This is what happens when people stop standing up for their rights

[Uhooru]

<p>I'm not sure I've seen a bias in any of Brad's statements. What I have seen is people working hard to twist his words into something he didn't say. And Brad didn't put any words in my mouth. As I've already said, to hang an arguament on that is just a red herring. Not relevent to the issues.<br>

I've seen Brad and other's here operate on the street. He is very engaging with many people he sees out there. I've not seen him classify people into this group or that group, he takes what he sees for what they are and enjoys them for who they are. At least that's been my experience. It's a great way to practice street photography and the results speak for themselves. Why not be as friendly with the cops you see out there all the time as you are with the pan handler or the religious fanatic guy who is a gasman in his own right? That's the street. It's not bias for cops, rather it's the oppisite, it's a lack of bias against anyone out there. I don't get this for us, against us mentality. It's that type of polarity that brings about excessive reactions by all parties in a dispute and leads to the overreactions fear and misjustices everyone decries. I've shot with people who make it their business to never talk to a subject they re photographing on the street. Other's kibbutz all the time, and most of us do some of both. The bias here is to start out with a precept that we are in some police state and Oaklnd is a "Death Camp" and then disengenously label photos as such to prove a point when they don't do that at all.</p>

[garrison_k.]

<p>Well said, Barry.</p>

<p> </p>

[eric_meyer]

<p>I've stumbled on this at a late stage, but I see one previous remark that escaped the attention it deserves: <em>"The police are charged with protecting society, and that is best done by preventing problems, as opposed to dealing with them afterward."</em> <br /> <br /> This shouldn't be said (or taken) lightly; it sums up the entire civil-liberties problem since 9/11. Apprehending those who've actually committed crimes can prevent them from committing more, and we do want police for that, but "prevention" itself simply can't be the prime directive of law enforcement in free societies; it's incompatible with too many civilized values. How it's suddenly become the watchword lately mystifies and frightens me. The preventability of all evil is a delusion. Its pursuit greatly magnifies the role of mere suspicion and speculation in the sometimes arbitrary exercise of state power by people who aren't all the best or brightest, and who even when entirely well-intentioned can't avoid collateral damage. That way lies something too much like a police state for my comfort, one that too easily forgets that the whole point of security is to leave people free to live their lives! The personal anecdotes shared here of run-ins over cameras may seem easy to laugh off, but more and worse can follow. So thanks everyone, and please keep this discussion alive elsewhere too.</p>

[Mark Keefer]

<blockquote><br /></blockquote>

<blockquote>

<p>The relationship between photographers and police could worsen next month when new laws are introduced that allow for the arrest - and imprisonment - of anyone who takes pictures of officers 'likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>That will come in as useful for police to prevent them being photographed or video taped abusing their authority in police brutality cases. Imagine the beating of Rodney King would never have been known if they would have jailed the person who had the video recorder on Terrorism charges and confiscated the camera and tape. You know a video of those officers could be used to make it easier for terrorists to identify them as police officers. Without photos or videos, the terrorists might mistake them for milkmen or the Maytag repair man. The stealthy ability for police with blue uniforms, gold badges and guns to blend into a crowd and go unnoticed could really thwart a terrorist action.<br>

So who determines if the picture might be useful? Google Maps might be more useful. There are a lot of over the top, paranoid laws being made all because two planes were flown into two buildings in New York. I think I would prefer to live in freedom and take my chances, than to have all the common sense thrown away with my liberties.<br>

You could get mad as heck and wrap your head in duct tape so it doesn't explode, well it may still explode but at least when you get to the hospital you would still have all the pieces, so maybe they could put it back together. But wrapping your head in duct tape could be misconstrued as a terrorist act and you could get shot.<br>

Seriously, be vocal, write your law makers, get as many people as you know to write your law makers because it takes the voices of many to get their attention. We need people to be the voice of reason, it is obvious there are a number of well meaning but over zealot law makers on the loose.</p>

 

[eric_arnold]

<p><em>"Let me also say, I didn't see the video. If it shows that a wrongful use of deadly force occured, i would be as horrified as the next person. Still doesn't make Oakland a "death camp"</em></p>

<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVsncZ7K584" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVsncZ7K584</a></p>

<p>Barry, what part of Oakland did you visit last weekend?</p>

[Mark Keefer]

<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROn_9302UHg</p>

<p>It is sad to say this happened. Photography and Video does bring to light those individuals who cross the line. Police are not above the law and need to hold themselves to higher standard. I think there are a LOT OF GOOD COPS out there that do there job every day and work as professionals in stressful situations. I just didn't want to turn this into a police bashing thread. I have a high regard for those individuals who do that job professionally every day and can hold it together as cool as Joe Friday. Getting back to the point...</p>

<p>I think it is important that we do not allow citizens to loose our liberties, little by little, starting with things like you can't take a photo of these men, next you won't be allowed to write anything that would question their actions or policies. Lists will be made...This is a slippery slope we do not want to go down.</p>

 

[eric_arnold]

<p>i suppose one could argue LA is not a police state, even after the Rodney King and Rampart scandals, if one really wanted to.</p>

<p>having said that, most police don't engage in acts of brutality such as what happened to King and Grant, and they are cenrtainly not responsible for the "tough on crime" legislation which has turned our jails into overcrowded revolving doors--inevitably resulting in more crime and more calls for more police, which in turn results in more repression and curtailing of individual freedoms. anyone care to argue the definition of "vicious cycle"?</p>

[Brad_]

<p>>>> anyone care to argue the definition of "vicious cycle"?</p>

<p>Not really. This being a <em>photography</em> forum...</p>

[ray .]

<p>I see both sides of this, and my mind is somewhere in the middle. I'm pretty sure if the term was mentioned, more than a few people in the center of the storm of this unfortunate event would feel like they live in a 'police state,' a definition for which there is no universal consensus. At any rate, it's kind of a moot question for Oscar Grant. He wouldn't be any more dead had he been killed in Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia.</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>"Not really. This being a <em>photography</em> forum..."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.answers.com/library/Dictionary-cid-71667" >" </a> sar·casm ", <em>noun</em></p>

 

<ol>

<li> A cutting, often ironic remark</li>

<li> A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language</li>

<li>a photo of a police recruitment ad in a thread about police abuse as it relates to the photographic community, etc."</li>

</ol>

[trex1]

From the Guardian, re: out of control British cops: <a href"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/16/extremism-arrests-police-liberty-central">CLICK HERE </a><p>What the world needs is more people to police those who would police us, if you ask me, humbly speaking of course....

[trex1]

Oh, and cameras are great for exposing the iniquities of authority, think Abu Ghraib prison, Oscar Grant, Rodney King, too bad no cameras allowed in Gaza during the massacres. The Israelis know about how powerful a camera can be.

[Carl Stone]

<p>"i suppose one could argue LA is not a police state, even after the Rodney King<br />and Rampart scandals, if one really wanted to.<br /><br />having said that, most police don't engage in acts of brutality such as what<br />happened to King and Grant, and they are cenrtainly not responsible for the<br />"tough on crime" legislation which has turned our jails into overcrowded<br />revolving doors--inevitably resulting in more crime and more calls for more<br />police, which in turn results in more repression and curtailing of individual<br />freedoms. anyone care to argue the definition of "vicious cycle"?</p>

<p>You don't mention that in 2005 the out of wedlock birth rate for blacks was 70%. "This implies that changing black family structure in the 1980s accounted for roughly 65 percent of the increase in official poverty among black children," they noted. "Black family shifts in the 1980s also accounted for 51 percent of the increase in deep poverty, and about 90 percent of the growth in relative child poverty." Family breakdown also had an intensifying effect on the child poverty rates of whites, but it "had a much greater effect on the child poverty rates of blacks."</p>

<p>What are YOU doing about that, Eric? You want problems solved, or do you just want to blame somebody else for them? Whine, whine, whine! </p>

[Carl Stone]

<p>Darius, you're either an anti-semite, or a fool, and maybe both. </p>

[ray .]

<p>Hey moderator, how about putting this thread out of its misery?</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>"At any rate, it's kind of a moot question for Oscar Grant. He wouldn't be any more dead had he been killed in Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia."</p>

<p>that's for sure.</p>

 

[Uhooru]

<p>So Eric, I don't mean to be obtuse, I looked at the video and put it on large, was hard to see really, but I didn't see anything that Grant did that justified a shooting. Maybe we're not in a police state, just a transit police state??? I couldn't tell if he had been cuffed, there was a bit of movement before the officer pulled his gun.<br>

So, assuming that, as it appears, it was an unjustified, execution does not mean that Oakland is a police state any more than a drive by shooting means we are in anarchy. It looks on the surface to be a bad shoot. I haven't heard the officers version.<br>

You guys will probably hate this or me for saying it, but as bad as Rodney King was, and I know L.A. Police experts that testified against the cops in the first trial, that everything the cops did until about the last 15-20 seconds was justified. King endangered the lives of many people that night and resisted arrest. A big dude, leading the cops on a chase across L.A., not complying with verbal direction, and high on drugs is a recipe for disaster. Pain compliance is a justifiable use of force if it is neccessary to overcome resistance and used for that reason. It wasn't till they all started smacking him at once near the end that excessive force was used. The findings were that at that point the supervisors should have realized that using pain to achieve compliance was not working with him, so instead of thinking of plan b, they were simply administering a beating. And it looked terrible, inhumane, awful. Those officers certainly paid for their illegal use of force. The City paid millions, the officers went to prison. Is that a police state? Part of the reason for the use of force dilemma in the King case was because, due to now proven faulty research, the carotid choke hold was taken out of force options for LA officers. This leaves them with OC spray, Tasers (used but not effective) and the baton, as medium level of force, and then deadly force such as shooting. This Oakland shooting from my take based on the video appears to be an execution and unless they can show that somehow Grant pulled a weapon or put them in danger of great bodily harm, there is no justification for use of deadly force. It, as all police use of deadly force is, will be considered a homicide. Every officer involved shooting in California is considered a homicide and investigated as such. So, were the officers charged?<br>

But, dude, it doesn't make this a police state. We still are a nation of laws and the police are subject to it. They may sometimes act beyond, or not know it, but they under it just like everyone else.</p>

 

[clive1]

<p>Ray, if you don't like it, don't read it! But don't try to curtail other readers' enjoyment. Let the thread run out of steam as others do.</p>

[trex1]

What's anti-semitic? I just mentioned the well known fact that the IDF did not permit journalists into Gaza while they slaughtered the defenseless inhabitants. Is that anti semitic? The Gazans that were massacred there were also semitic people. I don't get it. I think you are trying to tar me with the anti semitic label as a way of quenching discussion. What the hell does it mean anyway? To me such use of the term is a form of slander, and quite unforgivable. Anti semitic means hating Jews, refusing to talk to them, and in extreme cases, killing them, such as the Nazis did.

 

<p>To label someone with this term, merely because they criticize the actions of a nuclear armed powerful state for massacring unarmed civilians in a coastal prison, while refusing journalists entry, for the sole purpose of plausible deniability is fanatical and cowardly.<p>You probably think anyone who has makes the slightest criticism of Israel is anti semitic. But you are wrong. They are two completely seperate issues. It is precisely your kind of thinking that is adding to the problem, rather than the solution.

[trex1]

Barry, that may be, but steadily our rights are being eroded. There is a mountain of evidence, from special pens for demonstrators, to tapping telephones, to no-fly lists, to imprisonment without trial, isolation, torture, <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/greenwald1.html">(US Citizen held in isolation for years)</a> and the routine profiling of minorities.<p>Rights are fought for, not bestowed. The camera issue in the UK is a textbook case of out of control authority, as were Gitmo, the phone tapping, torture and control of demonstrators. It is all done as a kind of pre-emptive strike against dissent. Not healthy stuff.

[graham_thompson1]

<p>From the EU Charter of Human Right to which the UK is a signatory.<br />

<p align="left">Freedom of expression and information</p>

<p align="left">1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.</p>

<p align="left">Seems to me photography is receiving and imparting information.</p>

<p align="left">Another law to be overturned by the EU?</p>

</p>

[trex1]

<p>You know what Carl, I am really annoyed about your comments. What a nerve! Exactly how am I anti semitic!? And how am I a fool? What a bloody nerve you have. Jesus Christ. What is it with this labeling of "anti semitism." Everyone gets it. Carter got it, for bringing up the treatment of the Palestinians. No one who slandered Carter as an anti semite ever bothered to try and refute any of the things that Carter brought up about the wall or the way Palestinians are treated, because it is all true. How much easier and more cowardly to just tar the man, a Nobel peace prize winner, and probably the best friend Israel has, because at least he is honest.<br>

<br /> A true friend will let you know when you are destroying yourself. False friends will give you the rope to hang yourself with, just as the US government keeps the supply of F16s and Apaches flowing. Every time an F16 or an Apache blows up another house in Gaza, more terrorists are born, and Israel loses another bit of its legitimacy in the international arena. People like you who resort to this type of slanderous, truly libelous labeling are playing a nasty little game.<br>

<br /> If you don't like what I said, then take me up on it, prove me wrong. Were 1000 odd Palestinians not killed in the Attack on Gaza? Could they fight back? Where not a third or so innocent children? Perhaps you would refer to them as "future terrorists." Is it not true that journalists were kept out of Gaza? Is it not true that this was done precisely so that the actions of the IDF could go undocumented? The word of a Palestinian may not carry a lot of weight, but a Reuters journalist reporting, with photos, that would carry a lot of weight. This is beyond a police state. This is borderline genocide, ethnic cleansing. Get out of here!</p>

[Brad_]

<p>The problem is a few people don't understand the difference between the phrases <i>police state</i> and <i>police abuse</i>. Thinking they must mean the same, apparently because the word <i>police</i> is in both.</p>

<p>No doubt if the BART shooting instead occurred in Hayward, Colma, Fremont, Concord, Union City, Millbrae, Orinda, etc (all BART stations and policed by the same BART Police), then the cities of Hayward, Colma, Fremont, Concord, Union City, Millbrae, and Orinda, would be labeled by a few here as <i>police states.</i></p>

<p> </p>

[ray .]

<p>>>>because the word <em>police</em> is in both.<<<</p>

<p>Really Brad, you could have left that line out and still made your point.</p>

[trex1]

<p>Brad, the issue is freedom. You are getting caught up in semantics. Of course America, nor Britain are police states, per se. It's shades of grey. Relative freedom. I would say East Germany was Police State, present day China shows some signs, Russia during Communism, any number of South American (US sponsored) countries until recently, from Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, to even Brazil and Venezuela. The Shah's Iran, was certainly a police state. There secret police were called SAVAK, similar to the Israeli SHABAK, and certainly trained by Israeli and CIA specialists in torture. For a Palestinian, Israel is a police state. A Palestinian can be roused from his house and hauled off, have his house demolished, or be taken out, killed by Israeli forces, for being a terrorist. So for him Israel is a police state. It obviously is not a police state for Jews, and that discrimination is part of the problem of figuring out what Israel is exactly.</p>

<p>Israel exhibits qualities of both a vibrant democracy and a cruel police state, depending on who you are in the system. America is like this too. For whites it is a sweet place, but if you wake up black tomorrow morning, you will see a different reality. You can be stopped, harrased, and killed by police, and they will generally not suffer the consequences. It's not a police state in name or on paper, but for parts of our population it comes very close.</p>