News photographer arrested on Long Island for videotaping police

Damaso

Damaso

Photojournalist
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Jun 20, 2007
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Heavy sigh

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/...rested-on-long-island-for-videotaping-police/

"A freelance news photographer was arrested Friday and charged with obstruction after he was ordered to stop videotaping police. An officer told the photographer, Phil Datz, to “go away,” after which he moved down the street and resumed taping. Despite being a credentialed member of the press and standing in a public area around other people, he was arrested and charged with obstruction of governmental administration. In May, a woman in Rochester, N.Y., was arrested on her lawn after videotaping police. Gizmodo reported last year that more people are being arrested for videotaping police, often under laws that prohibit eavesdropping without all parties’ consent. Recording the police in public is legal in New York."
 
Can only commend the photographer for persistence. I could not afford to do what he did but I certainly applaud him/her.

IMO, this is the behavior that laws were created to help prevent. Cops and power. Totally sucks.:rolleyes:
 
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WE NEVER MAKE MISTAKES

or, to quote a British judge from memory,

"This court is not obliged to believe the word of a prostitute, a pimp or a policeman."

Cheers,

R.
 
In a follow up article it says the Police and DA are working to have the charges dropped. They believe that the camera man was well within his rights and the arrest was uncalled for. They of course won't release the identity of the officer.
 
That whole episode is total bullcrap. It's amazing how paranoid people are of another individual holding some sort of camera!

Little do they know they are being watched or photographed hundreds of times a day without their knowledge, at places like the bank, the shopping mall, the gas station, the ATM, etc. etc.

These kinds of stories make my blood boil! People who love photography or chose it as a vocation shouldn't be treated as criminals.

It sounds like we're going to have to print bumper stickers or T-shirts and borrow that slogan from the skateboarders -- "Photography is not a crime!"
 
In some states in the US, you are more legally empowered and protected to carry a loaded gun than you are to carry a loaded camera. If this country gets any crazier (actually, I think it did earlier today when the president signed that idiotic bill, but that's for another thread; he should have told both sides: you put a one sentence bill on my desk authorizing an increase in the debt limit; anything beyond that will be vetoed. Period."), I may have to start looking for places to expatriate myself.
 
robklurfield said:
In some states in the US, you are more legally empowered and protected to carry a loaded gun than you are to carry a loaded camera....
Click to expand...

Sounds perfectly understandable to me. Poorly educated folk who are easily manipulated and armed to the teeth are useful to a government. Enlightened worldly-wise people poking their noses (and cameras) where they don't belong are a serious threat. Fortunately it would seem to be a battle the individuals behind such repressive abuse of authority are doomed to lose. If they are being rattled in Syria and Libya, surely such a mindset cannot prevail in the US for much longer, can it? Actually, don't answer that one.
 
robklurfield said:
In some states in the US, you are more legally empowered and protected to carry a loaded gun than you are to carry a loaded camera. If this country gets any crazier (actually, I think it did earlier today when the president signed that idiotic bill, but that's for another thread; he should have told both sides: you put a one sentence bill on my desk authorizing an increase in the debt limit; anything beyond that will be vetoed. Period."), I may have to start looking for places to expatriate myself.
Click to expand...

+1. I agree 100% with you, Rob.
 
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