Photo by The Associated Press
By Carlos Miller
Hundreds of photographers in London kissed their freedoms good-bye with a mass demonstration Monday, protesting a new law that could land them in prison for ten years for photographing police officers.
Although the new law went into effect that same day, no arrests were reported despite the fact that they were standing in front of Scotland Yard, headquarters for the Metropolitan Police Service.
But it is no telling when police will decide to enforce this law.
London police officer is surrounded by protesting photographers (Photo by The Associated Press)
The law is intended to combat terrorism but many believe it will be used to persecute photojournalists and harass amateur photographers, according to the
BBC and The Associated Press, who have finally gotten around to reporting on this issue.
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10 responses so far ↓
1 Cigar Mike // Feb 17, 2009 at 12:59 AM
what most folks don’t get over here is that they have no First Amendment in the UK or in most European countries.
2 Carlos Miller // Feb 17, 2009 at 1:04 AM
oh I get it all right. The reason I blog about the UK is that their government has a lot of influence on our government and vice versa.
3 NYArt // Feb 17, 2009 at 8:08 AM
@ Cigar: we don’t have a single codified document like the States but there are written protections like the Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus Act, Bill of Right.. etc.. etc.. (as an aside, we *used* to be able to bare arms in defence.. I didn’t know that)
On topic… what’s more worrying is the legislation that’s being passed that will allow the authorities the abilities to stop people in the street for *no* reason (I can’t find the links right now), although there are *supposed* to be limitations on the reasons to search you can bet the police will find some in addition to using S44 as a catch all (when it’s not supposed to be used like that). God help you if you get stopped, searched and a camera revealed…
4 NYArt // Feb 17, 2009 at 9:18 AM
Here we go, BBC article from Jan 09;
It looks like it’s limited to ‘marked’ areas but there probably won’t be any check/balances in place about where and how those are set up.
There’s also a call to “get rid of red tape” which then also removes accountability regarding abusing the system.
5 Cigar Mike // Feb 17, 2009 at 9:26 AM
by “marked areas” I guess they’ll post signs as a warning? maybe it’s time to get out those Leicas and start shooting from the hip again.
6 Carlos Miller // Feb 17, 2009 at 9:35 AM
Last year, police in the UK were given the right to set their own restrictions regarding photography, thus allowing them to interpret the law, not just enforce the law.
http://carlosmiller.com/2008/07/06/uk-police-allowed-to-set-their-own-restrictions-on-public-photography/
Now with this law, which puts photographers on the same level as terrorists, we can only imagine how police are going to enforce this law.
Or even how the judges will approach these cases.
This is a huge, huge setback not just for photographers but for civil libertarians in general.
It basically means that if you take a picture of a cop, and they don’t like your attitude about it, you can wind up in prison for ten years.
7 Carlos Miller // Feb 17, 2009 at 11:48 AM
The former director of the M15, which is UK’s version of the CIA, believes the UK is turning into a police state.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4643415/Spy-chief-We-risk-a-police-state.html
8 Eyebee // Feb 17, 2009 at 2:07 PM
UK Law is based on common law, rather than a written constitution.
9 David // Feb 18, 2009 at 3:58 PM
Awesome, so even though the UK is littered with CCTV cameras watching citizens’ every move, the citizens themselves aren’t allowed to photograph police? The state exists for the citizens, not the other way around.
10 the_fonz // Mar 3, 2010 at 1:29 PM
See this film for info on the problems faced by photographers and filmmakers, ‘Policing the Public Gaze’, http://www.worldbytes.org/programmes/013/013_004.html
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