Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
right. i'll believe you, millions wouldn't.
Police harass bloke filming a station/"planning an al Qaeda attack"
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Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
Indeed. HOW it is done (as with an awful lot of police intervention, not least stop and search) is the key thing. And the accuracy of what they tell people is another (though, as I have said before, people frequently misunderstand or misinterpret what they are told as the reports which accompany actual video or audio clips prove time and again).
But we also need to keep this in proportion.
Millions of people take photos in public places in London every day.
All but a few (thousand? hundreds?) attract no suspicion or attention at all.
Most of those that do are dealt with in a sensible and proportionate manner and there is no issue and they go on their way.
Only in a handful of cases (increasingly where people have set out to provoke confrontation or provide no assistance to a reasonable enquiry) do we end up with a tale of woe ...
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Or if they've been 'cocky' apparently.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
By which I mean, it certainly appears from the majority of the accounts I've seen of such incidents that the one absolutely guaranteed way to cause things to escalate is to insist on your rights under the law rather than just rolling over and behaving submissively.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
that's not quite the way it was described on the bbc just now, where they highlighted clear examples of concern where professional photographers and tourists were stopped. the report said there was increasing public outrage over the use of powers and that the police were being told to use common sense. all of which suggests a situation in which the police are not acting proportionately in their use of their powers.
Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
I'm clearly an awful person, totally out of tune with respectable thinking, but surely a professional photographer with a pressing need to photograph in sensitive locations should know what to expect and to be capable of explaining and negotiating, and a tourist should be able to see this as part of the joys of travel to foreign parts - a story to tell the folks back home.
Refused as fuck
"ethnic pakistani tosser"
Fucking what? "Oh yeah, here's a funny story - I got brutally restrained and arrested for taking holiday snaps, hahahaha".
As has been pointed out, being able to explain in clear English doesn't stop thick cunt pigs behaving like thick cunt pigs.
Refused as fuck
"ethnic pakistani tosser"
Must you have the wrong colour skin in today's climate? Is this not what you'd expect.
But every time you quote that you fail to recognise that by failing to cooperate you invariably leave the original suspicions un-allayed (and you may sometimes even add to them if your reaction is not that which would be expected from someone going about their lawful activity).
Exactly the same situation pertains when you are stopped for a search, or because you are suspected to have committed an offence for which you could be arrested.
It is because of the effect of you insisting on your rights (i.e. original suspicons not being allayed), not the fact of you insisting on your rights which may have consequences.
Yes, YOU have rights. But society has given ITSELF rights too ... and they are the power to detain for investigation where reasonable grounds for suspicion exist. The police are expected to carry out some immediate investigation (and they are more than happy to do so because the very last thing they want to do is spend hours fucking about dealing with some idiot who has actually done nothing wrong but who is simply fucking them around and making them go the long way round to establishing that their original suspicions were unfounded) ... but if that is not possible because of your failure to cooperate they will end up detaining you.
The bit that "rights" activists always forget is that they know who they are and what they have done (or not done, as the case may be) but the police and others only know what they have seen / been told. And that might include things which the individual doesn't know themselves (such as, for instance, that there has just been a robbery round the corner committed by a suspect of the same description). Just because they know they are innocent, they seem to assume that the police should somehow automatically know that, or should just believe every word they say (as if a guilty man would never even consider lying ...).
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Alternative advice to photographers:
"If you are out and about with a camera in the UK, be aware that you are very likely to be stopped and questioned by the police. If this happens to you, we strongly recommend that you ignore any of the legal advice about your rights on the net or in photography magazines. Whatever you do, don't try to insist on your legal rights, you'll only make things worse for yourself.
The best way to deal with the situation is very much the same way you might best deal with being stopped at a roadblock manned by a bunch of AK-47 toting teenagers in military uniforms, high on homebrewed beer and speed in some wretched banana republic. If you allow things to escalate the consequences for you are going to be extremely unpleasant, but if you humour them you can probably get them to leave you alone very cheaply.
Try not to show fear because they'll react to any perceived weakness, be very polite however and do exactly as the police officers tell you whether it's legal or not. Remember, if the situation escalates, they can pretty much do anything they feel like to you and expect to get away with it. Above all, whether what they're telling you to do is legal or not and whatever you make think of a country that allows them to act like this, give every appearance of respecting their authority so they don't decide to teach you a lesson. This may not be very noble and you'll feel dirty afterwards, but you won't get your head kicked in or end up in the cells on trumped up charges either."
"If you are out and about with a camera in the UK, be aware that you are very likely to be stopped and questioned by the police. If this happens to you, we strongly recommend that you ignore any of the legal advice about your rights on the net or in photography magazines. Whatever you do, don't try to insist on your legal rights, you'll only make things worse for yourself.
The best way to deal with the situation is very much the same way you might best deal with being stopped at a roadblock manned by a bunch of AK-47 toting teenagers in military uniforms, high on homebrewed beer and speed in some wretched banana republic. If you allow things to escalate the consequences for you are going to be extremely unpleasant, but if you humour them you can probably get them to leave you alone very cheaply.
Try not to show fear because they'll react to any perceived weakness, be very polite however and do exactly as the police officers tell you whether it's legal or not. Remember, if the situation escalates, they can pretty much do anything they feel like to you and expect to get away with it. Above all, whether what they're telling you to do is legal or not and whatever you make think of a country that allows them to act like this, give every appearance of respecting their authority so they don't decide to teach you a lesson. This may not be very noble and you'll feel dirty afterwards, but you won't get your head kicked in or end up in the cells on trumped up charges either."
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
To be fair this isn't just limited to cases involving photography.
A report, and "increasing public outrage" (for which read increasing media outrage ...) based on a handful of cases ... which is the point I made.
Or thick cunt posters posting like thick cunt posters it would seem ...
Refused as fuck
"ethnic pakistani tosser"
...
Definitely lots of truths there, but my on-the-ground experience has been mixed.
Generally, it's been good. I've been "attended to" by everything from Royalty Protection (you know the story
) to "local bobbies"It was one of the latter - Lancs - who let his side down. Claimed he had the power to seize our camera gear. And indeed said he'd do us for burglary if he saw us again. I took it as "a clip" and we fucked off.
You know me. I'm pro police in general. We'd be dead without. But there should be more clarity on photos and filiming.
Alternative alternative advice to photographers:
"If you are out and about with a camera in the UK, especially if you are taking photographs in unusual circumstances at a potential terrorist target (e.g. of the ground floor entrances to the Gherkin instead of it's breathtaking profile) be aware that you may to be stopped and questioned by the police. This is because it is known that some terrorist attackers have carried out photographic reconnaissance of their targets and asking these questions is an opportunity to possible prevent a future attack.
If this happens to you, we strongly recommend that whislt you remain aware of the legal advice about your rights provided by reliable sources (and some of those on the net or in photography magazines may not be entirely reliable) you also remain aware of other things too.
Most important you should realise that whilst you know who you are, what you are doing and why, the police are not endowed with any supernatural powers and so don't. They can only find out by investigating and that means asking questions. They may also have some information that you are unaware of (such as knowledge of previous suspicious incidents at that location, or involving a person of your description).
Whilst it is perfectly lawful for you to insist on your rights and to refuse to provide any details, explanation, etc. this may make the situation worse because if the police do have sufficient grounds to suspect you have committed an offence for which you can be arrested then they will be unable to ally those suspicions if you do not talk to them and explain what you are doing.
If the police make demands in excess of their powers (such as that you delete pictures you have taken) then you should decline to do so and make careful note as best you can of the circumstances of the case as you wil have good grounds for a subsequent unlawful arrest case. But even if you believe that your arrest is unlawful, it is not recommended that you physically resist (in anything other than a symbolic way, or by clearly stating that you believe it to be unlawful and you are not voluntarily submitting to arrest as you simply will not be alllowed to evade arrest by force - it simply will not happen and even if the arrest is unlawful, if you cause serious injury in resisting it you may well commit a serious criminal offence.
There is no need to be subservient, but it is advisable to remain calm and to be polite in asking questions. And unless you really do, absolutely, "know your rights" (and all of them, not just one or two, and those of the police too)it is not wise to use that phrase, you'll just sound like a prick."
To be honest I think it's pretty clear:
1. Taking photographs in public places is pretty much legal;
2. Some terrorists have been known to take pictures of potential targets and it is considered an opportunity to disrupt future attacks;
3. You may therefore be asked to explain who you are / what you are up to, etc. when taking photos in public places;
4. If you are approached, a simple explanation and a couple of checks will usually have you on your way in a couple of minutes, with an apology for having troubled you;
5. Beyond this, the police can only stop you / seize equipment, etc. by arresting you ... and they can only do that if they have resaonable grounds to suspect an offence (and just the fact you are taking photos is not, on it's own going to be sufficient grounds).
(and s.44 search powers apply to anyone, at any time in a designated area during the designated period ... so if that is in force you can be lawfully stopped and searched without any grounds to suspect anything (and could have been even if you weren't photographing stuff)).
It's a bit like the self-defence argument on another thread - the media jump up and down and say it's not clear when it really is (not helped by the occasional fuckwit copper or PCSO overstating the law).
So taking pictures is now 'provoking confrontation'. Someone taking pictures of CCTV cameras or entrances is also not a crime, and honestly if you really think a terrorists isn't going to check for plod before filming something on their camera you live on a different planet.
It's all on Google street view anyway, everyone has camera phones only the most paranoid of states and police forces would honestly think they can control what people film.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yeh and if google earth was good enough for the insurgents in iraq, then that and google streets should do the job in this country. when you couple that with the information freely available on building plans (go down your local archives and see what you can come up with) i suppose you'd only need to stroll past without a camera a couple of times to get the lay of the land and away you go.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
I was objecting to the law, not questioning across the board.You really are a fuckwit sometimes. How the fuck did they get in the fucking court if the police didn't start off by "hassling" them ...
Do you think they just gave themselves up and insisted they be tried ...
I'm happy for the police to question photographers if they reasonably believe that the photographer is a terrorist, and the law requires intent. This is different to police or PCSOs questioning photographers for taking images of police, soldiers, or security personnel "of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism" (section 76, CTA, 2008) [1] or if the unfortunate snapper "collect
No. Deliberately drawing attention to yourself and then doing the "I know my rights" bollocks ...
It's like when that fuckwit "investigative reporter" wandered round Brixton with a flash mobile and a sign round his neck saying "Rob me, rob me" to attract the attention of the local bad boyz ...
Have you not read the original post? That is exactly what the guy was doing ...
And how many of the incidents we have read of have not been initially observed by uniformed officers but by CCTV operators or security guards or station staff ...
Except it isn't "all" on Google street view, is it ...
Detailed close ups, areas away from the road, exactly locations of all cameras or whatever ...You might as well try and convince me that it is paranoid to believe that paedophiles still abuse kids to take pictures because "it's all available on the net so why would they bother" ...
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Common sense - and our own eyes and ears - tells us that in such situations it very quickly becomes clear that there is no issue of 'terror', but by that time a constable has already dug his heels in and wishes not to lose face, so escalates the situation instead of walking away.
The escalation generally increases with every extra constable added to the equation, because clearly, if it wasn't of vital importance to find out who this person is, what they are doing here, what pictures they have taken and why (plus a thousand other titbits of information they might wish to inveigle out of Joe Public), then there wouldn't be two, three, nine, a round dozen Boys in Blue thumbing their too-tight stabvests as beads of sweat soak ever-outward from the armpits of their gently overheating short-sleeved shirts whilst surrounding this impossibly intransigent snapper spouting on about "you can't do this" and "I don't have to" and "it's my right not to tell you".
By this point, the very fact that this cocky stranger has attracted so much attention has signalled to all - words not spoken, of course, but words bouncing from skull to skull as if the throbbing vein in the head of the original officer had turned into some sprite of doubt and flitted around the circle of ever-more irritable upholders of the law sprinkling its pixie dust over them - that this is not a terror suspect to be dealt with through terror laws; but by this point, with more and more static from shoulder-mounted radios interrupting the merry-go-round of "you have to tell me"s and "no, I don't"s, a buzzing in the ear of each, a wasp that won't go away, there must be something to show for this, because otherwise each stout-backed jack will have to retreat, step back, accept that they were in the wrong.
And the police aren't really equipped to do that - corporately, professionally or through the daily execution of their office.
It becomes an issue not of public safety but of private insecurity.
The escalation generally increases with every extra constable added to the equation, because clearly, if it wasn't of vital importance to find out who this person is, what they are doing here, what pictures they have taken and why (plus a thousand other titbits of information they might wish to inveigle out of Joe Public), then there wouldn't be two, three, nine, a round dozen Boys in Blue thumbing their too-tight stabvests as beads of sweat soak ever-outward from the armpits of their gently overheating short-sleeved shirts whilst surrounding this impossibly intransigent snapper spouting on about "you can't do this" and "I don't have to" and "it's my right not to tell you".
By this point, the very fact that this cocky stranger has attracted so much attention has signalled to all - words not spoken, of course, but words bouncing from skull to skull as if the throbbing vein in the head of the original officer had turned into some sprite of doubt and flitted around the circle of ever-more irritable upholders of the law sprinkling its pixie dust over them - that this is not a terror suspect to be dealt with through terror laws; but by this point, with more and more static from shoulder-mounted radios interrupting the merry-go-round of "you have to tell me"s and "no, I don't"s, a buzzing in the ear of each, a wasp that won't go away, there must be something to show for this, because otherwise each stout-backed jack will have to retreat, step back, accept that they were in the wrong.
And the police aren't really equipped to do that - corporately, professionally or through the daily execution of their office.
It becomes an issue not of public safety but of private insecurity.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
the location of cameras is unlikely to really make much difference if you intend to top yourself in the inferno, it's only really a concern if you're intending to make a getaway.Except it isn't "all" on Google street view, is it ...
even when there's been a great deal of cctv in an area, in eg the city of london, it's made no bloody difference if someone's determined, as the 1993 bishopsgate bomb showed - don't forget that after the baltic exchange bomb of 1992 security in the city was beefed up.
I'm not aware of either of those offences being used (or quoted) in the vast majority of cases we read about. Where an arrest is made (because of unallayed suspicions) it may well be on suspicion of the s.58 offence.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i'm not sure that the pictures are the 'main event' as it were: i was under the impression that the abuse was the activity and the pictures were a sideline. there's a great deal of internet porn out there, but people still go on the pull on the weekends because the real thing's better than the virtual; i wouldn't be surprised if paedophiles felt the same about their perverse activities.
I think the problem is that, on the ground, it isn't. I've no doubt that idiot security guard I mentioned yesterday, who told me it was illegal to photograph in his building because people I'd be photographing people without their permission, really didn't understand the law. Nor, I suspect, do quite a few other security guards, coppers and PCSOs, which is why there's been trouble. You're right about keeping it in proportion, but even so it happens too often, and I can't agree about people going out to provoke confrontation. Doubtless the odd one does, but not many.
In some ways that's precisely the point IMO. It's irrational. The security threat has been blown out of proportion, and the risk from photographers with it, especially since there's so much in the public domain that's potentially useful to terrorists, but it goes a bit wider than that. IMO it also reflects privacy concerns, in an age when it's very easy for info about us to be collected and disseminated. Hence that security guard's daft view of what the law says. Don't only blame the police for this: blame the politicians and media who've done so much to foster climate of paranoia, and all the idiots who still comment on stories like the OP with 'if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear.'
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