Homeland Security cop arrests man for filming FBI building in NYC

Homeland Security cop arrests man for filming FBI building in NYC

carlosmiller.com

A 43-year-old man was jailed for six hours – and had his camera and memory card confiscated by a judge - after filming an FBI building from across the street in New York City Monday.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Randall Thomas, a professional photographer, said he was standing on the corner of Duane Street and Broadway in downtown Manhattan when he used his video camera to pan up and down on the 42-story building at 26 Federal Plaza.

He was immediately accosted by a security guard in a brown uniform who told him he was not allowed to film the building.

Thomas asserted his legal right to film from a public street. The guard called a Homeland Security Officer who asked Thomas what he was filming.

“I said ‘that’s none of your business,’” Thomas said in a telephone interview with Photography is Not a Crime Wednesday night.

The federal officer handcuffed Thomas and sat him on the curb for ten minutes, before escorting him inside the same FBI building and taking him to the 10th floor and placing him in a holding cell.

TPTB are out of control. Photography is not a crime. Anyone who wanted to could very easily have pulled up Google Earth and saw the exact same thing this guy was filming. He was not compromising national security and there was absolutely no need for Homeland Security to get involved. This is ridiculous.


TA

carlosmiller.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I wonder if the same thing would have happened if 100 or more people decided to film the same building at the same time? If the arrests of this photographer becomes known all around Manhattan, then it would be a "fun" experiment for the people to film the building at the same time and see what the FBI does about it.

However, this is not the first time I hear about this kind of incident. I don't remember where, but lately it has become a crime to film some people without any authorization or take photos of certain buildings.

AFAIK (and I am not a lawyer), it's legal to take photographs of anything you can see from the street. That is, if you can see it, you can photograph it.

I do understand that the FBI and other law enforcement officials are skittish about having themselves photographed, because of the possibility of someone using the photo to track or do them harm. However, as far as I know, there is no law forbidding anyone from photographing them.

The "disorderly conduct" charge sounds like a crock. That is a catch-all to allow police to arrest anyone for doing something the police don't like you doing. I think that charge is beginning to lose effect.

The problem with all this is, whenever you have an incident such as this, it boils down to your word against theirs. They can take away your camera (illegally) and erase it, and then you hav no evidence of any meeting. Or they can take you in for "disorderly conduct" or whatever, and you can go to court and have the charges dropped. And then, you're right, but you don't have your pictures, and you've been hassled and prevented from doing what you were legally doing.

The right to do something is meaningless, if you are hassled for doing it.

In Chicago they just take your camera, destroy it, beat you up, and arrest you for resisting arrest or whatever. At least, that's what they've done to reporters filming things they didn't want seen.

I was in a country in Africa where I was warned not to photograph buildings as I could be arrested for it.

I was so thankful to return to the USA where I thought nothing like that would happen.

Unfortunately, I guess I was wrong about that.

Yes someone might eventually get off the hook on charges like this, but even if you do, you've wasted so much precious and valuable time with being detained, going to court, and all the associated hassles of stress etc that even if he's not convicted it still has taken a bite out of his life for doing essentially nothing wrong.

The only advice I would give him, is to maybe try to think of a less confrontational answer than "none of your business", when the authorities ask you a question, that's not the answer they like to hear, even if it may seem like the most appropriate answer at the time. I almost wonder if he could have avoided detainment if he had just told them he's a pro photographer making a documentary in that area and was checking out all the buildings on that street, that just happened to be one of them, or something. But they might have locked him up anyway, who knows?

Still, I wonder.....?

Didn't the communist USSR government do this kinda thing, to anyone caught filming KGB HQ or the Kremlin, during the cold war?

[edit on 20-8-2009 by In nothing we trust]

reply to post by chiron613

The "disorderly conduct" charge sounds like a crock.

Yeah, it's a trumped up charge. They couldn't think of any other reason to detain the guy, so they used that. And you're right, the right to do something is basically meaningless when 'they' are going to act like this. Sad day in America.


reply to post by Arbitrageur

I was so thankful to return to the USA where I thought nothing like that would happen. Unfortunately, I guess I was wrong about that.

To the detriment of America, it does appear that way. I don't know if it would have mattered if the guy explained himself, but I have my doubts. They probably would've detained him regardless of what reason he gave for being there; it sounds like that had already been decided.


reply to post by In nothing we trust

Didn't the communist USSR government do this kinda thing, to anyone caught filming KGB HQ or the Kremlin, during the cold war?

I'm honestly not sure on that. I'll do some digging when I get a minute and if possible, find you an answer.

Thank you all for the replies, insight, stars and flags.


TA

a tiny bit of tort reform would solve this.

make the govermental agency responcible for the violation of civil rights , responcible for recovery of damages , time lost , personal suffering... as a civil court action

in short... the gov loses its immunity if they violate civil rights.

no diffrent from how they would treat you for a equal and oppisite act against the goverment.

reply to post by TheAssociate

Welcome to the slippery slope -

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORTING (SAR)

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/963dda56d165.jpg[/atsimg]
Source : Federal Information Sharing Environment