Talk to Frank

kevin | February 18, 2010 | 1:23 pm

Meet Frank*

Frank is a security guard.

Frank works at the Bridges shopping centre in Sunderland.

Frank thinks I may be a paedophile and is prepared to call the Police to make sure I’m not.

Frank is just obeying orders…..

Here’s what happened

We were in Sunderland visiting my Dad and my Gran. My Dad had given the kids £10 each and Ben wanted to go and buy a toy so we took him into the Bridges shopping centre. While we were walking around we saw a little roundabout with a train on it. Ben loves trains and he went and clambered onto it. The train had a moustache and Sarah was laughing at the train so she told me to take a picture.

As soon as I pressed the button on my cameraphone Frank was by my side. He informed me that I couldn’t take pictures. I asked him why and he said that it was the centre’s rules as I might be a paedophile! I told him that I hadn’t seen any signs saying that photography was forbidden and he conceded that there weren’t any but he was just following his orders from the Centre Management who he would get to come down if I had a problem.

I informed him that in my opinion he was being a little over zealous in performing his duties as the child I had taken a picture of was my son and that maybe he was blowing the threat of paedophiles out of proportion. He said he wasn’t as he was just following orders from on high.

I was getting bored now but was still annoyed about effectively being accused of being a paedophile so I took the picture of Frank so that if I later wanted to make a complaint to the centre I would be able to identify him. I then wandered off to find Sarah who was in the Early Learning Centre.  This is of course ironic that if he really did suspect me of being a paedophile then why did he let me go into a toy shop? And if he didn’t suspect me why then did he make such a fuss?

The other irony is that having being pulled up for using a camera I was then tracked by the centre’s security cameras – I know this because the Police knew exactly where to find me when they arrived a few minutes later. We had moved up the road into another toyshop where, while looking at toys with Ben, I was confronted by PC B*****w who informed me that there had been a complaint.

PC B*****w threatens to arrest me on more than one occasion.

PC B*****w is ill informed about his ability to delete my photographs

PC B*****w doesn’t know what a hyphen is!

So in the middle of a toyshop the confrontation starts again. I’m asked about the original photograph and again I explain that the picture is of my child, again I comment about the lack of signs informing about the “No Photography” rule and PC B*****w agrees with me.  he asks why I took the picture of the security guard and accepts my explanation.

As the discussion is getting a bit heated he threatens to arrest me, saying that I’m causing a breach of the peace. Well come on, what do you expect, I’ve been accused of being a paedophile and had the Police set on me for taking a picture of my own son in a public place – can’t you work out why I’m getting a bit annoyed.

He says he has the right to delete my photographs and I explain that he doesn’t. He backtracks and says he has the right to see them. I tell him he will have to caution me first. He asks for my details which I begrudgingly give him. he asks why I am in the North East – I ask what relevance that has. He explains that he just needs to know!

PC B*****w also informs me that the Bridges shopping centre is a hotbed of paedophile activity and sexual assaults happen there all of the time. Sounds like the sort of place families with young children should avoid IF it’s actually true.

Eventually he goes off to find the security guard and tell him that he has checked me out and everything is ok! A monumental waste of Police time. The lady in the shop is appalled by the situation and admits that even though she works there she wasn’t aware of any “No Photography” policy.

Now I know that there are those who will say that I brought it on myself and I should have just kowtowed to the security guard when he told me not to take pictures. However I disagree – I believe I had every right to take a photograph of my son in a public place and frankly I’m sick of having my civil liberties eroded little by little.

In this country there is no law against taking a photograph in a public space. The shopping centre, although privately owned is still a public space. I know from experience that commercial photography requires permission from the owners but there is no law against the private individual taking a picture in a public space.

The shopping centre could impose a ban on photography within it’s environs but this should be indicated along with all the other things that are banned on the entrance to the centre. There are signs saying no smoking, no alcohol, so skateboards etc but none advertising the alleged ban on photography.

Also there is no law against taking a picture of a child or indeed a security guard in a public place. There is no right of privacy for the individual in this country. So I was well within the law to take both pictures.

Finally there is the presumption of guilt. It has been a long held tradition in this country of being innocent until proven guilty and it is beholden of the authorities to prove a persons guilt. However more and more often it is the individual that is required to prove their innocence. I took a picture of a child therefore until I can prove I am not a paedophile it will be assumed that I am.

The sensible way forward would be only to observe and if I was seen to be taking pictures of more than one child then would be the time to move in but no – in order to protect us from a minority of people everyone must be suspected and prevented from taking innocent pictures of their child. Is this really the sort of world we want to live in?

It’s ironic that at a time when almost every one has the ability to take a photograph using either a camera or a mobile phone, probably more so than ever before, then the ability to do so is slowly being eroded. Fight back – Photography is not a crime. I am not a terrorist, I am not a paedophile, I am a Photographer!

* name may have been changed

It seems our fear-ridden, paranoid society is not a good place to be taking photographs. If you're not accused of being a terrorist, you'll be a suspected paedophile...

Posted on Monday, Jan 18, 2010 by Jeremy Sikora

Do you have dreams of being the next Spielberg but the only video camera you own is your trusty iPhone 3GS? If this is the case you can now rest easy as Tiffen recently introduced the Smoothee Steadicam. The Smoothee utilizes a counterweight construction in the same fashion all other professional models work, just expect this to be a whole lot cheaper.

This accessory is not going to fit in your pocket or purse but we are positive some of our creative readers could put it to good use. No release date or price are available at the moment but you can see it in action after the break!

[Via Engadget]

 

This is why the FBI needs such a big budget -- browsing the Web for a guy who looks like Osama Bin Laden, but older, doesn't come cheap, folks.

In a statement Saturday, the agency would say only that it was aware of similarities between their age-progressed image "and that of an existing photograph of a Spanish public official [Gaspar Llamazares]."

"The forensic artist was unable to find suitable features among the reference photographs and obtained those features, in part, from a photograph he found on the Internet," the FBI said in a statement to the Associated Press.

Spanish lawmaker used in updated bin Laden photo

Taken from ‘At the Top’ on the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world.

Photos courtesy of Alisdair Miller

December, 2009: You were enjoying the holidays, drinking nog, wrapping prezzies, hugging puppies. Demi Moore's lawyers, on the other hand, were sending nastygrams to Boing Boing. We responded, then blogged.

The whole story's here: "Demi Moore's lawyers threaten Boing Boing over photo analysis blog post."

Don't miss the response letter by Boing Boing's attorneys (PDF)

David Carr of the NYT Media Decoder blog covered the matter here, noting "Decoder was shocked by the insinuation that a fashion magazine might airbrush one of its cover subjects. We have no specific information about what might or might not have happened to the photo. We just know it's a little weird looking."

And Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon wrote, in "Demi's Hip Will Sue Your Ass"—

As we microanalyze the pictures in question, why, you may ask, have Ms. Moore's shapely form and its contentious fractions of flesh become a matter of such great import? It's just a picture, fer chrissakes!

Yes and no. Because we, the magazine-reading, Web-browsing, trend-spotting public are maybe not content to swallow whole whatever image a glossy magazine presents to us. We are skeptical of its provenance. We question its veracity. We look for inconsistencies and compare them. We are furthermore perhaps uncomfortable with the notion that a beautiful, successful lily needs a credibility-stretching measure of gilding, as such images tend to present an unrealistic ideal and piss us off. And finally, while we'd totally have Moore's back if the tabloids were spreading rumors about her personal habits and relationships, the mere fact that she'd demand an apology from a Web site for even raising questions is just pathetic and mockworthy. That's why it matters. Whether her hips lie, unlike Shakira's, is a matter of dispute. But nobody's going to stop us from asking.

(BB reader Mark Koeppen whipped up this animated gif comparing the US and Korea versions of the "W" mag cover featuring Ms. Moore.)

Anti-terrorism police twice stopped painter near airport

Guardian goes painting after learning how officers confronted Liam O'Farrell while watercolouring scene near City airport

• Peter Walker and Paul Lewis
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 December 2009 17.40 GMT
• Article history

A watercolour by Liam O'Farrell, the artist who came under police suspicion for painting outdoors Photograph: Liam O'Farrell

Taking a photograph in a public place has become the quickest way to attract police attention, as increasing numbers of photographers can verify. But now it has emerged that anti-terrorism officers are uneasy about a far less sophisticated piece of surveillance technology: the watercolour brush and canvas.

Liam O'Farrell, an artist who exhibited at this year's Royal Academy summer show, has described how he had been questioned and searched by police twice inside a week while painting a scene close to City airport in east London.

The artist contacted the Guardian following a series of incidents in Britain in which photographers, tourists and students were stopped under anti-terrorism laws.

The situation was highlighted in last Saturday's Guardian when a reporter, Paul Lewis, described being questioned within two minutes of taking photographs of the Gherkin building in the City of London.

In a similar spirit of inquiry, Lewis went to the London Eye, central London, today armed with an easel, canvas and acrylic paints.

What O'Farrell called, perhaps inevitably, his "brush with the police", began when he set up his equipment on a grass bank adjoining a public road just south of City airport. With his back to the complex he set about painting a composite scene of terrace houses and the Tate & Lyle sugar factory a few streets away.

Inside half an hour two Metropolitan police officers from the specialist unit based at the airport arrived in a patrol car and demanded to know what he was doing, saying he had been spotted on a CCTV camera.

"I told them, 'I'm hardly a terrorist, I'm watercolouring'. One policeman said, 'you're not painting the airport, are you?' I told him I was painting the sugar factory. He said 'no one paints factories'. I told him Lowry painted loads of factories and made a mint. He got a bit touchy then."

For 15 minutes, O'Farrell said, one officer checked his identification on a radio while another searched his bag. "They said I had 'weird paraphernalia' with me. I said 'it's a flask of coffee and an iPod'."

O'Farrell said he had returned to the same spot a week later to complete the work and was interrogated again, by two other officers.

"I told them I was just doing a watercolour of the sugar factory. One of them said 'no one does watercolours of factories'. I told them about Lowry – it was groundhog day. It was extraordinary.

"Then one said 'I can see what you're doing now, I'd be a bit more concerned if you were painting the airport'. I remember from my art history that centuries ago in China artists were murdered in case they [painted] maps and roads. But in the days of digital photography I hardly think a watercolourist painting an airport would be some sort of international threat." The experience left him baffled. "I've been painting in Moscow, in Vietnam, Ukraine, and all I get round me are bunches of kids. If the police come by they're just curious about the painting. It's extraordinary what happened to me."

The incident took place in the summer of 2007, O'Farrell said, and he was prompted to write after hearing about recent events.

A spokesman said the Met's assistant commissioner, John Yates, had reminded officers last week that they should not stop photographers without reason. "Anyone could imagine why an airport is seen as a sensitive site, but we are aware that there are issues of communication with officers about what they can and can't do, which is why John Yates has taken these measures," he said.

Today the advice was seemingly being heeded. The Guardian's reporter spent a couple of hours creating his rendition of the London Eye on a winter afternoon, and, barring a polite request from a security guard to move to a different section of the riverside thoroughfare, received no official attention whatsoever. The only other interest came from tourists keen to see the work's progress.

Assistant commissioner John Yates issues reminder that no laws prevent people from photographing buildings

• Paul Lewis
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 20.38 GMT
• Article history

John Yates, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Scotland Yard has told police officers there is "an enormous amount of concern" about the use of anti-terror laws against people taking photographs in the street.

In a circular to all Metropolitan borough commanders, John Yates, the assistant commissioner for specialist operations, advocated a "commonsense" approach and reminded officers there were no laws to stop people photographing buildings.

"Unless there is a very good reason, people taking photographs should not be stopped," wrote Yates, who is Britain's senior counter-terrorism officer.

He noted complaints from members of the public, many of whom had been stopped under the Terrorism Act. Section 44 says police do not need suspicion to stop and search people within certain designated areas.

"The complaints have included allegations that people have been told that they cannot photograph certain public buildings, that they cannot photograph police officers or police community support officers, and that taking photographs is, in itself, suspicious," Yates said. "An enormous amount of concern has been generated about these matters."

"These are important yet intrusive powers. They form a vital part of our overall tactics in deterring and detecting terrorist attacks. We must use these powers wisely. Public confidence in our ability to do so rightly depends upon your common sense."

There has been criticsm of alleged harassment of photographers. Last week the Guardian was stopped by police under section 44, after photographing the Gherkin building in the City to test how the law was being applied.

Much of the criticism has been directed at City of London police, which has jurisdication over the Square Mile. It responded today with a publicity drive to remind the public that terrorist reconnaissance poses a real threat.

In an unprecedented step, the force released footage that senior officers said might have been "hostile reconnaissance" for a terrorist attack. Footage shot on an Algerian's Nokia N95 mobile phone showed he had recorded railway and tube stations and shopping centres.

The Algerian was stopped by an officer at Liverpool Street station in July last year. He had appeared furtive, holding the camera at chest height and using his hand to obscure the red recording light.

Counter-terrorism police and MI5 discovered that the man and his brother, in their 40s, entered Britain on false passports and had spent years committing credit card fraud. Material supporting al-Qaida in the Maghreb was found at one property in the inquiry, police said. The men were charged with fraud, sentenced to up to two years' jail and deported.

Police sources said they were not charged with terrorism offences because the law was being challenged in the Lords and fraud carried similar penalties. But the CPS said there was "insufficient evidence to charge the suspect in relation to terrorism offences".

Assistant commissioner Frank Armstrong said: "The Square Mile is still very much a target. One of our main priorities is clearly counter-terrorism. We train our officers and encourage them to do a lot of stop and search. I would argue we have got the politest police force in the country."

In this video, two British police officers come up to a young woman who is filming a building and harass her, imply that she is a terrorist, intimidate her, demand to see her footage. The policeman says that he's harassing her for being "cocky" -- punishing her for failing to cringe sufficiently. England's police chiefs have ordered policemen to stop harassing photographers, but this officer called for backup and 7 more officers converged on the photographer. The photographer was brutally detained -- she is covered in bruises -- and fined but she had the presence of mind to return to the scene and interview the witnesses to the assault.

i'm not a terrorist (Thanks, DavidB!)