UK terrorists

alcaraban said:
Yes, very unlikely. But I will spend 5 days in London/Cambridge next month and I think my camera(s) will stay at home. Even if there is only one lucky player out of one million, people keep playing for the Euromillions.
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Really? Then you are a fool.
 
skinnyvoice said:
Too many assumptions. I live in central London, photograph regularly for a political journalist and I have been 'stopped' several times and know of many others.

Here is one from 2006

20060923_Manchester_demo_014-1000.jpg


So jail me...
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Ahh but, tskk tskk, this was at a demonstration in Manchester - nearly 200 miles fom London - so I suspect you are trying to make a political point through deceit. Naughty naughty!
 
I've been watching re-runs of "The Prisoner" - He didn't want to be filed, stamped, indexed, numbered - he was surveilled 24/7 too :eek:

Just normality now :rolleyes: (Except that wierd "Rover" ball)
 
Ade-oh -
Ahh but, tskk tskk, this was at a demonstration in Manchester - nearly 200 miles fom London - so I suspect you are trying to make a political point through deceit. Naughty naughty!
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Why deceit? The photo does not illustrate 'being stopped', but a double standard of photography that exists across the UK. I don't think that photo would be as easy to take now. I have one of a recent demo in London where the police street photographers can be seen behind the shoe thrower on the left.




And are none of your points are politically motivated? You seem to infer that just because you personally have no experience that there isn't a problem and the experiences of others needs to be rubbished as untrue. Forgive me if I read you previous posts wrongly... You said this

I hate to pour a bucket of cold water over this particular hysteria fest but I live in the centre of London and routinely carry at least one camera everywhere I go. I have never been stopped, interfered with, questioned or anything else.
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Other peoples experience seems to indicate otherwise espcially those of us gathering news. Why do you have such a problem with this?
 
Journeyman said:
My suggestion, if you feel the need to photograph police officers, is to show some respect. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself; am I acting suspiciously, or am I about to really piss this person off?

They do a tough, dangerous and thankless job for YOU.
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I don't disagree with this as a general point, but what about newsgathering and recording the behaviour of police. Since we are all photographers here I'm sure we are all aware of examples where the police have been snapped doing things they shouldn't, things that are beyond the law, and that photographic evidence has been used in courts. I'm sure that has, as you suggest, pissed off the police. The solution in the UK? Don't let anybody photograph the police, pass a vaguely worded law using the counter-terrorism meme and sit back. Don't forget that in the UK, anti-terror laws have been used by councils to spy on and prosecute people allowing their dogs to foul the pavement (sidewalk). This new law is just as wide open to abuse, particularly by the police to remove evidence of their own wrong doing.

Without that evidence, accountability is severely compromised. Naive of me perhaps, but I thought a ‘free press’ is recognised to be essential to the proper working of a ‘democracy’.
 
Journeyman said:
Believe me, they won't be quoting legislation when they take your camera. It should also be remembered that police don't make legislation. Our elected parliamentarians do. And the laws they make are not designed to protect corrupt police. They're designed to protect you.
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Hmmm... I'd like to think so. Where do you think the pressure for this legislation has come from? Parliamentarians didn't just pull this out of the air.

I'm not disagreeing with what you say in general. Here in the UK there have been a number of high profile events such as the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting. CCTV footage finally revealed that the police had been less than truthful about the events. If that video footage had not been available we would not have found out, and it appears that if the police had had their way, it would not have been made available.

Taken in a wider context, the general suppression of photographic and videographic evidence of police behaviour in cases such as this can hardly be a good thing. We are not talking about a few corrupt coppers here but something more systemic, 'for our own good'????

And the police & rentacops do quote legislation, at least when I have been stopped, believe me.

I don't know what it is like in Australia.

Much of the noise about this law has been coming from the press btw, amateur shots of police at tourist sites are a red herring. The protocols as you call them are being eroded. Visit the NUJ site
 
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