From The Android “Retro Camera” App
Jul 26
Kind of a cool effect…
Don’t Assume Police Know The Law
Jul 04If they did, they’d be lawyers…
Here are two photographers with written permission to film in Miami-Dade’s metrorail system being harassed by police and a private security outfit. Neither the police (including a rep from Homeland Security) nor the private security firm have any idea what they’re allowed to do. At one point, an officer tells the photographers that he’s allowed to take their film if they break the law, because it’s “evidence”. After reminding the officer that they’re not technically breaking the law since the private security outfit is incorrect in their understanding of the policy that they’re supposed to be enforcing (as evidenced by the written proof the photographers are carrying), they inform the officer that he actually needs a subpoena to confiscate their film. It doesn’t stop the officer from continuing to threaten the pair with confiscation.
More alarming than the “what”, however, is the “why”. Why are these guys being harassed at all? Why in the world would anybody be inclined to tell people that they can’t take pictures or video inside of a rail system when the written policy of the rail system explicitly states that it’s allowed? Unfortunately, our irrational fears of the phantom threat of terrorism have provoked us to turn a blind eye to the fact that we’re taking people who are completely ignorant of the law, filling their heads with all kinds of fear propaganda, and then setting them loose to patrol our airports, subways, and streets to protect us from the threat of people who enjoy photography… Worse yet, we seem to have a knack for filling these jobs with the worst cases of Napoleon Complex imaginable, since they invariably seem to derive some kind of perverse pleasure from throwing their weight around, regardless of the fact that common sense dictates that a legitimate terrorist threat would never present itself in the form of a pair of middle-age photographers with large dSLR’s hung around their neck, making no effort to hide the fact that their intentions are to film their surroundings…
If we continue to sacrifice our liberties for a false sense of security, then we deserve neither.
Every time I see something like this, I can’t help but feel like the terrorists already won.
Read more here:
Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse – Unless You’re in Law Enforcement
…and please pass it on!
Happy Birthday America
Jul 03
Tiff and I are hanging with my folks at a Mudcats game.
Hope everyone is having a safe and fun weekend!
