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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)."
OF course gotta look at it the same way airports do I guess. It's public transportation. Do you want terrorists plotting against our metrorail or airplanes?
I was shoved aside and the young man "of color" went through the turnstile on my card.
Looks like the bigot got what he deserved.
What's that whooshing sound?
I figure after the half dozen of so laptops, desktops and phones I've purchased over the years entitles me to a free iPad. Well, the Apple store manager didn't see it the same way and decided to ban me from the store. I figure I paid a few months rent, what's wrong with maybe an iPad going out the door. He didn't see it the same way either. Figures, you bunch of Apple snobs.
Many photographers are honestly puzzled as to why this keeps happening to them. But the rest of us know why.
Sounds like you've never met a stupid nigger before.
"a lot of journalists getting arrested and writing passionate articles about the experience while hopefully being exonerated."
I'm going to have to cry shenanigans on all of this.
I find it rather convenient that there was no video taken before security arrived and this is for a blog titled "Photography is Not a Crime". I know there's hundreds of posts on here saying "bad police!", but I watched the video and I think these photographers did a lot of things wrong.
I have a really hard time believing they were just standing there taking a photo in the parking lot and security magically appeared to stop them. There has to be more to it than that, but they decided not to start recording until security arrived. They claim they were stopped for "photos we took in the parking lot" but this is for a blog that tries to get arrested by taking photos so how can we trust their word?
Second, the police were AMAZINGLY patient with them. At 2:55 One officer asked a dozen times for their ID and he refuses. That's just wrong, any officer has the right to ask for an ID if they have any reason to do so. If you're just standing there looking "suspicious", a cop can ask for ID. Why? So they can know who the hell you are. If you're innocent and don't have warrants out you have no reason not to say "sure here's my ID".
They're trouble makers, I agree they should be banned for life, security and police just wanted to know why they were taking video and photos and to stop but they kept pressing the issue.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone