Would you be happy if the public was calling the police because you was taking photos in a public place?

V2K1, what you are saying is true. People do need to be vigilant and while we can always say that hindsight is 20/20, we can only learn from mistakes made, not use them as an excuse to pigeonhole someone. An Arab man, a photographer, shouldn't have to worry whether he will be stopped by authorities by simply indulging in his hobby, or doing his job simply because he "looks" suspicious. The same is true for racial profiling carried out by some police departments, just because a young black man seen driving around a rough part of town at midnight may "look" like he's trying to deal drugs, and despite the fact that "usually" people are stopped doing just that, we shouldn't use that to prejudge a person probably just getting off the late shift at the Chevy plant down the street. Profiling is intrinsically wrong, it goes against all the principles of a free nation ever written or expressed. And while it is sad that the British carry more latitude to infringe upon the rights of its citizens, there was a reason why we decided to secede from them over 200 years ago. In this [my] country (the US) a photographer has latitude to have the freedom to shoot anything within the public domain without permission or explaination. We should never sit idly by and allow for any right, of any person, to be infringed upon for the sake of profiling - racial, ethnic, or otherwise (which is what this whole thing is about, essentially). There are many more ways of dealing with threats of terrorism around the world. Instead of hassling a photographer, how about tightening up the immigration policies of our countries. Or perhaps, hiring, then training competant screeners at airports. Maybe taking a good look at our foreign policies. I take extreme offense to the poster, and I would seek to lobby for it's removal (which I am sure our British shutterbug bretheren are already trying to do). You've got my damn support, I can tell you that.

No, I wouldn't be happy if someone called the police on me for taking photos in a public space, however the underline issue is pretty serious. Terrorism is real and it just so happens that terrorist use the camera to do there dirty work. So how do the photographers and the police find a happy medium. It's sad to think that photographers have to be on the lookout for cops when doing the thing that makes them who they are. This is really interesting! If you think about it, is everyone with a camera a suspect??? I think that the police force should come up with a better way to identify potential terrorist and stop harassing artist.

Cheers!

PS. That PDF poster is legendary!

It's possibly the biggest waste of valuable police time and the least likely way to counter terrorism I have ever heard of... what makes a photographer 'suspicious'?

Or a holiday maker?

Or a Muslim?

The danger is that the police get overwhelmed by utterly spurious leads... whereas 'hearts and minds' creates an 'intelligence lead' approach based on very specific information.

I've been interviewed in a police state for taking photographs - but where there IS a genuine terror threat there is a very real danger with this kind of approach that solid information gets lost in a blizzard of other data... it's a fundamental principle of hearts and minds that the state operates like a laser beam, not like a shotgun in such matters. There is a very specific military doctrine on this which is proven to work... and it definitely doesn't work like this!!

The chances of a photographer being a terrorist are going to be around a million to one or even less - a million spurious calls would be a total nightmare for any intelligence or police organisation to deal with, so this is very, very Counter Productive, especially if you take into account Google Earth, publicly available building plans, maps and mobile phones... etc!

It's pure PR and a folly but it helps to give the impression that politicians and the police are doing something... which of course they are, it just involves 'the wrong tree'.

This actually happened to me in early February in London.

I was taking photographs in Camden Town and a pair of police officers asked me what I was photographing. I was just taking a picture of the length of Camden High Street. Next I was given a stop and search order under s44 of the Counter Terrorism Act. There was a lot of bureacratic form filling and I had to give my name and address. When the police officer asked if she could then search my bag, I said OK and she barely glanced inside it for a second after having taken several minutes filling out forms.

Note - I am not arabic - I am blond haired and of Scandinavian origin. Perhaps the police were simply choosing me as a part of a balancing quota to show they were not racist in their stop and seaches.

I don't know the laws in the UK but in the US it is illegal for police to say anything to you about taking pictures in public. I personally would fight this, because if I were in London taking pictures of my vacation and a cop stopped me I would be anywhere from annoyed to fighting mad for having my vacation marred by this.

As someone who lost family on 9/11, I would prefer to err on the side of caution. If I am inconvenienced for a moment, but a life is saved, what's the big deal?

I think it's a reasonable request that the public be alert to suspicious activity.

If Mohammed Atta's flight school instructor had reported that he wasn't much interested in landing or taking off, we might not have had 9/11.

V

As long as you don't have anything to hide, there's nothing to worry about.