Slashdot Mirror
Police Allegedly Arrest UK News Photographer For Standing In A Field (wordpress.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Andy Smith, a Scotland-based news photographer, writes: I'm a press photographer. Slashdot has previously covered how the police used underhanded tactics to seize some of my work photos. But that was far from the end of the story. Several months of harassment culminated in me being arrested for standing in a field, something protected by law here in Scotland. I was given a police caution, which is a formal alternative to prosecution, but the police then cancelled the caution and prosecuted me anyway. Ironically, I was meant to be joining the police this month as a volunteer, but that has now been delayed by at least six months.
Earlier Andy had filmed the same police sergeant warning him not to photograph a minor traffic accident -- which had "seemed to anger him."
Earlier Andy had filmed the same police sergeant warning him not to photograph a minor traffic accident -- which had "seemed to anger him."
This asshole insists on filming peacekeepers doing their jobs in the hope that he will catch one of them slipping up. How many of us would appreciate the same treatment at our place of employment? I say lock him up, throw away the key, and withhold the condoms. What a douche.
The police don't care that someone is standing in a field. Was he doing something that was illegal? Was he trespassing on private property and the owners didn't want him there, perhaps?
It's only a matter of time before a journalist is arrested for being outstanding in the field.
Let's not forget how utterly corrupt and liberal the press has become. I don't know about the UK but here in the USA the mainstream press is 100% bullshit all day every day. For example they are constantly anti-Trump, no matter what he does, even though he has created millions of jobs and restored civility and respect for all points of view to the white house. The press has become the enemy of free nations everywhere and needs to be stomped down good and hard to remind them what their jobs are, which is to inform people not to parrot liberal talking points.
Your government actually likes these things because it not only generates publicity for the police precinct but that's one more set of biometric data they may not of had. Your government wants all the photographers and reporters on file.
...gets arrested for taking photos of police.
It's legal here, and generally you'll have no trouble finding a lawyer if you ran into that sort of issue here.
But there's also Trump, and our horribly awful healthcare system. So just stop photographing the police, and be glad it's the least of your worries.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Any journalist worth their chops has to get arrested a few times in their career. Having said that, it usually involves something more socially/legally charged than STANDING IN A FUCKING FIELD, OR PHOTOGRAPHING AN ACCIDENT.
And nothing else. I am still waiting for Slashdot to implement my request for a marker in each thread to show where the trolls stop, and the actual discussion begins.
But I suppose that's what the moderators are for.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Outstanding in his field.
This is a person complaining about the police, and you just let him post it here?? No attempt to find the other side of the story? No concerns about posting this when it's only this particular photographer that complains like it?
Anyone who reads this should know that it's completely unreliable. That doesn't mean it's not true. We just can't know. Sure, it's hard to find out what really happens, but without at least an effort to do so, we definitely won't know.
What we have here is a classic shark jumping moment. A slashdot reader submits a story based on an un-substantiated* blog entry written by himself of events pertaining to himself and this make the front page. And as a tie in to this story, TFS links to a story of exactly the same provenance from earlier this year.
This totally smacks of a Bennet Hasselton style content.
* I am not denying the likelyhood of the events as describe. Its the mixing of subject and author that is problematic.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Why is the term "allegedly" used in the title? Either he was arrested or he was not. This isn't a matter of someone being accused of something and a decision of truth not yet made, this is a news report about an event. Is the author saying that they are not sure he was arrested or that it hasn't been proven that he was arrested? Isn't it the job of the reporter to determine the reportable facts of the story?
Well done for the USA! USA! USA! post. No journalist has ever been threatened arrested or beaten for photographing the police in the US, despite it being legal.
It's legal here too.
generally you'll have no trouble finding a lawyer if you ran into that sort of issue here.
His union has been support.
So just stop photographing the police, and be glad it's the least of your worries.
If the police are afraid of what might happen if the public see them in action, it'll rapidly become the greatest of your worries.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's legal to take a photo of anything you like in the UK, as long as you're stood on publicly accessible property when you take it.
(1) Do something illegal. Let's say you are kiddie fiddling.
(2) Take something irrelevant to the incident. Let's say you are wearing blue jeans.
(3) Announce to the world: "Man arrested for wearing blue jeans".
Instant cry-baby victimhood status achieved! Profit!
The application for the warrant quickly made its way through the court.... I securely erased my computers and memory cards. I couldnâ(TM)t risk the police being able to identify sources from other stories, or finding passwords to access my email and instant messaging accounts which could compromise other peopleâ(TM)s sources.
So he is notified that he is the subject of a search warrant and immediately erases all of his data. Wouldn't that act alone get you a jail term in normal circumstances?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
People are starting to ignore the media, at least here in the USA is because they keep giving over opinionated stories with extreme spin. There are two sides to every story and when you "journalists" refuse to give the other side I automatically assume its bull shit. Give us facts please and keep this unsubstantiated over opinionated gibberish to your close friends. You honesty think we believe the whole police department is out to get you, following you, and arresting you for only standing in a field? Possible maybe but not plausible. So until you give us a little more proof than just a ranting blog, I'm going to move this "news piece" into my mental trash bin along with Fox News, CNN, and the BBC.
Isn't one of the unspoken rules of journalism to report news, and not be the news?
I can also imagine that you could stand in other places as well to take a photo if you got the permission from the property owner.
Film the street from someones apartment shouldn't be a big deal.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
It's legal to take a photo of anything you like in the UK, as long as you're stood on publicly accessible property when you take it.
And don't intrude on anyone's reasonable expectation of privacy.
I.e. if someone slips behind a tree to take a leak, you cannot take a picture of their privates with the justification that you were standing on publicly accessible property.
I just came here to leave a MST3K reference. Thank you.
Parts. The current The political mees dying. All major are incompatible take a look at the impaired its see... The number From a technical
won the Nobel Prize for being outstanding in a field
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
To receive a Police caution, you must first admit the offence, if you do not confess, a caution cannot be issued. It has to be proven in the normal way.
https://www.gov.uk/caution-war...
No journalist has ever been threatened arrested or beaten for photographing the police in the US, despite it being legal.
I didn't say that. I specifically said that if you do run into trouble for photographing the police in the USA, there will very likely be a horde of lawyers beating a path to your door to take your case.
Despite whoever modded my original post as "Troll", the fact is, photographing law enforcement in the UK is more loophole-y than it is in the USA. We take our constitutional rights quite literally. Just ask any fan of the second amendment how they feel it should be interpreted.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
The proof he is a news photographer appear to be a three year old photo of the Northern lights public in a small regional newspaper.
Well, so long as he wasn't running through a field, I suppose that's okay.
No? Then irrelevant.
This is what happens when you take arms from your citizens. The Police state shall rise!
So you'll have to make up an excuse that actually fits the data.
Outrage, the cure for thought.
Could be worse: it could be Hillary, and with her new wars, new taxes, and new free speech restrictions.
If you like the UK healthcare system, it means cutting per-patient Medicare/Medicaid spending in half, making most doctors government employees, cutting the average doctor salaries in half, introducing waiting times of many months, and limiting services to the elderly. If you think that results in a better healthcare system, you're a fool.
It's legal to take a photo of anything you like in the UK, as long as you're stood on publicly accessible property when you take it.
It certainly is not. Try taking photos of someone else's children in the park for example - you need to take care not even to get them in frame by accident. Try taking "candid" pictures - be careful that the subject does not notice. Then there are your photos with a telephoto lens of the girl down the road who forgot to close her bedroom curtains.
It's legal to take a photo of anything you like in the UK, as long as you're stood on publicly accessible property when you take it.
Really? I got my city and guilds in photography AV Tech back in the mid 80's and during that course we got some law applicable to photography.
There re corcumstances where it would in fact be "Assault by photography" here in Scotland if you are on public land or private land it matters not for this. If you use long lenses to invade someone's personal privacy where they are at home and have a reasonable expection of privacy.
Mostly it has historically been the paparazzi that have fallen foul of this. But yeah.. you can be arrested to taking photo's from public land... context is all and sweeping generalizations are usually off the mark.
Could be worse: it could be Hillary, and with her new wars, new taxes, and new free speech restrictions.
If you like the UK healthcare system, it means cutting per-patient Medicare/Medicaid spending in half, making most doctors government employees, cutting the average doctor salaries in half, introducing waiting times of many months, and limiting services to the elderly. If you think that results in a better healthcare system, you're a fool.
you must be referring to the NHS in England. In Scotland it performs much better.
Complete and utter bollocks. Fake news. There is no such thing as a "police caution" in Scotland - that's an English legal sanction. Simply doesn't exist in Scots Law.
Slashdot - you have been trolled.
Of course you can't *publish* it if for example it has company logos or statues or buildings designed by architects in the background...
"Is this the way the future is meant to be ... ... or is it just a photographer standing in a field ..."
Except for waiting times, everything I said applies throughout the UK/US. As for waiting times, Scotland still has waiting time targets (!) of 6 weeks for diagnostic tests and 18 weeks for referral to treatment. That would be completely unacceptable even as targets in the US. Of course, by US standards, Scotland is dirt poor, about 30% below Mississippi.
And if you're going to make arguments of "but in this part of the UK", I'd point out that if you go by states and regions, you can find always find parts of the US as well that do spectacularly well compared to the rest.
Slipping behind a tree to take a leak can end up with being added to the sex offenders register in the UK.
Nothing illegal about taking photos of someone else's children in the park. Nothing illegal about them being in frame otherwise either. Nothing illegal about candid pictures of someone. Telephoto lens through someone's bedroom window is your only valid point.
Could be worse: it could be Hillary
It was more of a general statement on how the founding fathers got the free speech thing right, but our election process still has a few bugs. If things were flipped around and Hillary had won the electoral college but lost the popular vote, you can bet the other side would've cried "foul" too. (Also: Insert quip about the shortcomings of our essentially two-party system here)
If you like the UK healthcare system, it means cutting per-patient Medicare/Medicaid spending in half, making most doctors government employees, cutting the average doctor salaries in half, introducing waiting times of many months, and limiting services to the elderly. If you think that results in a better healthcare system, you're a fool.
If you can afford to pay your way in our profit-driven healthcare system, yes - that system sounds worse. However, if you can't afford a plan with realistic co-pay costs and deductibles (and are unlucky enough to live in a state which rejected the ACA subsidies), you may as well have no insurance at all.
Being uninsured means either paying completely out of pocket for all your medical expenses, and/or going to the E.R. and defaulting on the bill.
It's not all that uncommon to hear about people here who have lost their homes due to medical expenses. But we can take all the pictures we want of the sheriff when he comes to serve the eviction notice. Yay.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Or you could live in the US and just die because you're too poor to afford medical care.
You are the fool. The problems with the UK healthcare system are down to lack of funding by the government, on purpose. If they spent the same % of GDP that is spent in the US there would be no waiting times, doctor salaries would be higher, and there would be no limit to services to the elderly (except there aren't any limits now)
you know.. we have choice here too. We can get private policies and btw... I have a BUPA family plan, they are a massively cheaper here than over there. you guys get humped for healthcare.
Those waiting times are for routine diagnostics and proceedures. When it comething more serious then things speed up...
I got treatment for cancer a few years back(nothing terminal but scary nonetheless), I went with the NHS at the Western General in Edinburgh and the place is AMAZING. the staff , facilities and support are first rate. Recuperative care...... that was with BUPA.
Not everyone can afford private but if you can then why not?
Stephen Hawking credits the NHS with saving his life and is currently in a war of words with the Health Secretary over how important the NHS is
You can piss and moan about how shitty our universal healthcare is... yet we have it and you don't.
our people DO get care when they need it and in Scotland, even the prescriptions medicines are free for children, the disabled, unemployed, students and even some people on lower incomes.
I more than happily pay my National insurance contributions every month. It pays for any medical emergency that may happen to me or my family but also helps pay for unemployment benefit should I become unemployed. Everyone here at some point or points in their life will have reason to thank the NHS for being there and never having to worry about deductibles or prescription medicine prices. if people need treatment they will get it... unlike the US where deductibles and prescriptions fees will get in the way IF people have insurance at all.
So we appreciate social healthcare as do many places worldwide. A healthy workforce is a happy workforce. a happy workforce is a more productive workforce. so it makes sense from an employers side too.
Our election process works quite well: unlike European parliamentary systems, it has kept us from sliding into tyranny for more than two centuries.
Again, if you look at European history, the two party system is a feature: parties like the NSDAP and dictators like Hitler could only come to power under Europe's multi-party parliamentary systems.
The problem with our health care system for the past half century has been that it hasn't been "profit driven", or more precisely, that it hasn't been a free market health care system. It has instead been driven by government-granted monopolies and socialization of costs.
I have news for you: being insured these days also means paying completely out of pocket for all of your medical expenses, given the high deductibles most affordable plans have.
How nice for you. But you have a system in which the government provides a basic level of healthcare through government-run institutions, controls costs strictly, and permits a thriving national market for supplementary and private insurance.
That's not what the US healthcare debate is about. The US healthcare debate is about providing everybody the same top-notch medical care regardless of income without meaningful cost controls on providers. And then people pretend that such a "universal healthcare system" is anything like the UK system.
The US has the money to provide UK-style healthcare out of the existing Medicare/Medicaid contributions. Obama had eight years to do it, instead he screwed up the private insurance market.
Let's be crystal clear here: the existing Medicare/Medicaid system could cover every single American at the same level as the British are covered by NHS without increasing Medicare/Medicaid contributions at all. Furthermore, per patient costs in Medicare/Medicaid are higher, and outcomes are worse, than in the US private system, even controlling for demographics.
You're right that the problem in the US is with "profits", but it's not the profits of insurance companies. The profits we're talking about here are the profits of the pharma and medical cartels and Democratic reformers aren't touching those. Quite the contrary: they want to mandate that everybody is forced to pay for those profits by law.
While Democrats love to point to universal healthcare in Europe, they are pulling a bait and switch: single payer healthcare in Europe overwhelmingly uses nationalized providers and strict salary and cost controls, but Democrats aren't proposing that because it would upset their biggest donors who make massive profits off the current system.
How nice for you. But you have a system in which the government provides a basic level of healthcare through government-run institutions, controls costs strictly, and permits a thriving national market for supplementary and private insurance.
That's not what the US healthcare debate is about. The US healthcare debate is about providing everybody the same top-notch medical care regardless of income without meaningful cost controls on providers. And then people pretend that such a "universal healthcare system" is anything like the UK system.
The US has the money to provide UK-style healthcare out of the existing Medicare/Medicaid contributions. Obama had eight years to do it, instead he screwed up the private insurance market.
the US is 22 trillion in debt and rising :-)
This is a situation where something last winter pissed someone off when he insisted that they go through proper channels, and in response someone in the police or prosecution office decided to make an example of him - instead of properly requesting photos they filed for an order allowing them to seize basically everything electronic that he owned, then said "If you give us these photos, we won't come in and completely destroy your livelihood by keeping all of your stuff for a year or two and returning it with 'accidental' damage."
This is a followup to that, basically he didn't knuckle under to someone in a slight position of power and they took umbrage.
Whoever he pissed off is the kind of petty tyrant that gives police departments a bad name.
fencepost
just a little off
There, are you satisfied photographer? You are now documented as being out standing in your field.
They do all sorts of crap to intimidate and harass people and if you film it they get mad- even in public places where you have every right to be. They can't explicitly arrest you for filming because that isn't a crime (though they have in the past here in NH and we won both criminal and lawsuits against them for it). Now the arrested me for disorderly conduct and crossing the street. One is a class a criminal offence with up to a year in jail. The other is like a traffic citation. It's a violation level offence. I have refused the best ever plea deal on this where they would drop all charges provided I admitted guilt to JUST the violation. Basically this way they can use it against me (even though it's only a $62 ticket) in the future to intimidate me and get me to admit I did something wrong. No, I wasn't wrong. I was totally right. There is no law against crossing the street outside specific circumstances in NH. The officer also tacked on criminal charges to target the media present and protesters who were filming an immoral if not unconstitutional checkpoint. They are technically allowed to do DUI checkpoints- but only under specific conditions which were not met. They also are using these checkpoints to catch people committing other minor violations. There have been a mere 3 DUI arrests in all the years they've been doing this in Manchester and they do them regularly and inconvenience a lot of people. They are not at all effective and DUI incidents have actually increased as a result of these checkpoints.
There are lots of activists in New Hampshire who go out and film police and while some of them are dicks or unrepresentative of the majority there are lots of great examples of cops breaking the law and harassing innocent people- from illegal searches to assaults on minors:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgnVXppkmzBKfTOwe-KqAJQ/videos
This cop was caught sleeping for example in his cruiser and his reaction was very interesting. He appears to have been intoxicated and when it was reported the police outright refused to investigate one of their own:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Mph3EaSyw
A few weeks later he assaults an eight year old boy in front of a dozen people!
Another police officer was convicted in Keene, NH of a DUI and is STILL on the police force. There are lots of videos of him being called out and criticized. A part of the guy's job is to go around the college neighbourhoods looking for drunk under-age college students and arrest them. It's a tactic used to generate dollars for the city. It's completely legal to drink IN PUBLIC ON CITY SIDE WALKS but only if you are dining at a city restaurant! It's targeting the poor and particularly poor college students.
http://www.freekeene.com/ - for more freedom activism in New Hampshire (covers a lot of what is happening with the Free State Project and similar migratory organizations in NH that focus on gathering liberty-minded people in one place to create a free state- a lot has been accomplished in the past couple years from decriminalizing drugs and removing regulations on bitcoin to protecting drone hobbyists to protecting those who film criminal police for police accountability purposes).
Agreed. I've taken photographs of children and posted them online. It's perfectly legal, along with photographing the police. I take pictures of them exactly because they tried to prosecute people for it and got a spanking.
As for candid photography.. it's my favourite sort. Street mostly, but also events.
Of course you can. In the UK you use those photos commercially too, although some restrictions around logos.
Bullshit. Basic level of healthcare my arse.
The NHS provides an excellent level of healthcare.
It is possible to get marginally better outcomes if you pay insane sums of money but that's true in the UK and the US. In the UK you get close to those margins for no extra cash; in rhe US sizeable numbers of people can't afford to get anywhere near.
Checked life expectancy in the two countries lately?
Yes, and as I was pointing out: that's because the public US healthcare system is so damned inefficient. The crony capitalist crap that the Democrats have been working towards, however, is nothing but a massive handout to donors of the Democratic party. Instead of creating a healthcare system like that of the UK, which spends about $4000/patient/year, Obama and Hillary have been pushing for a healthcare system that forces everybody to cough up $12000/patient/year and delivers worse outcomes than the UK.
Yes, have you? Maybe you can clearly express what you think that data shows.
So? The mandatory contributions to the public medical system in the US already bring in sufficient money to provide UK-style healthcare with no deficit or borrowing.
So? The mandatory contributions to the public medical system in the US already bring in sufficient money to provide UK-style healthcare with no deficit or borrowing.
BUT.. you still won't get it or the fight will be longer and more arduous than you think due to America's hangover from the McCarthy era and the fact that in America it's "fuck you.. pay me" and "me me me fuck you" .
It's more of a "we we we" here with no fear ot McCarthy ghosts damning collectivism socialised healthcare as communism.. or to be more American "communistic" because you like to end words with "istic" so you sound smarter(hint..it doesn't work).
BUT.. if you are so MASSIVELY in debt... is that why President Fuckface Von Clownstick wants to raise the debt ceiling to borrow more to build his idiotic wall and be able to afford the tax cuts to the rich maybe.... maybe... give some genuinely shit cover to some people while still throwing millions of Americans under the bus going to NoCoversville... yeah.. America is so fantastic!.....
In court Fox News has argued that they are an entertainment organization and not a news service. It is their view that they can lie as part of the entertainment. They seek ignorant viewers who get great pleasure in someone seeming to agree with their beliefs. their viewers are brainwashed and very hard to rescue.
So much anger and vitriol towards the US... that's not somebody talking who is happy with his circumstances.
You know, I have plenty of reasons to be angry at Europe, having grown up there. But I'm just glad that I'm out of there.
He was photographing an accident from a vantage point in the field. The police officer didn't like that and demanded that the photographers hands over all his cameras and photographs. If he doesn't do so, the police will get a court order and warrant to seize his equipment at home. So the photographer has no option but to do as requested.
It really looks like someone is covering up for a mate. The driver would get away with it if there's no other evidence - "this flock of sheep deliberately and wilfully jumped from a ridge into the front of my car as I was driving by slowly" would replace "I was drunk, driving like the devil down a narrow country road and knocked down a flock of sheep being herded down to the next field".
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
The UK government spending on the NHS, as a percentage of GDP has been falling*. European countries pay on average about 2% more on healthcare compared to the UK, although they are a more complex marketplace with private insurance, so a proportion of the additional spending goes on administrative costs. The NHS, in terms of cost for given outcomes is remarkably efficient, although for some specific illnesses places like France and Germany have better outcomes, a!though that gap has shrunk even in the last decade, I.e. the NHS has become increasingly efficient.
* I wonder if part of that is the NHS IT modernisation project costs falling out of the current budget.
Andrew Smith is Scottish?
What a shock!
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
I think it shows that the average Brit will live almost three years longer than the average American.
While I'd hesitate to attribute that all to the NHS I think it demonstrates that the NHS is hardly causing people to die young.
No, it doesn't even do that. All your line of reasoning demonstrates is your utter ignorance of the subject.