Slashdot Mirror
Police Restrict Public Photography
An anonymous reader writes "News.com is reporting that in Australia, recent attempts by a photo club to take pictures of industrial installations was met with police resistance. From the article: 'Club member Hans Kawitski was told not to photograph industrial installations and was ordered to inform members of the camera club to follow his lead. Liberty Victoria said its advice to photographers would be to ignore the directive. "The police have got no place making such warnings," president Brian Walters SC said.'"
Should it go under, "Your rights offline"?
Club member Hans Kawitski was told not to photograph industrial installations and was ordered to inform members of the camera club to follow his lead.
They should just stick to the upskirt pics. That's not illegal in most places.
They should arrest people taking pictures of Federation Square http://www.federationsquare.com.au/, a travesty of modern design that the gov't here seem to think is the best feature of Melbourne. The old architecture here is great, the best terrorist targets are few and obvious, so forget about the whole photography issue and get a grip. Better aiport, border, and sensitive location security to prevent wankers from barging in and actually terrorizing, that's what's needed.
Not sure which makes more sense though.
We've got to stop and ask ourselves 'How many photographs do we need?'
Trust me, I work for the government.
If the ACLU supports all of the Constitution but the 2nd Amendment, that means they support only 9/10 of the Bill of Rights. How deplorable! The NRA supports the 2nd Amendment zealously, and in my opinion, rightly. The math question for the day is this -- which number is bigger, 9/10 or 1/10? So gun-nuts, who habitually hate the ACLU, are a whopping 1/9th (.1 vs .9) as supportive of the Bill of Rights as those America-hating ACLU-weenies, but that makes them more patriotic? Isn't that a bit odd? Or is my math wrong here?
I had a great time with this, since this co-worker cast himself as such a patriot. I wrote the numbers 1/10 and 9/10 on a piece of paper and went around the office asking people at random which number was bigger. I was scratching my head, muttering "but that can't be right...." He wasn't too amused.
Moral: if you like guns, just say that you like guns. Don't try to pretend that it's because of your fealty to the Consitution. This especially applies if you happen to be a quasi-totalitarian in all other aspects of your politics.
You've never been warned by an Australian copper, have you ?
Brethren! This is a wonderful idea! If we make our bomb jackets fluorescent yellow, and wear hard hats, nobody will ever stop us! We'll look just like official workmen and will be able to walk right up to crucial pieces of infrastructure and gloriously destroy them for the Sheikh Osama and the New Caliphate! It is a wonderful day for the Jihad! Alahuakbar! Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
When I went to the Hermitge in St.Petersburg, Russia, the security asked me if my video camcorder was a CAMERA. They told me no cameras were allowed in the building. Well, I told them that my camcorder is not still camera, and they let me in with it, and I could make a home movie of the Hermitage.
And take a picture of the statue of Liberty before I forget what it looks like...
I was walking back from the pub late one night minding my own business and noticed a car driving towards me going very slowly, it passed me by drove a bit further up the street and then turned around and came back past me again still going very slowly. Hmm, I thought, what does this car want ? There's no one else on the road, it's late at night and whoever it is in this car is behaving very strangely. I carried on walking keeping an eye on where the car was going and saw it turn into a car park a couple of hundred metres further on, turn around and sit in the entrance with it's lights on right next to where I'd have to walk past it. I decided to cross the road and walk down the other side and as I went past the car park it turned out and kept pace with me ( driving on the wrong side of the road ) so I thought I don't like the look of this and hopped over a fence into a piece of wasteground where I thought I might take the opportunity to take a call of nature and observe what the car was up to. It carried on very slowly and turned into the next side street where I couldn't see it. I finished my business and carried on walking and after a minute or so it came back out it's side street and screeched to a halt next me.
Some guy popped out and said he was a police officer and that they'd like to ask me why I was behaving so suspiciously. I had to laugh at that, here they were having stalked me in an unmarked car for 10 minutes behaving in what given the time of night was a highly suspicious manner and they want to know why I am behaving suspiciously !
Dammit, I thought WE won the cold war.
Working hard aren't we ? ^^
> You think railfans have problems? You should ask some planespotters some times!!!
You think planespotters have problems? You should ask some militarybasefans some time!!!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
http://flickr.com/photos/tags/eiffeltower/
You have a good point but please dont think that the "terrorists" wear "dark clothing and hide in the woods. Those kinds of silly assumptions about how people dress or act is what leads us into this mess in the first place.
By "terrorist", do you mean "paparazzi"?
Live forever, or die trying.
Hi, thanks for the reply.
.. best not to have kids at all, maybe
If we're going to google for abuses, first let's compare:
police abuse - 30 million pages.. but that's not just the US, so..
us police abuse - still 26 million pages.
security guard abuse - about six million pages.. yes, you're right, that's a lot! But a lot of those pages refer to prison guards, which (granted that prisons are largely private now) is outside the scope of this article. So, removing prison:
security guard abuse -prison - 3 and a half million pages. Yes, still a problem.
I'm not stupid enough to say that all security guards are humble and effective Jesus-with-badges running around. Yes, power goes to a few people's heads in any line of work, yes, it's especially a problem when that line of work may mislead someone into thinking that they've a right to control, harm, and abuse others. I make no apologies for private guards who take what ridiculously tiny power they have and blow it up until they're brutes and thugs themselves. But hey, you know, there are a lot of rapists, muggers, kidnappers, and general ne'er-do-wells in the world anyway. Give enough people a little brass badge and a scratchy shirt, and some of those thugs will get one. All we can do is watch out - as citizens and (for my part) as guards - to be vigilant against our own as well as the thugs we're supposed to protect stuff against.
But hey, while we're googling, I wanted to see what else we should watch out for: (silly I know, but fun)
priest abuse - 3.4 million hits. so that's terrible - private security has the same google-abuse-presence as the beleaguered clergy!!
white house abuse - but now, whoa! 21.9 million hits!!
day care abuse - a jaw-dropping 37.1 million hits! Forget about private security guards, keep your kids out of day care!!
child abuse - 55 million hits
Obligatory Area 51 referrence
> You think planespotters have problems? You should ask some militarybasefans some times!!!
You think militarybasefans have problems? You should ask some ufobasefans some time!!!
One of them nailed his ass with DNA evidence.
;)
Umm, you sure it wasn't the other way around?
> You think militarybasefans have problems? You should ask some terrorists some time!!!