The folks at The Guardian have published two video interviews with amateur photographers who have been harassed by police for taking pictures on the streets.* In both instances the photographers video-taped their initial interactions with the authorities and The Guardian includes that footage.This is a depressing pattern - in both the UK and the US - about which I have posted numerous times. Not only is the British law overly broad and poorly specified, but it seems pretty clear that the 'cop on the beat' is in most cases clueless about what the law does and does not allow. As a result, citizens are being questioned, detained and arrested for no reason whatsoever. In terms of their absurdity the interactions between the photographers and the police remind me of nothing so much as old Monty-Python sketches. Unfortunately the absurdity wears thin in the face of the more or less systematic violation of civil rights.
You can find the video interviews, the first with Simona Bonomo here and the second with Bob Patefield here. I admire their fortitude in the face of the police. But I also wonder whether in the U.S. their refusals might not have encountered what one might call a more vigorous response on the part of police.
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* Thanks Chris!
