Canon Rumors General > United Kingdom & Ireland

Stupid British Police try to stop man from filming them - from his own doorstep!

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Flake:
Every day the Police attempts to make the Keystone cops look a model of competence & efficiency takes a step further!

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8ca_1319809507 Small | Large

Just this last week I spent a full 5 hours as a witness to a very serious offence, despite it being 3 months since the incident the case didn't proceed because the useless bunch had lost the main part of the evidence so I have to go back in another 4 months, by which time they might just have found it!

What a shambles, but when they're officious & ignorant, it just makes it worse.

traveller:
It's really the same thinking as people that get harassed by Police (and especially security guards) for taking photos of buildings or transport infrastructure.  I can see the thinking behind not wanting people to take pictures of Police Officers, which could be used maliciously to identify them and target them whilst off duty.  The fact of the matter is that if it is someone's intention to target a Police Officer in this way, they can easily do so in a far more covert manner (just like anyone planning a terrorist attack could easily make do with a mobile phone camera or Google Streetview rather than a DSLR and tripod).  So all this Police targeting of citizens that are overtly filming their actions serves to do, is to give the impression that they are trying to cover up disreputable conduct (I am making no judgement here upon the validity of such a supposition).  It's time that the law and Police training caught up with the fact that we are living in the 21st Century; this may be difficult in a country where some lawmakers only recently realised that it was no longer the 19th Century!

Raddy:
This is getting crazy and annoying. Some cops are out of their mind.
I'm about to visit the UK next year and I start worrying which equipment might not look offensive to certain security guards or cops. Looks like I'm doomed to use my small Ixus instead of taking my DSLR with me.
 >:(
Crossing fingers that this US police department gets condemned to pay damages at least. People need to go public with incidents like that.

Minnesota Nice:
If you think that's bad, I had a police officer confiscate a GoPro that wasn't even recording right from the top of my head.  Ripped the helmet mount off and everything.

It's a load of garbage if you ask me.  At least I got it back.

DJL329:

--- Quote from: passserby on December 25, 2011, 08:13:21 PM ---
--- Quote from: Raddy on December 25, 2011, 11:25:30 AM ---This is getting crazy and annoying. Some cops are out of their mind.

--- End quote ---


That's unfortunately true. It's even worse with security guards. Here is a video where a few photographers are checking out what happens if they take pictures in public in the UK:
http://londonstreetphotographyfestival.org/diary/stand-your-ground
The video is awesome, but the whole situation is pretty sad to be honest.

As for the cops and the US, some states have now a law that makes it illegal to film/record police in action. It is pretty clear that this kind of law goes against the first amendment to the constitution and therefore is going to get nullified at some point, but for now some poor guy in Illinois is facing 75 years in jail for recording police:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/illinois-man-faces-75-years-in-jail-for-filming-police/

--- End quote ---


Fortunately, "some point" was just a month later:

http://reason.com/blog/2011/09/20/illinois-judge-rejects-eavesdr

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