Spanish goverment's ban on photographing police

Rhodes said:
No, I do not think so. We are more like this:
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Oh my, I don't want to sound like a pedant, but all I can say is: please, don't be so naïve! I am sorry to be so blunt, but when everyone knows the Portuguese police specifically targetted photographers (and ones working for foreign agencies at that) during a demonstration held - in Lisbon, if I recall correctly - early this year, and plants agents provocateurs (positively identified as cops wearing civilian clothes in several instances) amongst protesters, I don't think rosy photos of young, good looking girls embracing riot cops can prove anything. Really.
 
Damaso said:
http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/10/18/inenglish/1350588780_276075.html

(...)
.......
After the police chief’s declarations, one of the largest unions, the Unified Union of Police (SUP), expressed its concern that Cosidó’s comments were “wishful thinking, we hope not demagogic, that doesn’t mention how to prevent the recording of images, something that would appear to be impossible in the technological society in which we live.”
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Yesterday's (Oct. 21st) print edition of El Pais included a large piece by Jesús García on this issue. The headline reads 'Policías sin imágenes, fuente de abusos'; I haven't read it yet and don't really know whether it is available online.

Edit: yes, it is - http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2012/10/20/vidayartes/1350760009_124144.html
 
Retrotech68 said:
agents provocateurs (positively identified as cops wearing civilian clothes in several instances)
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This is standard international practice in policing disturbances and may not be totally unreasonable.

In the last months (a year maybe) the tactic has been reported in mainstream media as being used in Greece, Spain, Canada, Russia, USA and apparently Portugal. Reasons may be to identify 'ringleaders' (usually the main reason quoted by the forces concerned) though the officers concerned in at least one large country have also been filmed and photographed damaging property and leading attacks on police vehicles - presumably to enable a higher level of response from police and stiffer sentences for protesters.

It is not only at the level of specific events either. In my own country (UK) the animal rights and environmental protest actions of the 80's and 90's were frequently organised by undercover police-officers, for example Robert Lambert and Mark Kennedy. Eventually questions were asked in parliament, but only many years later - and most likely these two were not the only police involved.

This is certainly not to say that police intelligence gathering is unnecessary - just that petty political problems seem to have sometimes changed the emphasis from drug or organised-crime investigations to cow-welfare and nuclear-waste disposal protests. And these days to demonstrations over economic policy, just as in South America thirty or forty years ago.
 
MartinP said:
This is standard international practice in policing disturbances and may not be totally unreasonable.

(...) Reasons may be to identify 'ringleaders' (usually the main reason quoted by the forces concerned) though the officers concerned in at least one large country have also been filmed and photographed damaging property and leading attacks on police vehicles - presumably to enable a higher level of response from police and stiffer sentences for protesters.
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While I won't argue against the fact that some protesters may, in fact, be problematic and/or violent, this practice has some more unnerving, even sinister undertones to it. Actually, I believe it works against the police forces, having the potential to generate nasty public relations' fiascos (when the general public gets to know what really happened). Knowing that violence outbursts, amongst protesters, generally directed against private property and other targets, are in some cases enacted by undercover cops don't exactly helps to dispel or minimize the increasingly poor perception of their work by the citizenry.
 
MartinP said:
Yes Retrotech. The tactic basically stinks, but we all live in democracies so all we have to do is vote on it . . . errrrmmm.
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Yes MartinP, of course, but I wish it could be that simple. And the tactic actually seems more reminiscient of dictatorships (I guess of the less brutal kind, for in the really nasty ones you can't simply go to the streets and protest!) than of really free democracies enjoying good health. Well, that's just what I think of it anyway. Real demons will be set free from the moment when people start to perceive such things as normal and/or necessary...

Alex
 
Nescio said:
You ought to know beter than that. The way around is called a decreto ley (executive order say's wikipedia).
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Much Better, for my law studies in the University.

Decreto Ley is an exceptionally urgent Meassure to address a inminent problem. It has to be approved for a formal process and: "Según la Constitución española, en el artículo 86, estos decretos ley no podrán afectar al ordenamiento de las instituciones básicas del Estado, a los derechos, deberes y libertades de los ciudadanos (...), al régimen de las Comunidades Autónomas, ni al Derecho Electoral general."
Estos límites aseguran que el decreto ley no será utilizado abusivamente por parte del Gobierno
 
Being a sheep herder may be a bit up the ladder

Being a sheep herder may be a bit up the ladder

maddoc said:
Oh well ... herding sheep might not be the worst idea ....
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After all it's what most politicians, law enforcement agencies, officers and Corporate CEO's think they are doing to citizens of their domains. The middle class, rapidly becoming "Sheep"...

"Hey, Where's Bob going?".... "I don't know, but I think we should all follow him...HE looks like he knows what he's doing!"

Corporate managers, and Politicians looking down... "Gosh, we have such good Sheeple in our organizations!"

1% bosses, 4% rebellious, 95% Sheeple.

The 1% jailing the 4% and then running herd on the 95%
 
Mmmh, what is a "professional photographer"? Someone who got the pictures commissioned by someone else? This is easy gone around, we can all give works to each other (1cent is what I pay for policemen's pictures). Someone who already sold the pictures before taking them? Uh????? Someone who have sold pictures sometimes? Someone with a professional camera? Someone with an F4 and 20 SB800 (that's McNally!)? Someone with a journalist badge? I remember that the independent press badge was not too difficult to have but I doubt it would help. Unfortunately, I don't know what a professional is but I am sure policemen will know very well how to harass people...they just too often do (and if I were one of the nice, hard working, hero policeman I would be upset even more than I am now because these people spoil the work and the reputation of them more than ours). Fortunately, no ban will ever stop people with guts from taking whatever pictures they want...

GLF


While taking the pictures
 
Too bad a proud and upright profession is sinking into such a shameful pit . If they were proud of what they do pictures of their work would be welcome. But they are ashamed, how do they shave in the morning and avoid their own gaze?
 
Not that I agree ... but to law enforcement a professional press photographer is only a staff newspaper/magazine, wire agency photographer - doing work for hire.
Freelancers, bloggers, college photographers, interns at photo agencies in most instances don't have access to press credentials.
In the old days, you had to prove that your main source of income was journalism and have a certain number of pictures published to get a badge.
 
Much Better, for my law studies in the University.

Decreto Ley is an exceptionally urgent Meassure to address a inminent problem. It has to be approved for a formal process and: "Según la Constitución española, en el artículo 86, estos decretos ley no podrán afectar al ordenamiento de las instituciones básicas del Estado, a los derechos, deberes y libertades de los ciudadanos (...), al régimen de las Comunidades Autónomas, ni al Derecho Electoral general."
Estos límites aseguran que el decreto ley no será utilizado abusivamente por parte del Gobierno
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I'd really wish you were right, but... we've seen the Rajoy government take more than one exceptionally urgent measure just to avoid it being passed through the parliament. Zapatero did it too, but let's just say he used it in a more inoffensive way... on more inoffensive matters. But once the trick was on the table, it seems like it's becoming a custom in Spain to impose a law quickly and without discussion (you know Pajoy's PP can count on an absolute majority in the parliament, so approval ain't the problem).
And as a side note, I do have the Spanish Constitution somewhere on my bookshelves. But it's so tiny that even if I'd look for it, I'd probably couldn't find it for being so flimsy.

Sorry for getting political,

Nescio

PS: please don't mention that I can look up the constitution on the internet...
 
Channel 6 (La Sexta) camerawoman detained while filming demonstrations and riot police in Sevilla. No images available since they have been seized.
 
zauhar said:
As the people in Quebec demonstrated, put enough people on the street and the cops can't do a f-cking thing.

It's like that kid's movie - the grasshoppers are afraid the ants will figure that out.

Randy
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The residents of Jerusalem in AD 70 might say otherwise. 😱
 
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