UK Terror Law To Make Photographing Police Illegal

UK Terror Law To Make Photographing Police Illegal

www.prisonplanet.com

New laws set to be passed in England and Canada would make it illegal to use bad language or take photographs of police officers, moving us further away from the idea of police as public servants and more towards the notion of cops assuming God-like status.
According to the British Journal of Photography, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which is set to become law on February 16, “allows for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone who takes pictures of officers

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.epuk.org

Mod edit: changed title to match article title, as per the Breaking Alternative News forum guidelines





[edit on 29-1-2009 by Duzey]

OMG: UK and Canada will not be allowed to take pictures of Police come Feb. 16th? That is about one of the most OUTRAGEOUS laws I have ever heard of!

This is supposively a "counter terrorist" law!

According to the British Journal of Photography, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which is set to become law on February 16, “allows for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone who takes pictures of officers ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.” The punishment for this offense is imprisonment for up to ten years and a fine.

However, even before the passage of the legislation, police in Britain have already been harassing and arresting fully accredited press photographers merely for taking pictures of them at rallies and protests.

In other words - as the world is going into more of a "Police State" - in the UK and Canada - there will be no account for Police brutality.

It will also be a crime, to photograph, anything - like what happened New Years Eve with the BART policeman shooting a person in the back of their head, unprovoked!

Besides the 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain, one for every fourteen people, Police are now equipped with mobile surveillance vans and head mounted cameras and they routinely videotape everyone at a protest, yet anyone attempting to record them has been met with increasing hostility.

Mind you, no one can dare photograph a police officer, yet the people are photographed with almost everything they do.

The police are arresting journalists, seizing their equipment, treating them as suspects, looking at their photographs, taking copies, perhaps returning them to them, taking no further action often (but not always) and they’ve got, straight away, what they want,” solicitor Mike Schwartz of Bindman and Partners told a UK National Union of Journalists conference.

“At every demonstration, the police are figuratively scratching their heads as to how they can get hold of your material. That’s what they’re after.”

This is truely scary, what is going on in this world? Why is there SO MUCH of trying to control the people?

Where is the world headed with this and is the U.S. next in taking drastic steps as this?

Where are people's rights?

So many questions - to an absolute absurd law!

I can not even wrap my head around all the implications of this law!

a vid from 2007 - Police already did not like being filmed:










www.prisonplanet.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 29-1-2009 by questioningall]

Ok so the law now says to the public " Video tape or take pictures of an Officer assaulting a member of the public and you can held under the 'anti terror' laws"..

Way to go for a big brother state..

Originally posted by questioningall
It will also be a crime, to photograph, anything - like what happened New Years Eve with the BART policeman shooting a person in the back of their head, unprovoked!

Dangerous stuff here. In the past bit I can think of 3 instances off the top of my head where cillivan pictures/video were the key in proving abuse by police.

The BART incident you mention.
The cop in NY shoving the protester on the bike.
The cop roughing up the young skate boarder.

I'm sure there are many others.

Take this power away from the citizens and it will only be the citizen's word against the cop's...and we know how that usually works out.

this is a disgrace, the establishment really do wish to test the people don't they

Thats shocking news! As it stands now you have no powers to stop a cop taking your camera from you wether its legeal or not, i mean what can you do? They will do you for assault if you try to stop them and your beloved & potentially expensive camera/vid camera is gone for good, your word against his.

Its the way things have gone and i have seen videos/read accounts of this happening.

Its blatently so you cannot record them doing anything wrong!

I've seen the police video taping a group of individuals before a soccer match here in the UK, so why not turn around to them and say

" stop taping me, you are breaching my human rights to privacy, or are you taping me because you are a terrorist , disguised as a policeman reccing me ready for an attack against my personage ? in which case I will be forced to dial 999 / or 911 ( delete for the country your not in) and report you ".

see where that goes..

I can't find anything about Canada wanting to pass this law. Maybe I am goggling in the wrong words. Is any Canadian or UK member aware of this? I know cops sometimes get out of hand and take away cameras and films, especially if they just finish kicking the hell out of some guy, but to pass a law like this would only invite brutality.

I did find this.

Federal Law
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees basic rights and freedoms for all Canadians. However, the Charter only dictates the government's role (ie: the police can't stop you from taking photos, just because they feel like it). The charter does not:

* Relieve you of breaking other laws
* Relieve you of breaking civil law (you vs. another person or company)
* Dictate what you are allowed to do on someone else's property

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 32.:
This Charter applies:
a) to the Parliament and government of Canada in respect of all matters within the authority of Parliament including all matters relating to the Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories; and
b) to the legislature and government of each province in respect of all matters within the authority of the legislature of each province.
You are guaranteed the right to take photographs, and publish them

You are guaranteed the right to express yourself through photography, and you have the freedom to publish the photos you take. Unless you are arrested, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees your right to take photographs of anything you want, as well as publish them.

ambientlight.ca...

You know that the UK is the testing ground for the NWO, see if the public adheres to new laws easily.
If it works in the UK then it will work in other countries .

mmmm. I have mixed emotions about this, I'm glad you posted so that more folks could se this. A star and a flag is in order. This has disturbing implications. If it is illegeal to photograph police, then what would happen to a man who video taped police beating someone else on the sidewalk? It would seem to give them a lot of power in the case of a crooked cop taking advantage of it.
At the same time, as a member who has in laws that are officers here in the states, ( a very attractive female officer i will add) there are concerns for HER safety sometimes even though she is the officer. It is known among some circles in the town that she was a model before becoming a cop, and she often must deal with people under the illusion that that is still her life. She has concerns over people who photograph her and her child, and it borders on harrassment at times. I think the law in this thread gives a little too much leeway to the officers though. No photographs at all just seems like a good way to blanket everything they do. Instead I think that some of the same stalking laws that celebrities use could be stricly enforced for officers. I do feel that as they (the officers) are public servants, they should be subject to private and citizen investigations, but when do you draw the line? What about when someone tracks them day and night with a camera to the point that it affects their job?
I don't knowthe best solution. I do know that the woman I talked about could use a little more protection, but I also know that this law is just too much. I look forward to more feedback from members on this.

The problem is, this law also includes "Professional photographers and photojournalist".

See this link:www.epuk.org...

This was a photographers conderence, they discuss how the police has been already, taking their equipment, then using the photos against people who have been part of demonstrations.

“ Sadly, I think one of the dangers is that the police are using their powers to arrest journalists and photojournalists in order to get round the protections which are built into PACE which are supposed to protect journalistic material. ” , he told the conference. “ The police are arresting journalists, seizing their equipment, treating them as suspects, looking at their photographs, taking copies, perhaps returning them to them, taking no further action often (but not always) and they ’ ve got, straight away, what they want. ”

Does everyone fully realize what will happen when this law take affect next month?

It gives the rights to Police Officers to do as they will, without ever having to be held accountable for brutality and violating people's civil rights.

In effect, it ultimately takes away everyone's civil rights, as there will be no fighting against what authorities have done, due to photographing events will be illegal.

“ What often happens is journalists are arrested, their material is taken from them, prosecution is not pursued, but then that material is used as part of the prosecution of non-journalists. ”

However, according to Schwartz, the same material can be seized and examined by police if the journalist is arrested as a suspect and the material is considered evidence in the alleged crime for which they have been arrested. “ I ’ m not suggesting that there is a large scale conspiracy, but the reality is that the effect of the policing is that innocent journalists are at the time, not after the fact, arrested, searched as all arrested people are, the threshold for arrest is pretty low, and barring the exceptional immunity for freedom of expression defences, that power is misused. ”

The above was previous events, now it will be COMPLETELY against the law and there will be no freedom of expression or accountablity!





[edit on 29-1-2009 by questioningall]

[edit on 29-1-2009 by questioningall]

I had to laugh when I saw this topic. I just posted a thread about how you can be searched by officers for next to no reason these days, and other inappropriate behavior of officers in neighborhoods. One of the responses, well a few of them, were to video tape the behavior and report them. Then I see this! I do agree that if this flies in UK and our neighbors to the north, Canada, it won't be long before they make this law in the US.

I think that is overblown and dead wrong! There is a difference in stalking a cop or putting one under surveillance, than taping wrong action or using the presence of a camera to keep them from abuse. This should be very interesting to see how this plays out.

I wonder how long it will be before they ban carrying a camera in public or camera use full stop!

Heres another video of the uk police AND security gaurds trying to stop people filming.


Sorry but i dont know how to embed youtube vids.

[edit on 29/1/09 by cropmuncher]

[edit on 29/1/09 by cropmuncher]

Since most cell phones have a camera, anyone who has a cell phone would be a terrorism suspect and terrorism suspects have no rights...

I don't see this law passing in Canada - maybe the UK, but not in Canada.
Our French MPs have already been put on notice that the blame for any future terror attack will fall on them and that we are aware of their false flag terror tactics and our English MPs are not going to pass such a stupid law (since Canada has had so many terrorist attacks lately.)

theres a reason behind this,and that is the police in the uk are largely future ais......and you can tell.
experienced them myself,
arrested for nothing,taken to a police station hours away,the officers who arrested me told me to be quite as "they" were suspicious,attempted to hold me for 72hours but the real police let me go.

take a good look at the police whenever you can , you may notice somethings not right about them.

Originally posted by welivefortheson
theres a reason behind this,and that is the police in the uk are largely future ais......and you can tell.
experienced them myself,
arrested for nothing,taken to a police station hours away,the officers who arrested me told me to be quite as "they" were suspicious,attempted to hold me for 72hours but the real police let me go.

take a good look at the police whenever you can , you may notice somethings not right about them.

Future what? what's an AIS?

are you saying that the police that 'took' you were Artificial Intellegnces from the future?



I'll have a toke of what you were smoking that night.

[edit on 29/1/09 by DataWraith]

Those farkers just farking try to pass that. I'll photograph them and bring it on, we'll go to supreme court. BRING IT ON .

Just freaking try that.

I can't find reference to this in the actual Act. Can someone provide a direct link to it?

www.opsi.gov.uk...

I used to respect the police, but not now, not by a long shot

It's crazy here in the UK already. I'm a keen amateur photographer and carry either a compact or DSLR everywhere I go. These days though I feel very self conscious carrying my DSLR in public and I have noticed people looking at me a lot.
Maybe it's the conditioning working? Members of the public wondering what I am up to and what I'm taking photos of. After all, I could be a terrorist or pedophile, or a terrorist pedophile.

A group of crazy paparazzi jostling for a photo of some silicone breasted footballers wife is quite normal and acceptable. but anyone else must be viewed with suspicion?

The idea of the police using body-cams to record events is all well and good but shouldn't we, the tax paying public who fund the government and police forces, also have the right to film those officers in their duties to record that they are themselves acting lawfully? What's good for the goose....etc!

I have myself been stopped by security officers whilst taking photos in a public place and told I had to stop and I wasn't allowed. I simply stood my ground and pointed out the public footpath notices and asked them to quote, or show me, the relevant law that prohibited photography. Of course they could not do so so I carried on taking photos.

The whole "terrorist" thing is just another convenient and, IMHO ridiculous, means of enforcing ever-more draconian laws and regulations on all of us, under the pretext of protecting us. What is maddening is that so many people will nod in agreement with these laws and use the old "if you have nothing to hide, why be concerned" line. Well maybe they just want to bend over and take it but there are many more of us who don't.