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.'"
It wasn't a "Police ban" or "restriction".
Some cops just warned them against it. They can photograph all they want and theres not a damn thing the police can do about it.
The article mentions being 'hauled away by security' for taking photos inside Eastland shopping center. Well, that one's understandable. The shopping center is private property... can't take photos without the property owner's permission.
That the article fails to mention the difference between photots inside someone's property, and from outside the property, is poor journalism.
This is from a few weeks ago and more careful examination showed that it was a storm in a tea cup. A few people were warned by an individual officer. They were not stopped from taking photos and it is not police policy.
It was simply one police office making a comment.
It must be a slow news week.
"Do you think we could wipe out world hunger forever if scientists figured out how to make AOL's Free CD's edible?"-
I'm pretty sure that if they gave this order under the guise of deterring "terrorism" it's pretty much in vain, in that more valuable intel is already available in the public domain, weaknesses in any event should be known, just as code audits are released in the public domain. I can think of 1 site off the top of my head that is pretty big on releasing "Eye-Ball-Series" on industrial, government, and public facilities
Liberty Victoria is the aussie's version of Amerika's ACLU, I've always envisioned AU's law as pretty right on and have taken a liking to most of their politics (with the steady decline of my countries) altho this seem just to be some unrelated bullying more than an overt government policy to prevent terrorism.
On a completely unrelated side note, I heard from a friend of mine in AU said that the Adelaide Museum director said they couldn't seel the $200,000 AUS valued whale vomit ball as under federal law it's part of a whale and therefore protected. She also went on to say that they could donate the item to the Adelaide Museum for display indefinately.
I travelled to the USSR in 1976 and it was still prohibited
to take photographs in train stations, airports, from planes
and in a lot of other places.
"... after he photographed gas storage cylinders at the city's Shell oil refinery" This seems to be sensitive and could have caused trouble if such pictures land up in the hands of terrorists. I have seen terrorists blowing up gas pipelines at oil-refineries in my country, and believe me, it is really an issue. But the fact that were told not to photograph industrial installations seems too stretched. The police don't have the right to ban public photography anyway.
US, they can't drag you off without a charge.
Correction. They can drag you off on a whim. They can hold you for a short period of time, and have to release you if they cannot press charges.
In Canada, that means a 24h period. Probably something similar in the US.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
He should have called the police, filed a report for false arrest and sued the company for destruction of property.
The actions of a private security force are not the responsibility of the government, and they are restricted by the same laws as the rest of us. This isn't the government cracking down on terrorist bogeymen, this is a private security force that needs to be informed they aren't cops.
Learn your rights, and stand up for them.
Now this is, of course, assuming your friend wasn't doing something illegal while taking the pictures like tresspassing, which is illegal and would get him in trouble. This would actually be what I would suspect, given my past experiences with such things. I've had a number of "rent-a-cops breaking the law" stories related to me in my life, most in person. Initally, it always sounds like the security force was in the wrong and, of course, I advocate standing up for one's rights as always. However it then usually comes out that the person involved was doing something they shouldn't have: Tresspassing, shoplifting, whatever.
Either way, my advice for the future: If private security tells you to stop taking pictures while you are on public land, tell them to get lost (do make sure you are on public land, not their property). If they try to detain you, get your cell phone out and threaten to call the police, while backing away. If they push the issue, make the call. If they do detain you and take your property, file a police report, and contact a lawyer about a civil suti. It IS illegal.
Security forces can temporarily detain a person only under very limited circumstances, such as if they are on the private property they are hired to protect, and they have witnessed the person comitting an illegal act (like shoplifting). Otherwise, they are just civilians in a silly uniform. If they try to grab you for something like taking photos on a public street, they'll lose their jobs at the very least.
Where you can smoke, in Australia at least, is governed by legislation... Under the Australia Summary Offences Act a 'mall' is a public space and there is no 'reasonable expectation of privacy' is how the law states it I believe. (from memory) Enclosed public spaces like 'malls' are designated smoke-free by state governments here... everything is fucking legislated! Whether you like the legislation or not, it's there!
Prior to WWII, back when Russia and Germany had relatively friendly relations, a lot of German 'tourists' visited the USSR and had their photographs taken by various strategic landmarks, such as bridges and tunnels. The photographs intentionally included the nearby signs, which provided important parameters such as clearance and maximum allowable load. Once this information was systematically compiled, the Germans had an unprecedented knowledge of their future enemy's infrastructure, enabling them to plan troop and weapon deployments with an incredible level of detail.
Procrastination Man strikes again!
Apparently it looks exactly like an innocent tourist video, which proves that it's really a cunning tradecraft terrorist video. Yep.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
1950s? In Poland, you will usually get your photos erased if you try to photograph a train station today. Sure, they no longer have the right to do so, but most of train guards and people don't realize this. And most folks get intimidated when apprehended by uniformed men who don't know it better.
The actual law was changed just a few years ago, too. And even though it no longer considers train stations "objects of vital military importance", shooting a photo of a lawn at a military training grounds can put you in trouble.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Because if it was private security, the first thing your friend should have done was call the police and have the security guards arrested for theft and/or destruction of personal property. It is not legal for them to do that. They can ask you to stop taking pictures and if you actually are on their property then you must comply, but they cannot take your film. Well, at least not without a court order.
Check out the Photographer's Right.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
And having gotten you to the station, they can take a DNA sample, which they keep even if they subsequently release you without charge.
Prosecutors claimed that this was part of an ongoing economic jihad. I really wish I was joking.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
In 2004 a French amateur photographer, Michel Neyrolles, was arrested in Poland and detained for almost a month because he took pictures of some industrial estate. So this Australian bloke is pretty lucky.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Whilst I don't condone the boring nature of what they were doing, I thought this might interest people outside the UK or with medium term memory loss.
Plane-spotters 'ignored warnings'
"They were held in prison for almost six weeks, before being released on bail and allowed to return to Britain."
Brocklesby Park Cricket Club
Sure they can. All they have to do is accuse you of being involved with illegal drugs or (even better) terrorism. Don't you know that some things are more important than your god-given right to individual liberty? They will lock you up and confiscate your posessions (especially your vehicle or house), and you won't get them back even if you are found to be innocent. No need for hard evidence, warrant, or formal charge if drugs or terrorism can be cited. Welcome to the land of the free.
Fall 2001
Winter 2003-4
You can't photograph the Eiffel Tower either. At least not at night.
This is just yet another nail in the coffin of freedom, in another (once democratic) country.
This madness has occurred in the U.S. too, in the fall of 2003 to cartoonist Wes Oleszewski, who does an aviation comic strip called Klyde Morris. Klyde is the first ant who becomes a commercial pilot. Just as with Doonesbury, the strip often shows well-known buildings with balloons of the conversations inside.
Oleszewski wanted to be able to draw a better representation of the FAA's building.
Oleszewski tried to take pictures of the FAA headquarters building in Washington, D.C. but was told photographs were forbidden for security reasons.
The inital series of three cartoon strips on what happended start here. There's a follow up on the story here.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
Greetings!
I have a BA in History; one of the particular areas I studied in the course of attaining this degree was communism in America. Although I ended up focusing on the 1920s and 1930s, I did briefly touch upon the 1940s and '50s.
Your statement that "McCarthy was actually 100% CORRECT in his inquiries" is, I'm afraid, false. Thousands were accused, but only hundreds were actually Communist Party members (of either the Soviet or the USA branch); fewer still were spies.
McCarthy's claim that the government was doing nothing about those communists was, again, false. A simple look at the anti-communist (and, prior to the establishment of a Communist Party in the US, anti-anarcho-syndicalist) of the past three decades would provide evidence of this, as would the declassified documents mentioned in the wikipedia article you linked to.
Again, McCarthy was not "100% correct." For more on this subject, I suggest you turn to your local libraries, especially any college libraries you happen to have access to.
~UP
Eat the Path.
just said "Don't do that again".
When a cop says 'Don't do that again', how do you interpret that? Do you say 'up yours and do it again'? What happens then? Does he smile and say 'I'm just warning you, have a nice day'? Or does he say 'I told you not to do that! You are under arrest for disobeying an officer! You are getting beaten with a night stick for resisting arrest! You are being shot because I fucking feel angry at your resistance to my orders!'
Here is a video of a police office in the United States shooting a man three times while the man is obeying the officer's orders! Do you think that this is the first time that this has happened? And yet you seem to think that it is insignificant when a policeman gives a warning against legal activity! Are you fucking stupid?!?!?!? When a cop gives you a warning/order you are taking your life into your own hands if you disobey. A warning from a police officer, legal or not, is a direct threat to you and if there is no legal grounds for that threat and you are not outraged by it, then you deserve the night sticking that so many others have gotten!
Actually, the supreme court recently ruled that though you do not have to provide ID to a police officer, you DO need to tell them your full name (and not lie about it) when asked to identify yourself.
I think it's a good idea for anybody to inquire about what law they are breaking to any snot-nosed cop as it is a legit question and forces them in a tight spot if they are doing something wrong.
>...by the FAA, not buy the first guy with a camera to ask. Title 14: Aeronautics and Space PART 91-GENERAL OPERATING AND FLIGHT RULES Subpart C-Equipment, Instrument, and Certificate Requirements ...
(b) No person may operate a civil aircraft unless the
airworthiness certificate required by paragraph (a) of this
section or a special flight authorization issued under
91.715 is displayed at the cabin or cockpit entrance so
that it is legible to passengers or crew.
And the guy said he was a passenger on that flight, so it's gotta be where he can ask to take a look at it. You just failed your written test...don't cry, you can take it again after you get your CFI to give you an endorsement saying he's given you some additional training...time for you to hit the Gleim books again...
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.