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

Hmmm...

[warGod3]

So a private security firm AND the police have the right to try and sentence people without so much as a trial? NICE! I bet Miami-Dade PD is going to have to throw up some decent PR on this one... Oh wait, it's in the name of anti-terrorism and public safety...

Re:Hmmm...

[drinkypoo]

Unfortunately, the only way to really fix this is to go ahead and get arrested. That's what it's going to take to turn this crap around; a lot of journalists getting arrested and writing passionate articles about the experience while hopefully being exonerated.

Re:Hmmm...

[openfrog]

Spot on! This is exactly the way to deal with this. Test it, get arrested, document the whole process and manage to be professional enough about it so you arise the interest of main media journalists, PBS, BBC, etc. Expose, just like they do here, underlying causes, like top security acknowledging of the rights, and private security and local police involved in arbitrary and erratic behavior.

The result: big public embarrassment for those involved, instigating fear of the same for like-minded small-time tyrants doing this everywhere.

This is a job of public education and the two photographers involved here are doing the right, appropriate and efficient thing about it. My hat to them!

Re:Hmmm...

[drinkypoo]

Nothing will turn this around.

Two points. First, I do not recognize that you are correct. Second, by assuming that nothing can turn this around, you have guaranteed that you will not work to turn this around, consciously or subconsciously. You have fallen into a trap of your own devising. I, however, do not believe it to be inescapable.

All getting arrested will do is (a) cost you a shitload of money and time which you will not get back in full, and (b) eventually get you lynched by the surrounding crowd if you give the "authorities" trouble.

Lots of people have lots of time right now. It doesn't have to cost you any money. What we need is legions of out-of-work photographers (they have the time) getting arrested for photographing anything and everything. I'm sure more than a few professional photographers have recently gone all-but-homeless. It's not like they're going to go to PMITA prison for taking a photograph of a subway.

Can't be fixed. They've found a perfect combination of imaginary threats to keep the population in line. You stick your head up, they'll bring out the mallet and smash it right back down where they think it's supposed to be.

You're a negative nancy. More to the point, you're not helping. Well, you are helping, you are helping the powers that be keep the population down by contributing to feelings of powerlessness. Or in short, you are doing evil.

Why don't you find a way to make a positive contribution, or failing that, shut the fuck up? You're only doing harm by repeating their lines for them. Do you get paid for this work you do for the power elite who have the most to gain from the maintenance of the status quo, or is this just some sort of mental disorder that you have chosen to delight us with because you skipped your medication?

I want everyone in America to carry a camera, and to use it. Thankfully, camera phones have made the first part true enough for most purposes. The problem is the second. Don't discourage patriotism. The only way to create the world that you want to live in is to be willing to die for it. You might or might not actually arrive in the world you want to live in, but doing nothing is a sure way to keep you where you are.

Don't buy into your own oppression.

Re:Hmmm...

[drinkypoo]

You need to sue for ONE MILLION DOLLARS, if not more. Sue the city, the transit authority, and the individual thugs themselves.

On what grounds? That your right to take photographs has been denied? No, you need to get arrested, then you sue the city.

The transit authority is going to back up their security officers' right to tell you to leave for any reason until the bad PR becomes significant, and that will never happen unless you were arrested. See, the general public is afraid of jail and terrified of prison, and if they think THEY could get arrested for, say, taking a camera phone picture of their friend with a graffitoed train behind them, then they will think "I could go to jail for taking a picture of my friend!" And that will reach into their subconscious and twist, and that causes the asshole to pucker. And that, my friend, is the true cause of political action.

Or in other words, get arrested first, sue later. I don't promise it will be pleasant; they do what they can to make the opposite true. But I do suspect that it is a necessary step.

Re:Hmmm...

[causality]

They would try and get you with resisting arrest. So the entire pretense for arresting you is resisting arrest. Doesn't matter what the resistance is; vocal, thought, physical.

Worse: if a cop uses physical force against you, like mace, a taser, all the way up to a baton or a gun, and then does not charge you with resisting arrest, that cop is effectively admitting that he used force for no reason. That's aka excessive force or police brutality. There's not a cop on Earth who wants to admit he unnecessarily used force, as it would open up his department to liability and effectively end his career.

It's unfortunate that you generally cannot sue the officer personally. They have some sort of sovereign immunity as they are noncivilian government agents conducting government business. You can sue the department or the city/locality/state that runs the department but not the officer himself. Most of the time the very worst thing that can happen to the cop himself is that he loses his job, though it's more typical for him to receive a free paid vacation for misconduct (paid suspension).

The irony is that cops seem honestly puzzled about why so many people don't like them.

Re:Hmmm...

[stephanruby]

Just ask politely if you're under arrest.

You should ask politely if you are free to go. It's a better question to ask. It assumes goodwill. It assumes a positive outcome. And it doesn't give him any idea about arresting you, because for all you know, the cop does not know about the body in your trunk yet, he was only interested in helping you push your car out of the ditch.

Re:Hmmm...

[fyngyrz]

Two points. First, I do not recognize that you are correct.

That's evidence that you're not paying attention, not that I am incorrect. Nor do you present any reasoning that would show that I am incorrect.

Second, by assuming that nothing can turn this around, you have guaranteed that you will not work to turn this around

I also assume that I will not be able to fly by flapping my arms; that I will not be able to read your mind no matter how hard I squint; and that sticking my head under a multi-ton press will not stop the press face from reaching the base plate. And I am absolutely right to make such assumptions.

The primary fault with your reasoning is that you think that you can reverse something that has enormous force behind it, by exerting a tiny little bit of pressure. You don't recognize the forces involved in the issue at hand here, literally have failed to identify them, nor have you accurately evaluated the amount and kind of pressure they exert, and so you think that some squabbling in a courtroom will get you somewhere.

As someone who has seen his share of courtrooms and then some, I have learned that fighting the system -- literally trying to say that the law, either in statute or in the person of an officer, is wrong -- is the one sure way to get the system to turn around and demonstrate that it has one hell of a lot more power than the defendant does, regardless of if you are actually correct, or not. I have seen everything from alternate charges (resisting arrest, public nuisance, creating a disturbance, failure to comply with, etc.) pressed to the limit, to outright ridiculous "interpretation" of the letter of the law. Review the reasoning behind the current understanding of the commerce clause to see this writ large; or just read up on police officers enticing people outside their homes so that the yelling they're doing changes from ok, because it's in their home, to a public disturbance because it's one inch outside the door, though still on the porch. Which will, in each and every case, be supported by the court.

A secondary fault is that you think (and truly, I don't know why) that the populace and their elected and appointed servants are rational and will support sensible procedure, rational evaluation, and so forth. I have observed that the population is largely superstitious, bases their ideas upon what they think imaginary entities have told them to do in some book, or an astrological forecast, or in the words of some nitwit in a pulpit; and that this leads them to do the wrong thing both as individuals and en masse. Subsequent to this realization, I have also learned that you cannot change the mindset of these people by providing rational input, because they're not rational in the first place. And the very stronghold of those people? The courts and the legislature. Swear by the bible, sonny; pray before we make law; may "god" bless the American people... ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

The tertiary error you're making is the assumption that the political and justice systems are amenable to you mucking about with the power structure they've created, and that they'll simply let it happen. They won't. Those structures have been very carefully tweaked over the years to benefit a particular class (which you and I are not in, nor will we ever be), and trying to screw with them will get you burned.

Lastly, you should keep in mind that they've created a special place just for you. It's the new(ish) permanent low-class citizen; the one with a criminal record. You won't be able to get a decent job; every word you say in public honestly attached to your name and person will be credited to "convicted felon so-and-so" (which will not, sadly, come with any caveats); you won't be able to establish credit; get insurance; go to school; the list goes on. In addition, you'll be listed on the "offender" list that provides special designation for your particul

Re:Hmmm...

[tburkhol]

Why don't you find a way to make a positive contribution, or failing that, shut the fuck up?

I make lots of positive contributions, just one of which is good advice that can keep people out of the meat grinder. The fact that you don't perceive it as positive is only evidence that your perceptions are dysfunctional. As for the "shut the fuck up" remark, my answer is no. How's that work for ya, Sparky? :)

All the unfixable conditions you have described are social conventions. People create social conventions, and people can change them through individual contributions of small pressures. Every time drinkypoo says "we can take back our country," we get a little piece of it back. Every time fyngyrz say "we are all fucked" we give a little more up. This is exactly the "structures [that] have been very carefully tweaked over the years to benefit a particular class" - the class that understands people will go where you tell them, if you just tell them it's too hard to go anywhere else.

In the end, we get the country we deserve, and I'm going to say that we can take our country back.

Re:It's the sun

[Nick Fel]

Can't be the sun - we have this problem in England.

The free world isn't so free anymore...

[captainpanic]

The free world isn't so free anymore... ... Because we've all been stupid enough to demand 100% safety and security from our nations (I'm European myself). Problem however is that terrorists are the perfect guerilla fighters. They are just a member of the general public, until they strike. So, the only way to work on this increased safety and security is to treat the entire population of the world as a suspect.

I'm not surprised that the world is turning out the way it is... And, there is no way that we can blame anyone but ourselves for it.

Hardly ever have I encountered anyone arguing that we could do with less security. Nobody says that it's not worth the money... But, actually, we can... Which is why I think we've all been stupid. On the other hand, demanding for less security practically brands you as a terrorist, so asking for it is not exactly smart either :-)

Re:The free world isn't so free anymore...

[trout007]

I've been arguing for years that we can do with less security. Go back to 9/11 and what was the real cause that they were able to pull off the attack? It was the FAA position that we should cooperate with hijackers. Once the people on the 4th plane learned what was going to happen they tried to take the plane back. I'm sure the whole time on those planes the fight attendants were telling everyone to stay seated and be calm and it would be over soon like they were trained to do. So to prevent this in the future you don't need the TSA and flight marshal's and no fly lists. All you needed was a change in attitude that passengers no longer will comply with hijackers. Done. Just let the regular airport security do their job of keeping guns off the plane.Reinforcing the cockpit door wasn't a bad move either. But besides that nothing more needed to be done. Notice all of the near misses prevented by passengers since then. What is great too is that passengers are allowed to profile. While the TSA is frisking Mexican Abuelas every passenger is keeping their eye on Ahkmed. Now Ahkmed may be a fine upstanding man but passengers will watch him the whole flight and if he does something out of the ordinary will do something about it for self preservation.

Poor confused journalists

[Rogerborg]

Don't they understand that just because there's no law against it doesn't mean that you're allowed to do it? That's exactly the kind of mistake that The Terrorists might make if they came to the Land of the Free and thought that you were allowed to actually exercise said Freedoms. See? That's why their behavior was suspicious.

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.

Re:Look at it like an airport...

[Jason Levine]

Which makes it even more odd that the people who are detained always seem to be using DSLR cameras. If you use a cheap point and shoot camera, you're likely to be left alone but break out the DSLR with a big lens and you'll get security guards demanding that you delete the photos or face Homeland Security. Meanwhile any terrorist who actually wanted to use photos to plan his attack would likely use a cell phone camera or easily-hidden point and shoot camera. Or maybe he'll just have a notebook and pencil and sketch the train station while appearing to be taking notes. Yikes! We'd better ban paper & writing implements in public areas! Quick, before the terrorists use them to destroy us all!!!!!

Re:Unfair

[deniable]

Ah, complex laws. They have real and imaginary parts.

The terrorists won.

[miffo.swe]

This is just another example of how the western world has shown just how effective terrorism is. Especially if your goal is to make your enemy into a police state and loose every human right they once had.

Free travel, the right to privacy, free speech, innocent until proven guilty all of them are on the way out. It wont happen over night but we are going there much faster than i thought people would allow.

This was the very goal of the 9/11 attacks and we have taken the bait, hook, line and sinker.

Biggest winner are China and other suppressing states that nowadays seem pretty innocent. Its very hard for other countries to demonize them when they in many regards are just as bad, compared to China they are just a lighter shade of gray.

In essense its like a criminal complaining when someone steals something from them.

Re:No

[joebagodonuts]

Wrong - since there is nothing prohibiting their photography they should've been left alone. There is quite a bit of US law that allows public photography. There is no need for "Written permission". We already have it.

But, because of stupid fears we have more bureaucracy, and an increase of the idea of "Any behavior that isn't specifically allowed is prohibited!". The problem here is that isn't how our law actually reads. Not in America. Not yet.

Which was the point of the exercise - to highlight the fact that in actual practice we have a situation where citizens engaged in legal behavior in a public place are having that legal behavior stopped by the threat of force. Employees of this private security firm are not legally empowered to take away the rights of citizens in a public place.

After reading the article, the utter stupidity of this situation is heartbreaking. The motive here isn't to protect the train station. Nor is it to protect the citizens. Every employee of this private security firm just wants to cover their ass - to not lose a paycheck. A classic example of bureaucracy in action.

Re:No

[ceoyoyo]

Did you read the article? Did you read the post I replied to? It doesn't sound like it.

The GP said "the only way to really fix this is to go ahead and get arrested." We both realize they didn't get arrested, because we both read the article. Your "first of all" is meaningless.

"Second," the photographers did NOT screw up by not getting written permission. They asked whether photography was allowed, and were told that yes, it is. That is, they were told they didn't NEED written permission (or any other kind). The point they were making is that security and the police are being overzealous, enforcing laws and policies that don't exist. It was not to acquire pictures of the Miami metro system.

Re:Working definition of a police state

[SharpFang]

Oh, not quite! This is perfectly legal!

You must follow orders of the officer if special circumstances occur.
Refusing to follow orders of the officer (in -any- circumstances) creates said special circumstances.

Catch 22 we can make up laws on the spot.

Note there is no restriction on requirement of the orders being physically possible, and the police is entitled to use force upon failure to perform to orders.

Catch 22 we can beat you if we like.

You are free to refuse identification unless you create reasonable suspicion. By the act of refusing identification you create reasonable suspicion. You lose most of your rights the moment you try to assert them in similar way.

Catch 22 we have a way around those pesky citizens rights.

The definition of police state is not when the police can do illegal things and get away with them. That is just plain anarchy, a broken system out of control.

The police state is when whatever the police does is legal, no matter what they do, and any action (or inaction) you take can be declared illegal (and punished accordingly), at will.