PARTHURBLOG

I was a threat to National Security yesterday: I took a photo in a public place.

This time I managed to avoid detection, slipping the pocket camera back into my bag before the SWAT team swooped into action. Others haven’t been so fortunate, as The Independent reported on Thursday:

November BBC photographer Jeff Overs stopped and searched while he takes sunset photographs of St Paul’s Cathedral.

November Andrew White, 33, is stopped after taking photographs of Christmas lights on his way to work in Brighton. He is asked to give his name and address.

August Police order trainspotter Stephen White to delete images of train carriages taken during a holiday in Wales. CCTV near an oil refinery monitored him taking the pictures and alerted local police. Mr White refused.

July Alex Turner, an amateur photographer, arrested under anti-terrorism laws for taking pictures of two officers as they question him for photographing a fish and chip shop in Kent. Later released without charge.

April Two Austrian tourists told to delete pictures of Walthamstow bus station. Unaware that police have no right to enforce deletion of images without a warrant, they comply.

I have been stopped twice; once outside a  shopping mall (where the CCTV boys had ‘caught’ me and sent an enforcer, even though I was standing on a public highway) and once along the Embankment. In one case, I was trying to make art, in the other,  wanting to celebrate my culture. Fortunately, unlike Mr Overs, I wasn’t trying to earn my living.

As Henry Porter in his Guardian blog today so eloquently puts it, this is an outrageous infringement of a civil liberty, and  – whether you’re a happy-snapper or a committed shutterbug – an issue that should concern everyone.

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