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Blog Documents First Amendment Violations Against Photographers

I wrote about this topic in passing back in December when I noted the plight of an Italian art student visiting London who, after filming certain "iconic" landmarks in the City, was tossed in prison for being a potential terrorist. There seems to be no shortage of such cases, unfortunately.

The Nobody's Business blog writes in this post that, in the United Kingdom, "anti-social-behavior statutes" are allowing police to arrest citizens who are guilty of nothing more than taking photos. In the video below, amateur photographer Bob Patefield used his video camera to record his run-in with police who stopped him from taking photographs of "Accrington town centre." 

Posted by Bruce Carton on February 24, 2010 at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Blog Documents First Amendment Violations Against Photographers

I wrote about this topic in passing back in December when I noted the plight of an Italian art student visiting London who, after filming certain "iconic" landmarks in the City, was tossed in prison for being a potential terrorist. There seems to be no shortage of such cases, unfortunately.

The Nobody's Business blog writes in this post that, in the United Kingdom, "anti-social-behavior statutes" are allowing police to arrest citizens who are guilty of nothing more than taking photos. In the video below, amateur photographer Bob Patefield used his video camera to record his run-in with police who stopped him from taking photographs of "Accrington town centre." 

Carlos Miller has created an entire blog on the subject called,"Photography Is Not a Crime." On this blog, which has the tagline, "Shining a Light on First Amendment, Media and Police Issues," Miller explains that he is a Miami multimedia journalist with more than 10 years of professional experience, who was himself arrested by Miami police after photographing them against their wishes. He collects numerous examples of photographers who, like him, have had their First Amendment rights violated. As Miller states on his blog, this seems to occur on a "shockingly regular basis."