UK HOME Secretary Jacqui Smith has told the NUJ that police are entitled to restrict the work of photographers in public places.
She was replying to a letter from General Secretary Jeremy Dear, who had written raising photographers’ concerns at the way that police in London, notably those in the Forward Intelligence Team (FIT) have been recording their activities and impeding their ability to work while covering demonstrations. Photographers say that they are regularly photographed and the images catalogued on a police database.
He wrote: “The routine and deliberate targeting of photographers and other journalists by the FIT undermines media freedom and can serve to intimidate photographers trying to carry out their lawful work.”
In reply Jacqui Smith confirmed that there are no legal restrictions on photography in public places, but added: “Decisions may be made locally to restrict or monitor photography in reasonable circumstances. That is an operational decision for the officers involved based on the individual circumstances of each situation.”
She said the union’s points should therefore be raised with the Metropolitan Police.
NUJ freelance organiser John Toner has already met officers from the FIT, together with representatives of other photographers’ organisations.
The police told them that bona fide press photographers were not being targeted and that no record of such photographers was being kept on any database. Any photographs of photographers that did get taken as “collateral damage” during demonstrations were deleted.
Jeremy Dear, the General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), moved a motion at the Trade Union Congress (TUC) on Monday, live on the BBC Parliament Channel in Brighton on the issue of civil liberties and police surveillance and harassment of working journalists.
Along side this, the NUJ has released a short film called Press Freedom: "Collateral Damage" which tackles the issue of police surveillance of bona fide journalists who document political dissent.
The film is a damming account of the Orwellian techniques and methods of the Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team (FIT Squad) over the last few years.
Jeremy Dear commented: “Whilst the police deny they are targeting legitimate photographers we have plenty of evidence to the contrary. This abuse must stop”.
“The use of the Terrorism Act and SOCPA increasingly criminalize not just those who protest but those deemed to be giving the oxygen of publicity to such dissent. Journalists’ material and their sources are increasingly targeted by those who wish to pull a cloak of secrecy over their actions.”
The beacon of a free and democratic society is a free press, unhindered by intimidation, surveillance and violence, if the press is no longer free to operate and document political unrest the country is no longer free or democratic.
Press Freedom: "Collateral Damage" is just a taste of an ongoing project initiated in February 2008, using four years of personal archive footage, to be finalised as a feature documentary spanning five years of international protest and police coverage - eta: Autumn 2009.
Film: Press Freedom: ‘Collateral Damage’ - Current TV.
You can watch Current TV online or enjoy it from the comfort of your couch:
- channel 183sky
- channel 155virgin media
“NUJ film shows police obstruction of journalists” - National Union of Journalist.
More links to the ongoing story here:
http://www.nuj.org.uk/
http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=910
http://marcvallee.wordpress.com/category/journalism/
http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/05/street-jour...
http://www.thejournalist.org.uk/Aug08/news_photogs.html
“Is Big Brother watching journalists?” - Press Gazette.
“Concern is rising that the police are abusing powers” - Press Gazette.
It may also be worth mentioning that despite being promoted by the National Union of Journalists, this story has received no media cover except their own internal trade magazines and blogs.
A Google search using the string 'Press Freedom: Collateral Damage' returned no MSM results.
Spyblog has also picked up on this story, and also asks some of the more legal questions around this policing policy.
1 comment:
It's no use at all just defending journalists against this gross abuse of power.
That way lies regulation, licences to take photographs, and therefore de facto control for the State.
What must be defended is the right of anyone - anyone at all to take photographs without harrassment.
When will we learn the truth of that old saying about eternal vigilance?
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