British shopping centres free up photo policies

[Ross Chambers]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-15251848

Last week in Sydney a person in the public gallery of a court proudly snapped a picture of a relative who was on the jury. So far the NSW court system has not adopted a similar policy. The trial was not aborted but very nearly so.

 

[Rudeofus]

The folks in this shopping center should really ask themselves how they could call the cops on a guy who photographed his own kid with a mobile phone camera. It's all nice an dandy that they changed the official policy now, but someone needs to look a bit deeper at this brain damage. This was not one failed policy at work here, but a whole chain of complete brain failures up to the cop mentioning Anti Terrorism laws.

Good grief!

 

[pentaxuser]

I don't suppose for a minute that the change of policy had anything to do with the boycott via the internet

The "offender"( this country's full of such serious and dangerous criminals) was given an apology for the distress caused and no doubt the person apologising is hoping that the wronged party who used to be the offender( things change quickly in the U.K. when money is at stake) will in return, cease to cause any more distress to the shopping centre's revenue.

Brain damage for sure. As General Jack D Ripper so rightly said in Dr Strangelove: "The commies are poisoning the water, Mandrake"


Wonderful line and wonderful film but we've got worse since then not better.

Common sense R.I.P.

pentaxuser

 

[Markster]

Here in the U.S. We take courtooms VERY seriously. You can be ejected or imprisoned (contempt of court, holding cells, not "real" prison -- held until you pay a fine and/or apologize to the judge personally) if you pull such a stunt.

Why? Because it's an implicit threat against the jurors. You've just tainted the effort that went into picking the jurors... Now they're being documented? There are too many times where somebody tries to strong-arm a juror, or find out who they are and threaten their family, or whatever.

These people have to feel like they are safe to perform their duties, and are pulled from the public at large.

It's not as much about photographic rights in courtrooms here in the U.S. as it is a lesson learned in preventing damage to the system as a whole. You can't do it. This is why it's a big deal in high profile cases to allow cameras or close-circuit TVs, and so forth. You'll find more artists with pads and pencils sketching than you will photos (at least going by the stereotypes -- this will change from courtroom to courtroom).

I'm glad some of the nutters are realizing that photos are no real threat and that public places should not be restricted, but there are some areas where it is restricted for very practical safety-related reasons.

 

[Ross Chambers]

An opinion from a rather libertarian blog (whose views I don't endorse BTW, they're very enthusiastic about cigarettes--yuk) but interesting.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/11164/

 

[paul_c5x4]

An opinion from a rather libertarian blog (whose views I don't endorse BTW, they're very enthusiastic about cigarettes--yuk) but interesting.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/11164/

The shopping centre’s statement gives two reasons for its ‘no photography’ policy, which, as it points out, has also been adopted by most UK malls. Firstly, the policy aims ‘to protect the privacy of staff and shoppers’. Braehead Shopping Centre is sure that ‘shoppers would not want strangers taking photographs of them or their children while they were in the mall’. The problem is you could use the same argument to justify a ‘no photography’ policy in any public place, too, so why not ban photography at Trafalgar Square

Umm... Try taking photographs in Trafalgar Square (with a tripod) and see how long it takes to get challenged by a "security" oik. The same goes for any number of landmark buildings in London, all in the name of "anti-terror security". These so called "laws" being used to "protect the public" are nothing more than renta-muppets trying to impose control on the general population.

I have had some dumb harpie trying to limit my activities and threatened me with the Data Protection Act - These prats often have very little knowledge of the legislation that they are qouting. Time to fight back, using a large four-by-clue stick (sometimes, a Tazer is too easy )

 

[Steve Smith]

I have had some dumb harpie trying to limit my activities and threatened me with the Data Protection Act

I would like an argument with that idiot! The Data Protection Act is nothing to do with it!


Steve.

 

[paul_c5x4]

I would like an argument with that idiot! The Data Protection Act is nothing to do with it!

Too late. She threw her toys out of the pram and had a right royal hissy fit after I put her in her place.

 

[Steve Smith]

Did you get it on video?!!!!


Steve.

 

[perkeleellinen]

An opinion from a rather libertarian blog

Off-topic, but that blog is run by ex-members of the Revolutionary Communist Party which was a British Trotskyist party that practised entryism. They published a journal called Living Marxism which later became LM and was then sued out of existence by ITN after LM suggested they had fabricated some footage of an atrocity in Bosnia. The editor of LM, Mick Hume, is now 'editor-at-large' at Spiked.

 

[Ross Chambers]

I thought that I had some idea of the spectrum of political tactics and left wing organisations, I'd never heard of this practise, but I've seen it.

It's interesting to see how about face some youthful lefties turn as they age, although the libertarians of my experience seem to most prone to this.

BTW I secretly (to this analogue group membership anyway) have a digital camera. Entryism worked for me, but I doubt that I can influence the group's ideology

 

[perkeleellinen]

I think that sometimes the more left you go so start to overlap some themes of the right, anarchism is like that.

Maybe we should all practice entryism on places like dpreview and photo.net to help film sales.

 

[Akki14]

... Actually more interestingly (or less for this group?) It was *other* activity that made staff suspicious of the guy and called the police etc. And this huge publicity stunt the guy did does not match up to what the police have to the point that the police have had to issue a public statement mid-investigation which they hardly ever do.
http://www.thelawyer.com/1009790.article Incredibly long but as I figured, there was probably something else involved. Police normally don't waste their time with mall security issues rapidly unless there's a real threat somewhere.

It's kind of sad but when someone kicks up a stink like this, I tend to figure they were being ****heads in some way...

 

[perkeleellinen]

I read through the comments in the link, found the twitter feed and from there got this story:
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-central/274528-braehead-photo-row-father-reported-by-police/

 

[Rudeofus]

So what it seems to boil down to is a guy who takes photos of his kid while (most likely accidentally) having his fly open. Instead of discreetly informing him of this embarrassing fact they assume he must be very dangerous and start a man hunt. He should probably thank the police for not shooting him on the spot.

Police and the shopping center staff can spin that all the way they want, but to me this still looks like a massive +*#';:§%&

 

[Steve Smith]

He should probably thank the police for not shooting him on the spot.

This is in the UK. Our police don't do shooting!


Steve.

 

[perkeleellinen]

Seems like a case of misunderstanding on everyone's part: the ice cream seller thought some perv with his flies down was taking her photo, the police thought there was a sexual predator on the loose, the photographer thought he was being reprimanded for taking a photo of his daughter.