In the USA, you can take pictures of everything you can see form the public road. Almost. In the UK, you can’t take pictures of military bases, but the police can demand to see your pics if they think you’re being a terrorist. The Brits seem surprising complacent with their surveillance society, their highly expensive and incredibly ineffectual camera networks, and their random and useless restrictions on photography and free speech.
Thankfully somebody out there in the old country still cares. The fine folks at Information is Beautiful have created a photographers rights card like this one, only for Brits. It’s good to know your rights. If you don’t exercise them they’re far too readily taken away.
The National Archives are set to ban photography at their Main Exhibit Hall. Outrage! Right? Well, maybe not, but just this once. The thing is the Main Exhibit Hall houses the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and these documents are old, fragile, and photosensitive. Just ban flashes, right? Theoretically, yes. Flashes are already banned, but ask yourself this: How many people do you know who couldn’t turn off the flash on their point and shoots if their life depended on it? Apparently, in spite of the ban, these precious documents are exposed to more than a hundred flashes every day. Poor things.
The Chicago Transit Authority considers excessive photography to be a possible sign of terrorist activity, just like unattended packages and noxious fumes. This kind of fearmongering serves no purpose other than to desensitize people from actual danger. If you’re indoctrinated to believe that completely harmless things are dangerous, how on earth are you supposed to recognize something that actually is dangerous?
What really bugs me about this is that the CTA’s own policies explicitly permit photography. It’s fairly clear that some middle manager was given the job of having an anti-terrorism poster put together, but that nobody involved had the slightest interest in actually preventing terrorism. They just sat down and came up with a bunch of bullet points they thought were sufficiently scary and slapped these stupid things on their walls simply to give the impression that they were doing something.
Several thousand people showed up in Trafalgar Square today to assert their right to take photos in public. The event, which lasted more than one hour, was a clear success for photographers’ rights. It was covered by multiple news organisations such as BBC News, Sky News and ITV. Journalists for The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph were also present. As was Anonymous, apparently.
British photographers are getting angry. After several years of increasingly invasive police practices, all in the name of fighting terrorism, they’ve started to band together under the slogan, “I’m a Photographer, not a Terrorist.” This Saturday the 23rd they’ll be staging a protest at Trafalgar square to assert their right to take pictures.
If you take pictures in public in the United Sates, you need to have a copy of this document. Abuses by law enforcement are becoming more common, but in reality, there are almost no restrictions on photography. Legally you can pretty much take a picture whenever, wherever. You can take picture of private property and on private property. You can take pictures of private people and public figures. And without a court order, nobody can take your pictures away. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
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