UK photographer’s rights threatened
London’s Metropolian Police are declaring war on photographers.
Going off the mindset that terrorists take a lot of photo’s to scout out potential targets, London Police have begun to crack down on photography in public places. Look at this poster that’s part of their marketing campaign.
Wow, better watch out for that guy taking photos of ducks in a pond, or the tourists taking photos in front of Big Ben. They might be terrorists. While you could say that the rights of UK-ers have been more and more limited with the advent of the CCTV in public places, they’re still generally free compared to other parts of the world (Iran, cough, cough) but this really sets a frightening example of infringement of rights. A police force should not be able to limit the freedom of expression that is photography.
Look at this response from the blog Wired:
The point of terrorism is, of course, terror. Terror which is used to put the population in a constant state of fear. By this metric, London’s Metropolitan Police are helping the cause with a new poster campaign which urges paranoia about cameras, cellphones and houses. The ads instruct citizens to snitch on anyone they see with more than one cellphone, and photographers snapping near CCTV cameras or just making notes.
This appalling scaremongering not only breeds suspicion between innocent people but seeks to erode freedom. In the UK, a photograph can be taken of anything public. People, buildings and objects are all fair game if they are outside. Even private property is a legitimate subject if it can reasonably be seen from a public place. Terrorism is the new bogeyman, and it seems that it can be used to justify almost any whim of government or police.
You can read the full post, because Wired basically serves up London Police policy.
The Internet community is in an uproar to their point where they’re actually making spoofs of the anti-photography terrorism posts.
But I couldn’t have said it any better than Wired. Hopefully this mindset doesn’t cross the pond into America.
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