D.C. police directed not to interfere with photographers

[Trask]

FYI, a step in the right direction:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...lone/2012/07/23/gJQAYKcI5W_story.html?hpid=z3

 

[ic-racer]

Wow that is the best news I have heard in a long time. I'm a pretty high level employee of the largest employer in our city and I got harassed in front of my family while taking pictures as we were waiting to be picked up from the airport after a family trip to Disney. First he separated me from my family by asking me to cross the street to the berm on the other side where he was standing. The officer asked what I was taking pictures of and I said 'I'm just looking at the architecture.' He looked at the company logo on my shirt and said 'you don't look like an architect' as if one needed to be an architect to look skyward. At that time 2 other officers started coming over and frankly I was scared. I could't wait to get out of there. What kind of training do they have that causes them to harass a father with a camera in the company of a group of children wearing Disney shirts, with stuffed animals and theme park toys waiting with luggage at the pickup lane?

 

[dreamingartemis]

Wow that is the best news I have heard in a long time. I'm a pretty high level employee of the largest employer in our city and I got harassed in front of my family while taking pictures as we were waiting to be picked up from the airport after a family trip to Disney. First he separated me from my family by asking me to cross the street to the berm on the other side where he was standing. The officer asked what I was taking pictures of and I said 'I'm just looking at the architecture.' He looked at the company logo on my shirt and said 'you don't look like an architect' as if one needed to be an architect to look skyward. At that time 2 other officers started coming over and frankly I was scared. I could't wait to get out of there. What kind of training do they have that causes them to harass a father with a camera in the company of a group of children wearing Disney shirts, with stuffed animals and theme park toys waiting with luggage at the pickup lane?

Obviously, very inept ones.........

 

[Leigh B]

This certainly is good news. I've had occasional run-ins with MPDC, but never with any serious consequences.

- Leigh

 

[Willie Jan]

If a officer would ask that kind of question here, we would be on the floor of laughing and searching for the candid camera...
Seems like people are always scared of something where you live... Exchange all guns with flowers and you have a better environment.

 

[donkee]

"those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't"

 

[Two23]

We are winning theses. Keep up the pressure!

http://carons-musings.blogspot.com/2012/06/glasgow-subway-photo-ban-dropped.html


Kent in SD

 

[andrew.roos]

If a officer would ask that kind of question here, we would be on the floor of laughing and searching for the candid camera...
Seems like people are always scared of something where you live... Exchange all guns with flowers and you have a better environment.

I think I'll come to live in the Netherlands.

Here one has a right to photograph buildings unless they are national key points. Photographing a national key point is an punishable offense. The only problem is that the list of national key points is classified (no, I'm not joking).

Also, photographing the police in the execution of their duties, while quite legal, is also quite a good way to get intimidated, assaulted or arrested unless you ask the officer concerned in advance. I think they automatically assume that you are photographing them to document some irregularity on their part.

 

[htimsdj]

That is awful. Anyone at an airport with a camera is suspected as a terrorist.

Wow that is the best news I have heard in a long time. I'm a pretty high level employee of the largest employer in our city and I got harassed in front of my family while taking pictures as we were waiting to be picked up from the airport after a family trip to Disney. First he separated me from my family by asking me to cross the street to the berm on the other side where he was standing. The officer asked what I was taking pictures of and I said 'I'm just looking at the architecture.' He looked at the company logo on my shirt and said 'you don't look like an architect' as if one needed to be an architect to look skyward. At that time 2 other officers started coming over and frankly I was scared. I could't wait to get out of there. What kind of training do they have that causes them to harass a father with a camera in the company of a group of children wearing Disney shirts, with stuffed animals and theme park toys waiting with luggage at the pickup lane?

 

[Sirius Glass]

That is awful. Anyone at an airport with a camera is suspected as a terrorist.

And yet terrorists get really pissed off when they are referred to as photographers!

 

[benjiboy]

Before you all throw your hats in the air, are terrorists doing a photo recce. for a forthcoming major attack on Washington also protected by the first amendment ?

 

[Steve Smith]

are terrorists doing a photo recce. for a forthcoming major attack on Washington also protected by the first amendment ?

I hope so. The law should apply to all equally.


Steve.

 

[markbarendt]

I hope so. The law should apply to all equally.


Steve.

+1

As should the presumption of innocence.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Benji - they don't have to do another photo recce. They've already done many. If they're doing more, they're doing it clandestinely, not with tripods and view cameras. Or even with film SLRs. It'll be digital happy-snaps taken on the fly. This is not a good argument for abridging the 1st Amendment. As Benjamin Franklin so aptly put it (I'm paraphrasing here), "Anyone who would trade liberty for security deserves neither".

 

[Leigh B]

Before you all throw your hats in the air, are terrorists doing a photo recce. for a forthcoming major attack on Washington also protected by the first amendment ?

Yep, absolutely.

Rights fail to be rights if they're applied selectively.

- Leigh

 

[pbromaghin]

Benji - they don't have to do another photo recce. They've already done many. If they're doing more, they're doing it clandestinely, not with tripods and view cameras. Or even with film SLRs. It'll be digital happy-snaps taken on the fly. This is not a good argument for abridging the 1st Amendment. As Benjamin Franklin so aptly put it (I'm paraphrasing here), "Anyone who would trade liberty for security deserves neither".

And google maps street view.

 

[David Lyga]

Willie Jan, how dare you try to insinuate that Holland is part of the 'free world' and the mightly USA is NOT!!!

(You happen to be correct, though.) - David Lyga

 

[lxdude]

Before you all throw your hats in the air, are terrorists doing a photo recce. for a forthcoming major attack on Washington also protected by the first amendment ?

If I wanted to get pictures of a place to attack it I'd just use a smartphone. I could take hundreds of shots everywhere and be hardly noticed, if at all. From above there's Google maps and numerous other aerial photography sites.

 

[polyglot]

It lasted one whole day.

 

[batwister]

Someone should do a series of photographs on these interrogations.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

That'll take a hundred years to complete, what with all the lawsuits to recover the camera each time.