From: Greg Schmitz (gws1@columbia.edu)
Date: 11/24/01-01:27:49 AM Z
I came back into the country via JFK on Wednesday night. There is a
new sign affixed to the stairway leading to U.S. Customs (above all
the other signs and on a bright yellow background). The sign reads "NO
PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED." Some weeks ago there was a report on NPR that a
journalist who, as I recall was working for a major newspaper or
magazine, was arrested while taking pictures of an airport security
checkpoint; a perfectly legal activity.
While some might consider some of the limitations on photography
legitimate, most are - IMHO - quite ridiculous and violations of the
First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to boot. You may recall that
during the "victory parade" for the "gulf war" the police went after
the journalists with cameras first (they broke one guys hand). Their
intent was to keep images of demonstrators from being published or
broadcast (out of sight - out of mind). The police did the same in
Seattle and more recently in Washington D.C.; specifically they beat
up, gassed or shot photographers who tried to photograph improper
police behavior (again: out of sight - out of mind). A couple years
back a photographer was threatened with arrest for photographing The
Federal Building in downtown Manhattan.
It seems to me ironic that The State at both the local and Federal
levels can capture, store (and in many cases index) pictures of us at
will - but they frequently want to impose restrictions on where and
what we point our cameras at. Frankly, it pisses me off because so
many have given up their lives so that we can freely express and share
what we see. I fear that some are using the events of September 11th
as an excuse to put forward some rather fascist agendas. On the
street prudence is the better part of valor, in other words "keep your
mouth shut, but I think it is in our best interest to complain loudly
through "proper channels" whenever our rights are threatened.
-greg schmitz <gws1@columbia.edu>
On Fri, 23 Nov 2001, jamesromeo wrote:
> Myself and two frinds where shooting the city skline midtoen from Queens
> this afternoon.
> My frinds were working with view camera myself handheld pan camera Noblex.
> A cop told my frinds that they can not take photos of the city skyline now
> because of security. They could not see my camera.
> I do not know if this is a new thing or the cop thought ny frinds were
> planning a war.
> If this is true this is to much. You can buy hundreds of photos of midtown
> or use a smale camera or take photos frome the highrise apt house in back of
> us. this makes me sick.
> James
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 12/10/01-11:12:21 AM Z CST