Terrorist Arrested in the UK After Suspicious Photo-Taking
by Miserere
One of Bob Patefield's 'terrorist' images
Oh, wait, he wasn’t a terrorist, he was just an amateur photographer trying to exercise his legal right to take photographs in public. He got arrested anyway. By chance, his accomplice friend happened to record it all with his movie camera:
Reported in the Guardian.
It’s because of things like this that you get demonstrations like this. There should be some guideline issued by authorities as to what exactly constitutes “suspicious behaviour” or “antisocial behaviour”. Raising you camera to your eye? Getting down on one knee for a lower view point? Moving around to get different compositions? Or is it the classic “using a big camera”? Because we all know terrorists, paedophiles, sociopaths and other “anti-social” individuals all use “big cameras”.
I’m getting tired of becoming a suspicious individual every time I step out of my house with a camera….just because I’m carrying a camera.
On a lighter note, the photographer in question was shooting a Leica digital, which I thought was rather appropriate seeing as Leica is almost synonymous with Street Photography.
Related posts:
- I’m a Photogrpher Not a Terrorist
- Terrorist Gets Out-of-Court Settlement from London Police
- Taking Panoramas to a New Height
- Make a Little Time on May 2nd to Take a Photo of the World
- World Press Photo Awards
Tags: Arrest, civil rights, Photographer, Photographer's Rights, Photography, Police
Frightening. It’s amazing how our rights to just walk the streets and take a few photos are being trampled on. Maybe all the tourists should boycott the UK for 12 months and when the economy is on its knees (tourism is BIG bucks), they will reconsider this.
With the Olympics coming to London, everyone should stay home. Play your games by yourselves.
The problem is, I don’t think it’s the tourists (with their P&S cameras) that are the ones being targeted. And this guy was British. The solution isn’t that difficult, but it does start with the police calming down and taking some anti-paranoia medicine.
I will tell ya. One of the forums I post in is http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/index.php and it is amazing the crap the Togs in the UK have to put up with. I can assure you that if I where in the UK doing what I like to do, you would see me on CNN as a terrorist…….
It is great that you highlight this. Advocating civil rights such as these should be advocated loudly, so that the anti-terrorist fanaticism will not stand unquestioned.
Everyone knows that it’s impossible to commit a terrorist act unless you first go out in plain view with a big camera and photograph your terror target. If only someone had reported those guys skulking around the WTC and the Pentagon with SLR’s in early September of 2001, the attacks of 911 would have been prevented. Right?
Seriously, I think these so called “security” forces have seen too many movies and TV shows. In the movies, the terrorists always have a creepy hideout festooned with lots of black & white photos of “the target” marked up with red circles and arrows.
I have to wonder if these people really think that by hassling people who are openly using cameras in public, that they are stopping terror attacks that are in their planning stages. If this isn’t the plan, what is?
I was subject to a similar incident a couple of weeks ago here in the Netherlands (Schiphol airport). I was shooting with my new Pentax K20D and a wide angle lens (18mm) taking some shots of a RBS advertising board from below… after taking my shot I was intercepted by an agent of the Marechausee (a Dutch military police corps) asking me what I was doing and invoking the “anti-terrorist policy”.
After telling her what I was doing and showing it to her and a colleague she asked me why and I told her that I found it appealing, after what she categorically affirmed that it could NOT be appealing… (Cool, the Dutch police has a word to say about aesthetics!).
After making a short check of my identity she just told me to not take any pictures again or she would have to take me into custody “for further interrogation”… nice, but she didn’t seize anything nor asked me to remove anything and I did in fact tell her that my intention was to publish the pictures on the internet !!!
So I interpret the whole thing as just showing off in order to let people see that they where “doing something” because it is plain stupid to pretend that people don’t shoot pictures at an airport… in fact it’s the second time that I have been told not to take pictures in this country: IN both cases I was using an SLR, while on both places and at the same time dozens of people where happily taking pictures and videos with their mobile phones
I am sure that the reason for this idiot behaviour is just to show people that they are doing something bullying on obvious targets.
In fact it’s a stupid behaviour: EVERYBODY nowadays has a camera in his pocket and this camera is also able to send pictures straight to the internet (quite convenient for a terrorist or spy actually), and even better : What do a possible terrorist need to bother about taking pictures of a public place, if he can have it in Google Street View
I’m going ot publish the pictures this evening after work.
regards
Enric,
I agree with you that what police do is pretend to be doing something. They can’t stop someone with a mobile phone because they’d have to stop people every 5 meters, but someone with a DSLR is rarer so they can maybe stop 4-5 of them during their shift and it looks like they’re working and keeping us safe.
I’ve taken photos at airports and have yet to be stopped, but I fully expect to at some point.