Photography is Not a Crime, It's a First Amendment Right

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2009-03-30 01:16:28 -0700, Martin Brown
said:

nospam wrote:
In article , tony cooper
wrote:

My son has a friend (a former class-mate) who is an undercover cop
working drug enforcement. During an arrest awhile back, some
bystander snapped some shots of the "perps" (1) being manhandled onto
the ground. My son's friend took the camera and reformatted the SD
card.(2)

The photographer squealed that he was photographing "police
brutality". The cop defended his action by saying that, as an
undercover cop, he should be able to protect his identity.
Both sides have a point.
the cop was very clearly in the wrong. he does *not* have the right to
reformat the card, destroying not just photos of himself but everything
else that was on it. at a minimum, that's destruction of property and
given that he manhandled the perps, i suspect he did the same to the
bystander.
No. Snapping the card in two would be destruction of property. And I
suspect that if the images were of use to the police then they could
quite legitimately have been confiscated as evidence.

The UK is threatening to make photographing policemen illegal, but so
far they have not done so. Although the untrained el cheapo jobsworths
they put out as "community support officers" sometimes think such a law
exists. Abuses of section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act are likely to
increase:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7892273.stm

(1) Love that cop talk!
(2) The cop is a pretty good amateur photographer and can work his way
around the Menu of any camera.
Deleting just the offending ones and then taking a few dozen random
shots would probably irreversibly trash the media containing the images
he wanted to destroy. Delete all images is far too easily undone on
most cameras. People hit the wrong buttons too often.

that's wonderful, but he broke the law. hopefully the bystander has a
good lawyer and also knows how to run an undelete utility.
Deleting all the images in the camera is nowhere near adequate if there
was an actual security risk to undercover personnel. The cop should
have asked for the media to use in evidence and issued a receipt for it.
(at least that is what I would expect a UK police officer to do)

Regards,
Martin Brown

What the UK does is irrelevant. If we are talking about the First
Amendment, then we are talking about the United States. Last I looked,
people in the UK do not have a Bill of Rights.

They have an equivalent. BTW, US law regarding property, and most other
legal issues is quite similar to UK law, since it is derived from the UK
tradition.

In article ,
Bob wrote:

you actually should do research into the bill of rights,
and in the context in which it was written.
( very interesting ideas )
it does not grant anything.

it explicitly enumerates existing rights of free men.
It recognizes that they exist. It was created
because some of the founding fathers were afraid
that in the future there would be 'governors'
who would not understand this,
and who would take away these rights,
so they explicitly described some of them.

And, they explicitly included wording to the effect of "The fact that
we've specifically listed a bunch of rights here as being worthy of
notice and explicit protection, should not be taken to mean that these
are *all* of the rights that people possess, or that those other
rights are somehow less valuable."

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

In article , Ron Hunter
wrote:

Unlike with film deliberately exposed to light you could
recover deleted digital images. Film is a lot more fragile in this respect.

perhaps they could be recovered but that is not relevant. one moment
he had a card full of photos and the next moment he did not. that's
destruction.
ONLY if the data were actually lost, which is NOT usually the case.

it's almost always the case that reformat erases the card.

the fact that someone might be able to recover it, possibly with a lot
of time and expense, does not mean there's no destruction. and most
people aren't aware of the fact they can recover an erased card or have
any idea where to find the tools to do it. it's clearly destruction of
property.

if someone smashes your car with a baseball bat and you have it
repaired, does that mean he didn't destroy your property?

In article ,
lid says...
-:In article , Ron Hunter
wrote:
-:
-:
-:it's almost always the case that reformat erases the card.

not so.
the data clusters are released but not damaged.
the directory entries are changed, but not deleted or damaged.

anyone can recover it.
it is not hard.
it is not expensive.

-:
-:the fact that someone might be able to recover it, possibly with a lot
-f time and expense, does not mean there's no destruction. and most
-eople aren't aware of the fact they can recover an erased card or have
-:any idea where to find the tools to do it.

google, people. people, google.

problem solved.

In article , Bob
wrote:

-:it's almost always the case that reformat erases the card.

not so.
the data clusters are released but not damaged.
the directory entries are changed, but not deleted or damaged.

to the user, the files are gone. erased. history. no more photos.

anyone can recover it.
it is not hard.
it is not expensive.

no, not 'anyone.' most people are completely unaware that deleted data
can be recovered. plus, it requires time and expense that would not
otherwise be needed.

As I understand the USA, rights are granted by God. The
Constitution limits the power of Federal government to
infringe those rights.

That said, I doubt photography is covered by the 1
ammendment to the US Constitution.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"tony cooper" wrote in
message ...

The bystander has no "right" to take the photographs. A
"right" is
something granted to you by law. Our "rights" descend from
the
Constitution and the laws passed later that are in alignment
with our
Constitutional rights.

There is no extant law that gives you a right to take
photographs. We
depend on the lack of a law prohibiting the taking of
photographs to
allow us to do so. There are laws regarding interference
with a
police officer.

Don't give me the 1st Amendment story. That's the right of
free
press and gives the press the right to publish a photograph.
There
are many laws that restrict photography. Free speech
doesn't apply.

In article ,
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:

As I understand the USA, rights are granted by God. The
Constitution limits the power of Federal government to
infringe those rights.

You understand wrong.

You are confusing so called "natural rights" that every person born in a
state of nature seems to have no matter which god they choose, or even
if they choose no god. The range of these natural rights are NOT
protected by US law (even the BoR).

The Constitution limits the United States, and by incorporation, the
several states, from encroaching upon or limiting the rights listed in
the body of the document (ie, habeas corpus) and the BoR.
Interestingly, none of those rights are the so called "natural rights".
Although, several of them have been incorporated by USSC decisions, such
as the right to an abortion.

Your horizon is limited by your religion based myopia and prejudices.


That said, I doubt photography is covered by the 1
ammendment to the US Constitution.

Never except by interpretation. Of course, the Constitution does not
allow marriage, internal combustion engines, education of children or
thong panties.

--
I contend we are both atheists - I just believe in
one fewer god than you do.
When you understand why you reject all other gods,
you will understand why I reject yours as well.
Stephen F. Roberts

On 2009-03-30 16:58:07 -0700, "Stormin Mormon"
said:

As I understand the USA, rights are granted by God.

Morm.
Take a powder.

The
Constitution limits the power of Federal government to
infringe those rights.

That said, I doubt photography is covered by the 1
ammendment to the US Constitution.

Photography is a non-speech expression protected under the 1st
Amendment. Educate yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ist_Amendment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom..._United_States



--
Regards,
Savageduck

nospam wrote:
it's almost always the case that reformat erases the card.

Actually no. A (standard) format only rewrites the administrative file
system information like e.g. free/used sector list, root directory, etc.
but it doesn't touch the data blocks at all. Just imagine how long a
format would take if the format would actually rewrite some 64GB of
data.

jue

In article , Jürgen Exner
wrote:

it's almost always the case that reformat erases the card.

Actually no. A (standard) format only rewrites the administrative file
system information like e.g. free/used sector list, root directory, etc.
but it doesn't touch the data blocks at all. Just imagine how long a
format would take if the format would actually rewrite some 64GB of
data.

none of that matters to the typical user. one minute the photos are
there and moments later they're gone. that is the very definition of
erase. the images no longer show up in the camera or when put into a
card reader on a computer. they're *gone*.

the fact that someone with the appropriate skills, tools and time can
recover it is nice, but that only reinforces the fact that the card has
been erased.