government way too much power to peek into your private life). When my manager stormed into my office demaning to know why I refused to work on the project, I handed her a printed copy of the Consitutution and said "Because I took an oath years ago to defend the ideas on this page with my life if need be... the responsibility didn't end when I took off my uniform. This document trumps yours. If you want to fire me for that, go right ahead." I was reassigned to another project without further comment. I believe the project was later cancelled anyway, but it still creeps me out.

About the point Frank made earlier, Bill, I think this is indeed your calling. Contact me if you decide to go that route, I'd be happy to contribute in whatever way I can.

 

[peterc]

it's already blown up!

A botched attempt at camouflage! It's obvious from the angle of the supporting timbers and the precise brickwork that this is a TOP SECRET and HIGHLY SENSITIVE military establishment. Were it to be destroyed freedom and democracy would tumble like dominos. 😀
Nice shot of a ruin by the way.

Peter

 

[RJBender]

....But where does that leave the mother who wants pictures of her own kids on their first day at the pool?

That sounds like a job for the thought police. 🙁

R.J.

 

[RJBender]

Another take on this:

My wife is young and attractive. When we lived in London she went swimming every day, one straight hour of lengths. So she's fit too.

Once every couple of weeks a guy would show up, same guy every time, with a videocam and film her swimming up and down.

It made her feel very uncomfortable.

You and your wife could have made the guy uncomfortable if you would have shown up with 2 supersoakers and started playing soakertag. 😛

They can also be modified into flamethrowers if water proves to be ineffective.
http://gprime.net/video.php/supersoakerflamethrower

R.J.

 

[RJBender]

Whew, I thought I was the only one who was creeped out when I first heard "Homeland Security"... I guess my history degree WAS good for something after all 🙂....

Yeah it's that land at the end, similar to fatherland or motherland, that sounds strange. I don't recall hearing the USA referred to as homeland before 2001.

R.J.

 

[RJBender]

He was a contracter like me, and he was afraid of losing his job. Frankly, he was a broken man. He stared at the floor and refused to look at anything except people's feet when talking to them. It was only by accident that I actually got a look at his face once and could see how 'weird' his eyes were. I don't think you could have done anything more to him, he was all done.

If he was an independent contractor, how were they able to hassle him about looking at female co-workers? Were the female co-workers also independent contractors or were they employed by the company he subbed for?

Did his eyes look like Marty Feldman's?

R.J.

 

[jan normandale]

Homeland was probably a name hatched by a bunch of spin doctors who needed a way to change thinking about National Security to a more positive idea when various curtailments of rights are instituted.

 

[Nikon Bob]

Homeland was probably a name hatched by a bunch of spin doctors who needed a way to change thinking about National Security to a more positive idea when various curtailments of rights are instituted.

If that is the case, they were out to lunch historically speaking.

Bob