MAKING IT ILLEGAL TO USE BAD LANGUAGE OR TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OF POLICE

[frog]

Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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 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.

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

Justin Tallis, a London-based photographer, was taking pictures of the anti-BBC protest this past weekend when he was approached by an officer. The officer demanded to see his photographs and when Talis refused the officer tried to seize his camera, arguing that Tallis shouldnt have taken that photo, you were intimidating me.

The incident lasted just 10 seconds, but you dont expect a police officer to try to pull your camera from your neck, Tallis told BJP.
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 theyve 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. Thats what theyre after.
The police take action, they often get what they want, and allow the lawyers in court to mop up whats happened afterwards. Thats one of the trends and areas where there is a real problem: the police arresting journalists and seizing their material in order to use it in prosecutions.
An incident captured on camera and uploaded to You Tube proves that some police officers in Britain already think that is is against the law to film them.

Film-maker Darren Pollard was clearing up flood debris from his front garden when he noticed the police harassing a youth opposite his house. Darren retrieved his camera and began filming the officers. After noticing Pollard, the officers approached and then tried to claim that it was illegal to film them. After being informed by their superior that it was not illegal to film police, the officers left the scene.

additional info:

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=836646

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090126/national/police_insults

http://www.prisonplanet.com/uk-terror-law-to-make-photographing-police-illegal.html

[allcanadian]

@Frog

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.

This is not good, here in canada I know many policemen who are very good people, but then I knew one who was an ignorant egotistical alcoholic who beat his wife(a neighbor).Everyone on the block knew he was an alcoholic and that he beat his wife and nobody had the balls to report it, hmm so much for integrity. The lesson here is that no uniform or title can change the true nature of the person behind it. To assume all of them are honerable and deserving of the respect we give them is delusional because they are human first and formost and policemen second. Respect must be earned and not implied because of a title or uniform, I think if these policemen had any true integrity they would oppose these new laws that set them above the very laws they are supposed to uphold, LOL, what a joke.