How do we stop this??

[Alex_Es]

Well, yes...security.

 

The reason I believe this is being proposed by the New York City Transit Authority is not because the proposers really believe banning photographers in subways will increase security but because the idea appears good. This not so much a problem of "big government" but of a few no-account municipal bureaucrats trying to look busy.

 

Look at it from this way. After 20 years (let's say) we have portfoilios and resumes listing exhibitions and publications. What does the average Transit Authority bureaucat have to show after 20 years? The only thing people like that can do to make their presence felt is to create a public incovenience supposedly for the public good.

 

The idea that this ban on photography will stop terrorist bombings is rubbish, of course. The last thing a terrorist with a bomb and an intent to blow him or herself up with serveral hundred other people needs is a photograph. All he or she needs is a subway token, explosives, a detonating devise and a lot of innocent people to blow up. That's what's scary about terrorists. Banning photography on subways isn't going make them less scary, though people may be lulled into a false sense of security.

 

Here's another thing. Terrorists don't just blow up trains and planes. They also blow up people on city streets. So the next logical (or illogical) step of the municipal bureaucrats would be to ban street photography in New York City. That would cause all sort of great fun. Lots of families from Iowa being hauled in for taking pictures of each other with the Empire State Building in the background.

 

Remember how the Madrid bombers did their stuff. They used cell phones as remote control detonators. So maybe cell phones ought to be banned in New York City as well.

 

The Madrid bombers, it must also be remembered, struck at rush hour. So after banning photographers and cell phones, the next step would have to be to ban rush hour.

 

Whether the Transit Authority office zombies succeed in banning photography on NYC subways or not, they will have succeeded in doing a fair amount of damage to us earnest and clean-living street photographers. People are paranoid about strangers taking their pictures anyway. If they now start equating subway photography with terrorism our lot will most likely get worse. Though a few interesting action shots may come our way along with a lot of unwanted things.

[jake_tauber]

Ray,

 

Like I said, what's wonderful about this country is you can push back as hard as you feel comfortable doing. And you're right, sometimes polite conversation doesn't cut it. But for me, photography is a hobby and when the only way to get a picture is to have a confrontation, I have to ask myself is it worth it. It's supposed to be fun. Admittedly, I have the luxury of not having an editor yelling at me asking where the money shot is.

 

It's a weird time. Nothing is as it once was. Hell, when I was a kid, I never had a house key because our front door was always unlocked. I can't imagaine that now. Things change and not always for the better. Now, if a kid falls off the swing at a playground the parents want the park closed. I can give you a list of daily insanities.

 

For street shooters, the number of restrictions grows. There are weirdos taking pictures up the skirts of women. There are people taking innappropriate pictures of children at the beach. Unfortunately, everyone pays the price for the bad behavior of others.

 

What should we do?

[jack_lo_..._t_o]

For non-NYC residents, good tack to take if you are emailing or writing a letter is that you had plans to visit the Apple this year and were hoping to take pictures in the subway system there, and now you are considering cancelling you trip in favour of Boston, (or Philadelphia, or Montreal, etc).

[emre]

Don't bother coming to Boston; there are similar developments here.

[jay ott]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."<p>

 

The problem I see here is that the Bill of Rights guarantees Americans the freedom of the press. Here is where it gets a little tricky. The mall owner who prohibits photography on his real estate has every right to do so.<p> When the government bans photography on its property then we no longer have freedom of the press. The Bill of Rights doesn't make it clear just exactly who the press is. Some little old man could be the photographer for his retirement center's monthly bulletin. Wouldn't he be the press? Of course. It also does not say "freedom of the press only if one has a permit." Furthermore, the first amendment does not list specific places where this freedom applies. <p>If permits soon become necessary for photography, then where will it stop? Will a permit be required to practice one's religion? Why ban photography just on transit systems? Sidewalks are government property too and a sort of a transit system--shootings happen there too.<p>Can't people see that once these cans of worms are opened the genie is out of the bottle and there's no stopping them and the world will once again have the Nuremburg laws? Only this time tobacco users, SUV owners, Southern Baptists, photographers and anybody else who doesn't fit into their way of thinking will be regarded as non-citizens as the rest of America sits idly by and says and does nothing.

[ray .]

Any of us taking photos and posting them here are the press in

one sense or another, aren't we?

[ajweiss]

Here in Boston, subway photography has apparently already been banned. I haven't seen

the rule posted anywhere, but I have been repremanded more than once by the MBTA

Police. I see no mention of the rule on their website, with the only result for a search on

"photography" being procedures for commercial movie filming permits.

 

One friendly T staffer issued a veiled threat about the consequences of taking pictures on

a platform. He was obviously trying to do me a favor, but his "You don't want to deal with

what would happen if you were taking pictures, so we'll just say you weren't," definitely

makes me think twice about pulling out my camera with MBTA staff around. I still do it

sometimes, but there is an uneasy feeling that wasn't there before.

 

I don't know how long the "rule" has been in effect, but I don't like it at all!

[peter_mcm.]

Adam:

 

Sounds like a good opportunity to fight for your rights. I'd contact your local congressman and demand written proof of any law against taking pictures in such a place. Your friendly T staffer may just have wanted an excuse to lord himself over somebody without the legal authority to do so.

 

And this goes for any of us who are challenged in such a way, wherever we may choose to weild our cameras.

[mark_gatehouse]

From The Mercury News

 

N.Y. subway cops enforce proposed ban on cameras

 

 

NEW YORK - Seconds after Stephen McCurry hoisted his video camera onto his shoulder Friday afternoon in the Times Square subway station, two police officers rushed to his side and sternly told him to stop taping.

 

McCurry, it seems, was nearly breaking the law.

 

The police officers, who would not give their names, said they had been ordered to enforce a spate of proposed changes to subway rules, which include no taking pictures with still or video cameras.

 

This even though the proposals, announced Thursday, will not be voted on by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority until fall.

 

McCurry, 33, an independent filmmaker from Los Angeles who had heard about New York City Transit's proposed rule changes earlier in the day, said he was unfazed.

 

``I'm just going to go elsewhere in the city,'' he said. ``You just get chased out of one place, and you go to the next.''

 

Police officers at subway stations around the city said Friday that they had been closely monitoring shutterbugs since Sept. 11, 2001. A police official said Friday night that officers have the right to stop people ``impeding the flow of the transit system''; for example, taking a flash photograph of an incoming train or setting up a tripod in a station.

 

Sometimes, the officers said, they ask picture takers and home videographers to stop, particularly if they appear to be photographing subway tunnels or other infrastructure. But if the subject of the photo is a group of tourists or a smiling police officer, ``it's no big deal,'' an officer at Grand Central said.

 

Unlike McCurry, many tourists seeking a photographic keepsake of New York City's subways Friday afternoon were unaware that the price of taking pictures on the city's trains and buses might soon include a $25 fine. Few tourists said they would be willing to break the law to take home photographs of New York City's transportation system.

 

``If it's for safety reasons, I would not object too much even though it may sound a bit silly,'' said Jack Melcher-Claesson, 33, an online sales manager from Sweden. His girlfriend, Cilla Holm, stood nearby and eagerly snapped pictures of Julio Diaz and Lupita, his mannequin, doing their salsa dance routine in the Times Square station.

 

``Typical America,'' Holm said when she heard that she had nearly committed a violation. ``We're from Sweden, where everything is allowed.''

 

Cory Cisler, a professional drummer, vowed to stop taking pictures in the subway if it meant that he would be breaking the law. But, he said, the police would probably have a difficult time enforcing the rule.

 

``I don't think it's going to stop all these people,'' he said. ``Aren't there more important things to keep an eye on?''

 

For Robert and Lilian Chambers, natives of Dublin, Ireland, who have spent much of the week photographing popular tourist attractions, a signpost in the Chambers Street subway station was their brass ring. The station, after all, shares their name.

 

But the couple, who had just finished taking pictures inside the station when told of the proposed changes, said they felt entitled to take the photographs

[socke]

<i>For non-NYC residents, good tack to take if you are emailing or

writing a letter is that you had plans to visit the Apple this year

and were hoping to take pictures in the subway system there, and now

you are considering cancelling you trip in favour of Boston, (or

Philadelphia, or Montreal, etc).</i><br>

To be true, I don't want to visit the USA at all.<br>

 

From my point of view, the USA are on the edge of turning into a

police state, and if that hapens, the terrorists won!<br>

 

<br>

Volker<br>

P.S.: with german terrrorists in germany in 1975 to 85 we didn't

gave up freedom for security and the "Rote Armee Fraktion" is a note

in history books now. Hopefully we learned a lesson from our past

[Brad_]

<I> From my point of view, the USA are on the edge of turning into a police state,...

</I><P>

 

What the heck are you talking about? Can you supply anything concrete to support that

wild assertion? Surely you're not basing that position on the issue about taking subway pix

in NYC. I was told to not take photos at the Hauptbahnhoff last year - does that make

Germany a police state?

[j.w.]

I recall reading that Walker Evans spent several years after the war conducting concealed-camera studies of people on the subways of NYC. Perhaps his methods and techniques have a fresh application today.

 

It must be genetic to the species that humankind has a desire to make images. That will not stop with the rise of 21st century American Fascism. Technology will see to that. Along with guts and determination. Although I don't desire to be the subject of the ACLU's test case. I'll leave that to someone braver than me to "test the waters".

 

Its tempting also to say that I can avoid the issue by boycotting NYC in protest. Symbolic as that may be, the reality is that many municipal governments around the nation often follow the policies of NYC and other leading cities. So a year from now, my home town may also attempt to prevent public photography.

 

So there's no getting around the fact that most of us will eventually have to confront this issue in our personal photographic decisions.

 

I've also noted other interesting phenomenon:

 

1) The ban on public surveillance is one-way. Meaning that surveillance by government/corporate/media interests is rising at an unprecidented rate.

 

2) The world's public opinion (both at home and abroad) concerning the war in Iraq has been fundimentally altered, not by state-of-the-art, satellite-linked media photography, but by amateur, unauthorized, "guerilla-style" snap shots. And the extent of the political fall-out over the prison photos has yet to be seen.

 

3) Never underestimate the power of the published image. Governments have risen and fallen at the click of the shutter, and the scratch of the pen. Many of us dabblers and amateurs underestimate that power, hence our shock and horror at authoritarian attempts to squelch unbridled image-making.

 

Remember the LA riots? Its amazing what pent-up rage can be released by several minutes of amateur video taping.

 

I believe that we hold a solemn responsibility with this image making technology. Its our choice to apply it wisely, and face the consequences directly.

[Brad_]

<I>Symbolic as that may be, the reality is that many municipal governments around the

nation often follow the policies of NYC and other leading cities.</I><P>

 

Such as? I wasn't aware of that. Some examples, please.<P>

 

<I>So a year from now, my home town may also attempt to prevent public photography.

</I><P>

 

Please elaborate on this "attempt to prevent public photography" you speak of. Myself, and

other street photographers here have probably snapped >100K photos in public places.

You speak as though public photography is banned in general. Why do you rely on

exaggeration to bolster your case?

[mark_gatehouse]

apart from that actual increase in "legal" impediments to photography (more municipalities requiring permits etc) there have been a significant number of cases over the last two years of photographers being prevented from taking photographs, threatened with arrest or actually arrested - all for photographing in perfectly legal situations - photographs of an industrial plant from a public road, Photograph of a Bus Depot, photographs of bridges or public buildings, photographing on the Coney Island boardwalk and so on. In all the cases law enforcement have cited a general 'photography of this isn't permitted by law". Eventually, when pushed to explain what law (and this has sometime required media to do a story on it and actually ask the highest supervisors - "what law") they have been unable to come up with one.

 

This spate of occurances seems merely to be increasing

 

This also applies on National Park Service land (which can be in a city) - where their regulations and Laws from Congress specifically permit (even commercial + a tripod....) still photography - yet there are regular reports of rangers or Park Service Police trying to prevent photography

[Brad_]

OK, I'll bite Mark, I suspect you are armed with data and facts. How many cases have there

been in the last year. How many cases 2 and 3 years ago? How many photographs in

general were snapped in 2003. Divide the former by the latter and multiply by 100. Also

do that for 2001, 2002, and 2003. That will give you a percentage of attempted false

enforcements and the trend. Now, tell me what that trend is. Do you really have enough

data to make such a generalization with such small percentages?

 

Which ultimately gets to, Is your expectation of perfection as high in all of your other daily

activities? And, is there a fundamental reason why policemen, drawn from the normal

population with a mean IQ of 100, will somehow be exempt from ever making a mistake?

[rod g.]

I'd like to see any case study that demonstrates a link between photography and terrorism and I'd like to be able to keep a straight face while reviewing the evidence. Somewher in the bowels of NYC there's a taxpayer funded brain-trust that seriously needs an intelligence audit!!!

 

When I next go to NYC I'm using my camera in the subway regardless (notice I didn't say shooting in the subway?).

[john falkenstine]

Obviously the statement was not made by New York Transit, but a bureaucrat employed by same...having worked in a large Aerospace Corporation I was always amazed at the low-intellect mental nutcases in suits that would end up making rules that weren't needed. This kind of nonsense should be opposed by all.

[jay ott]

Re: Steve McCurry<p>If the photography permit requirement is a proposal, then why are the police enforcing a law that has not been written yet? <p>As for the USA being a police state, I say that a tactic in the past has been to create police states incrementally so what they are doing is hardly noticeable. When someone finally notices it's too late. By then nobody cares or is able to do anything about it. This tactic is without a doubt going on now -- one day something is a freedom and the next day that same freedom becomes a crime.

[Brad_]

<I>As for the USA being a police state, I say that a tactic in the past has been to create

police states incrementally so what they are doing is hardly noticeable. </I><P>

 

OK, you seem to be saying that there is a nefarious movement or master plan afoot with

the goal of creating a "police state" in the US. Which tactics are you speaking of - can you

elaborate with specifics?<P>

 

 

<I>This tactic is without a doubt going on now -- one day something is a freedom and

the next day that same freedom becomes a crime.</I><P>

 

Without a doubt? Can you speak further on how <I>your life</I> and essential liberties

have been incrementally marginalized today? I'm really curious about those liberties

<I>you've</I> been forced to give up and how that has impacted your life in general.

[jay ott]

Brad,

 

Here are some examples of how my town operates:<p>

 

1. Smoking Ban Ordinance--prohibiting smoking in bars, bowling alleys, and restaurants. The previous smoking and non-smoking sections were not good enough. If anthrax can be filtered why not cigarette smoke? Nobody forces the anti-smoking community to go to such places. As for the health of the bartenders and waitresses, they should get jobs at McDonald's or at KFC. If public health is the major concern then tobacco should be banned completely but no, it's done in stages. This is nothing more than a big cash cow.<p>

 

2. Ordinance prohibiting wheel barrows in yards of homeowners. Yes, wheelbarrows. The city was nice enough to issue a warning to those people but they would receive a citation if not removed within 72 hours.<p>

 

3. Ordinance stating a building permit is required for the purchase a new refridgerator.<p>

 

4. Home owners required to maintain city property in front of their homes or face fines e.g. sidewalk must be level and snow shovelled within 24 hours of snowfall and who gives a crap about whether or not you can afford to pay a concrete levelling company to move the city's sidewalk or whether or not you cannot walk and shovel snow because of the wounds you received from the D-Day invasion.<p>

 

5. It's illegal to burn wood in any way in one's yard but it's ok for striking union workers to warm themselves by the fires of 50 gallon oil drums. Since when were pallets not made of of wood?<p>

 

6. It's illegal for 3 or more unrelated people to rent and live together.<p>

[jay ott]

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."--Ben Franklin, 1759

[Brad_]

Jay, I'm very familiar with Franklin's quote as many get it wrong, usually substituting the

words "a little liberty" for "essential liberty." OK, it seems you consider the above 6 items

essential liberties and we're on our way to becoming a police state. Are you suggesting

that the US, on the verge of police statehood, is the exception and that municipalities in

other countries do not impose zoning regulations?

 

I could be wrong, but I suspect Jews that survived WW II Germany might not be aligned

with your views on what makes a police state.

[crispin_agnew]

How about someone can't say "fuck" on the radio or they get a massive fine, but someone else on the radio can say:

 

"I think there should be no mercy shown to these sub-humans. I believe that a thousand of them should be killed tomorrow. I think a thousand of them held in the Iraqi prison should be given 24 hour -- a trial and executed. I think they need to be shown that we are not going to roll over to them ... Instead of putting joysticks, I would have liked to have seen dynamite put in their orifices and they should be dropped from airplanes ... They should put dynamite in their behinds and drop them from 35,000 feet, the whole pack of scum out of that jail."

 

"Right now, even people sitting on the fence would like George Bush to drop a nuclear weapon on an Arab country. They don't even care which one it would be. I can guarantee you -- I don't need to go to Mr. Schmuck [pollster John] Zogby and ask him his opinion ... The most -- I tell you right now -- the largest percentage of Americans would like to see a nuclear weapon dropped on a major Arab capital. They don't even care which one...

 

"I think these people need to be forcibly converted to Christianity ... It's the only thing that can probably turn them into human beings."

 

That is precisely how Julius Streicher's DIE STUERMER got started in pre-war Germany, the racist vehicle that helped drive anti-Semitism in pre-war Germany. Only DIE STUERMER wasn't ever so openly genocidal. As well, it only had a readership 800,000 as opposed to 6 million listeners.

 

Many would try to characterise this a free speech - when it is just the opposite. A police state is, in some aspects, one in which relatively minor infractions are often mindlessly enforced while broader abuses and violence is permitted as long as it coincides with the aims of the state. The is a clear case of such violence, yet the forces of "law and order" (always without the addition of "justice") ignore it.

 

I doubt that any Semite - arab or jewish - hearing such things could believe they live in a free and democratic society.

[jay ott]

All I'm stating is that there is a progression. One day it's wheelbarrows and who knows what it will be next? Yard signs? Soon it will be no photography on NYC transit and who knows where else they will decide they don't like it. It shouldn't matter how insignificant and trivial these things are to you or I.<p> "When they came for the Communists nobody said anything, when they came for the Jews, nobody said anything and when they came for me, nobody was left to say anything."<p>

The point here is that in general 100 years ago the USA was a much freer nation than it is now. That's all I'm saying. If the trend continues then how much freedom will there be? Now is the time to ask ourselves whether we want to live like Spartans or Athenians. In case you missed what I wrote above here it is again:<p>

 

Can't people see that once these cans of worms are opened the genie is out of the bottle and there's no stopping them and the world will once again have the Nuremburg laws? Only this time tobacco users, SUV owners, Southern Baptists, photographers and anybody else who doesn't fit into their way of thinking will be regarded as non-citizens as the rest of America sits idly by and says and does nothing.

[grant_.]

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

 

Kris Kristoferson