Police Stop Journalists From Photographing Metrorail System

schwit1 writes with this excerpt from Reason.com: "Carlos Miller, who runs the Photography Is Not a Crime blog, and veteran photojournalist Stretch Leford decided to test the photography rules in Miami-Dade's metrorail system. Before embarking on their test, they obtained written assurance from Metro Safety and Security Chief Eric Muntan that there's no law against non-commercial photography on the system. The two didn't make it past the first station before they were stopped. Employees of 50 State Security, the private firm contracted to provide the metro's security, stopped the pair first. They then called in local police. The private firm and the police then threatened the two with arrest, demanded their identification (to check them against a terrorist watch list), demanded multiple times that they stop filming, and eventually 'banned' Miller and Ledford from the metro system 'for life' (though it's doubtful they had the authority to do so)."

Comments

This isn't over

[MobyDisk]

This is far from over.

I'm glad to see that part of the article. They even presented to the security guards the very letter that granted the photographers permission, and they were still stopped. The next step is to follow-up on that letter and ask why their guards aren't following their own policies. This was a great experiment: there was no fighting, no harassing the security guards, etc. I really look forward to seeing the result. There is a part of me that hopes hundreds of photographers start going there to try and take photographs.