Mastermind and the road to Damascus

[John Wilson]

2009/2/26 Pete Mitchell <otcbn@callnetuk.com>:
> Roland Perry wrote =A0on 25-02-09 20:02:
>>
>> We are talking about a community of professional photographers. They
>> should be organised enough to see through this issue.
>>
>>> If someone does say "why not?" the answer used to be, more or less,
>>> "because I say so" (maybe dressed up in jargon about security or safety=
).
>>> The worry is that now the answer is going to be "because of the
>>> wibble-wobble Terrorism Act of 200x" - whether or not that or any other=
 law
>>> is at all relevant.
>>
>> Perhaps they could persuade one of their journalist colleagues to write =
up
>> a fact sheet to hand to the police in such circumstances? It could inclu=
de
>> some of the quotes from the Home Office.
>
> Roland, do you think all this hasn't been done already? Photographers bot=
h
> professional and amateur have been fighting this corner for years, and th=
e
> only result is that the police have persuaded the Home Office to change t=
he
> law so as to prevent their own misdeeds being recorded.

I suspect that it really was not the intention to restrict the
photographing of Police. It looks like the idea was to criminalise the
collection of information (like home addresses) of persons who might
be terrorist targets (if I remember correctly, the Irish terrorists
tried to target prison guards by bombing them at home).

I think it was an unintended consequence that it made the
photographing of Police and others an offence (Roland is, strictly,
right that it was always an offence do do so for terrorist purposes
but this wording made it more likely that the Police would be able to
use the law in this way).

Once this consequence was noticed the NUJ and others undertook a
campaign to force the authorities to state that the law would not be
used to prevent the photographing of Police and others. This campaign
seems to have succeeded.

The problem remains that, whilst no arrests are likely there is no
guarantee that this provision will not be used to harass
photographers. I'm sure there are PCSO up and down the land who have
added the belief that "it's illegal to photograph Police" to their
existing belief that "it's illegal to photograph people without their
permission".

John Wilson