Who Watches the Watchers?

My friend and colleague Marc Vallee has sent me a heads up:

Photo Call – Press Freedom Protest! New Scotland Yard.

Date: Friday 28th March 2008.

Time: 2-3pm.

Place: New Scotland Yard, London, SW1H

Restrictions on the right to protest have gone hand in hand with attacks on those of us who cover protests.  In recent months there have been attacks on photographers, people have had equipment seized and access has been denied. Police officers routinely stand in front of photographers, hold a hand in front of lenses, preventing decent shots being taken by deadline.

Our lawful right to do our job is increasingly under threat.

To highlight such attacks on the freedom of the media, NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear will stage a lone protest outside New Scotland Yard.

 

Whilst the law puts restrictions on how many protesters and the nature of any protest, photographers have a right to cover protests - lawful or otherwise.

Yet that right is all too often being denied.

Show your support for the right to photograph protests free from threats or intimidation.

Simon Davies, Privacy International and the LSE:

"We have reached that stage now where we have gone almost as far as it is possible to go in establishing the infrastructures of control and surveillance within an open and free environment.

That architecture only has to work and the citizens only have to become compliant for the Government to have control.

That compliance is what scares me the most. People are resigned to their fate. They've bought the Governments arguments for the public good.

There is a generational failure of memory about individual rights. 

Whenever Government says that some intrusion is necessary in the public interest, an entire generation has no clue how to respond, not even intuitively."

Well, maybe they need reminding:

Hermann Goering, 18th April 1946:

"...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.

All you have to do, is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

It works the same in any country"

Comments

[Marc Vallee]

Nice one Sion :)

[Damon Coulter]

That is truely scary, I`m returning to the UK this Spring from Japan where there are moves afoot to follow the lead of the US and Britain in political powers reach into the population`s freedoms. Japan is always playing catch-up with the west in regard to what appears to be a fashion of modern governments; be it about gaining democracy or the diminishing of such. At this moment though, and especially as far as photography is concerned, we have none of the brutal laws or citizen policing that the met`s "suspicious photographer" poster is creating. We are pretty much free to take whatever photos we want as people take pictures all the time here and the police are lazy. Ironically though the large, unpoliced market in covertly produced images of a pornographic or semi-pornographic nature, often of underage girls, really should make some of the fears we have too much of in the UK felt here. The impunity that such image makers have here due to lazy policing and corruption we don`t have in the UK but what we do have is the "tar with the same brush" stupidity that dumbed-down citizens are being fed in a concerted effort to control us all. As you said why can`t people see what is happening? Why are people allowing it to happen?
Bit worried about moving back to tell you the truth.
Thanks for letting me know what is is like over there.
Damon

[LifeSpy]

Hi Sion & Marc,
We even get support from across the pond

http://forkboy1965.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/blow-up-a-panda-in-croydon/

even brought a t-shirt too!

[mikethehack]

The freer the media becomes, thanks to the internet, the more restrictions are placed upon us by the authorities.

You don't miss the water till the well runs dry.