Sami went out last night to take some pictures around Campus. And was accosted by an undercover cop who demanded to know why he was taking pictures of a public place. He had to show ID, his information was recorded (including his driver’s license – how is that a required piece of ID when you’re not, say, driving?), along with several other questions about why he was there in the first place. He was asked to show the pictures he had taken. Then it was suggested that if he wants to take pictures of a public place, which was build with our tax dollars, that he needs to apply for permission, in writing, before that is allowed.
This is absolute BS. The cop apparently mentioned something about “that [he] should understand that in these times we have to know…” I’m sick of the “Post 9/11 World” copout bullshit. Security does not involve preventing photography or freedom of speech. If security can be “compromised” with a cheap digital camera and/or a blog, it wasn’t secure in the first place.
Calgary Transit has information published on its own website that may be more “damaging” than an amateur photograph of a snow-covered LRT station. They happily publish the specifications of the Siemens Light Rail Vehicles (including voltage and acceleration characteristics), as well as capacities and schematics of the trains. Heck, they even publish a map and schedule, so you know exactly when one of these things will pull up at any given location! I’m fine with that info being freely available, too.
I’m so pissed off about this that I’m shaking. What am I going to do about it? What can I do about it? All I can do is be vocal about how wrong this is. And, I will be taking more pictures of public places. Lots of pictures. I’ve posted pictures of the LRT before, and will continue to do so until I’m told in writing that it’s illegal.
What are the “official” rights that we have? If I’m stopped by an officer, what am I obligated to tell/show them? What am I allowed to legally photograph?
Update: OK. I went for a walk, had a bite to eat. I’m calmer now. I just can’t believe that this crap is allowed to happen in Canada. We rail against Evil Google censoring a search engine in China, but our own cops are telling us we’re not allowed to take photographs of public places in our own city.
Update: Here’s the email I just sent my MLA and Alderman. I’ve talked with both of them before, they are good people. I’ll post whatever response(s) I get
A friend of mine was taking some photographs around the University of Calgary campus last night. When he got to the train station, he took some photos of the snow on the tracks, etc. and was then stopped by an undercover officer who interrogated him. He was asked to identify himself (which is fine), provide ID (also fine), and answer several questions about why he was taking pictures. He was also asked to show the officers the photographs that he had already taken, and informed that photography is not allowed without written approval. I believe the officer crossed the line, and invaded my friend’s privacy and freedom of speech.
I am absolutely astonished at this. I’m assuming that the officer was meaning well, and was only trying to protect us from evil terrorists.
But, the way to protect our freedoms is not by revoking them.
Please raise this issue at the earliest opportunity. It is not OK for freedoms to be revoked in the name of “post 9/11″ security. It’s a slippery slope, and a scary precedent to set.
I’ve written up a brief description of my position on this issue on my blog at
http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/02/24/photographing-public-places-illegal-in-calgary
Thank you.
{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
Sami wrote,” I feel I am pissing some higher powers off from the sounds my phone is making”. D’arcy writes that Sami was referring to the”ring sound”. Maybe I’m missing something. How do you figure that in the context it was used in the sentence? I’m glad you didn’t waste any more type space responding to the rest of my comments.
I really don’t mean to offend and would not normally waste my time responding to any issues in this type of forum. I have to say this hit several nerves. I have been a fine upstanding citizen myself not unlike most people. During my lifetime I have had some contact with Police.
One time I was taken down at gunpoint as I matched the description of a person that had just committed an armed robbery. I was also dealt with professionally as Sami. indicated he was. I didn’t go WHINING to the Edmonton Sun. I also didn’t change the story from being treated proffessional to being accosted.Etc etc. Grow up. This mentality is dangerous.
Everyone talks about the powers of the Police. The truth is, we have stripped them of any powers. One of thousands of examples. (New years Hit and Run)Now Second degree murder. Accused is out on bail Because of his %$%$in rights he walks free, because he is presumed innocent until proven guilty by the all powerful courts. Same mentality as I see here. Hope none of you here ever become victims. Would love to see your points of view then. Time to get your heads out of your butts. Your paying them, time to start supporting them.
By the way Dean, I took your argument to mind when I wrote my initial blog entry. My response was not as what they did was wrong, but how I felt at the time, and was meant more as a warning to other individuals thinking about taking pictures on the C-Train, whether brown or not. It’s not an easy issue, but it should be apparent what you’re allowed to do or not. As D’Arcy pointed out there was/is significant material on C-Train’s own website that is much more dangeous that any picture that can be taken. I like to know the law, if I am not aware of it, I can’t follow it.
“Everyone talks about the powers of the Police. The truth is, we have stripped them of any powers. One of thousands of examples. (New years Hit and Run)Now Second degree murder. Accused is out on bail Because of his %$%$in rights he walks free, because he is presumed innocent until proven guilty by the all powerful courts. Same mentality as I see here. Hope none of you here ever become victims. Would love to see your points of view then. Time to get your heads out of your butts. Your paying them, time to start supporting them.”
Your argument still stands as something that is problematic, but it’s also the same argument that is used for creating a facist state.
“Imagine this. A terrorist or other sick bastard is questioned by Police or some other evil person that society has entrusted as a person in authority to protect us. He asks what is in your back pack that smells like C 4. The terrorist say $$$$off because that is his right. The Police say . have a good trip and send him/her on his way. He/ she sits next to you. You exchange smiles and hello’s and hugs. Seconds later you and he/ she become one as the explosion unites your body parts and DNA as one. Guess you showed them imperialistic cops eh. We exercised our rights. Our system gives me a lot of confidence.”
Yes, well imagine this. A Brizillian immigrant runs through a train station. A number of men following him in plain clothes with guns. As he tries to get away then shoot him dead thinking he’s a terrorist. The police then apologize and say that they were only doing their job. What if I had been more non-cooperative. I don’t have to show ID, other than my train pass, and I don’t have to show pictures. So what if I had done that and gotten in some more trouble with the police? What if I had ended up in the police station and due to the fact that I was still not been cooperative, been tasered… Say had a heart attack, and died. Our systems are set up the way that they’re, to be innocent until proven guilty for very good reasons… To abandom them is to become one with our enemies, if you can’t understand that, then the terrorists have won.
Comments below…
>>Yes, well imagine this. A Brizillian immigrant runs through a train station. A number of men following him in plain clothes with guns. As he tries to get away then shoot him dead thinking he’s a terrorist. The police then apologize and say that they were only doing their job.>What if I had been more non-cooperative. I don’t have to show ID, other than my train pass, and I don’t have to show pictures. So what if I had done that and gotten in some more trouble with the police? What if I had ended up in the police station and due to the fact that I was still not been cooperative, been tasered… Say had a heart attack, and died. Our systems are set up the way that they’re, to be innocent until proven guilty for very good reasons… To abandom them is to become one with our enemies, if you can’t understand that, then the terrorists have won.
[This is my second attempt to leave a reply - the software evidently decided to truncate by first message...]
Comments below…
==Yes, well imagine this. A Brizillian immigrant runs through a train station. A number of men following him in plain clothes with guns. As he tries to get away then shoot him dead thinking he’s a terrorist. The police then apologize and say that they were only doing their job.==
Imagine this: A Brazilian immigrant is followed by plainclothes cops in London. They follow him as he walks calmly into a Tube station, picks up a free newspaper, takes the escalator down to the train platform, boards the train, and sits down to read his paper. They then pile into the car, surround this passenger, force him to kneel down, and execute him on the spot with a volley of direct shots at point-blank range.
The disconcerting thing about this hypothetical scenario? It’s not hypothetical – this, apparently, is precisely what happened last summer in London.
Law enforcement authorities, some of whom evidently have the aspirations of Gestapo wannabes, will run amok if they are not checked by aggressive public outrage and organized resistance.
The sinister harassement and intimidation of innocent railway and transit photographers – which I have personally experienced firsthand – is but a relatively small aspect of the wider and even more dangerous environment of police-state methods and increasingly arbitrary, authoritarian measures justified by a cloak of “anti-terror” hysteria.
>>What if I had been more non-cooperative. I don’t have to show ID, other than my train pass, and I don’t have to show pictures. So what if I had done that and gotten in some more trouble with the police? What if I had ended up in the police station and due to the fact that I was still not been cooperative, been tasered… Say had a heart attack, and died. Our systems are set up the way that they’re, to be innocent until proven guilty for very good reasons… To abandom them is to become one with our enemies, if you can’t understand that, then the terrorists have won.
‘Conservative’ values don’t seem to extend to the sanctity of personal information, do they?
http://www.cbc.ca/calgary/story/ca-investigators20060223.html?ref=rss
I hear about this stuff a lot. One likes to think that it doesn’t happen in Canada, but it does. I know of several people who got their names written down by cops for just wandering around some less populated public areas.
I do agree it’s really stupid. Funny how taking photos is considered a “suspicious” activity. Do I look like a spy to you?!?
I blogged about it too, I am concerned that many people (myself included) have photographed the same things and not had any hassle. Is he unlucky, is this a new policy or is it something else ..?
I’m more concerned about the “well, that’s the new reality of security” BS. It’s not ok, no matter what colour the skin. He likely just got “lucky” in that a bored undercover officer was nearby. I’d hope the same treatment would have been given to anyone, and not some pigmentally oriented profile…
Yeah. The “new world we live in post 911″ crapola is quite disturbing. They even use it in the uk despite everyone here believing the IRA had already tested their anti-terror approaches quite substantially before 2001.
Case in point, compulsory ID cards with no-questions stop and search powers. Despite the fact they didn’t stop the Madrid bombings and the fact the 911 terrorists on paper had clean ID. But apparently post 911 we need to have less freedoms to stop us all being gassed in our beds. George Orwell couldn’t write this stuff ;O)
Just for the hell of it, I’m going to go out tonight after squash and snap a few photos myself.
We cannot be cowed by this, and as a photographer, I don’t intend to let it guide my day to day decision making.
Was this a CPS undercover officer? Or Kampus Kops?
I wonder what the law is regarding identifying yourself without reasonable cause… The one hting I do know is that you can ask “am I required by law to answer that question” and if they misfeed you, they’re hooped.
It was a CPS undercover officer. When you’re alone at night, at 9:00PM and you’re brown you don’t really want to question authority. We hear it in the media all of time, about people getting harassed, beaten, tasered, killed etc. So I didn’t think it wise in the circumstances to really ask him about what right he had over me. I just wanted to prove to him that I had in fact done nothing wrong… and that got me home safe. Now I am going out again to the UC to have a picture taken with the Sun, they said they’re going to cover this so it will gain a bit of momentum in the media for a day at least.
Good on yah Sami. I understand – we all do, I think – how uncomfortable and intimidating an encounter like this can be. It would be interesting for someone to dig around and maybe get some free legal advice just to see what’s what.
And for what it’s worth, I’m posating about it under Civil Rights Are For Wimps.
you don’t want to question that kind of authority no matter how tanned you are.
they have the ability to question anyone they deem suspicious, and it’s a fact of life that they’re more suspicious now. it’s not illegal to take photos for personal use (someone is actually holds the copyright of the distinctive architecture–the government in this case, i take it–so don’t publish it without permission). i try to be helpful but confident. long hair attracts attention too.
my buddy went out collecting photo reference of LA overpasses one weekend morning for one of the Tony Hawk games. he was grilled by cops with homeland security business cards while standing on the freeway in his pajama bottoms. great story, but unnerving.
next time, just make sure you get his name and badge number. just in case, and to let him know he can’t be a bully. just be nicer than him
Good points, all – and it’s great to see the press pick up on it, too.
I think I might keep a little notepad handy so I can ask name and badge number when/if I’m accosted. But, yeah – be nice about it. Aggressiveness would only breed aggressiveness, and perhaps a few hours in a holding cell while a Supervisor figures out what to do…
I know what you mean by “out at night and brown” Sami. I’ve never been overly impressed by how the authorities in Calgary treat minorities and it was likely something as simple as you were the one that stood out, so you got harassed.
There are a few stories about people abusing what power they think they have. It’s just too bad that it happens at all.
I guess the terrorists won with 9/11
They don’t like our way of life- and now the government is showing us what it’s like to live in the “terrorist” countries.
Sami- a little civil disobedience isn’t a bad thing-
that’s what our Boston Tea Party was….
And D’Arcy- way to spread the word.
If we are going to lose our freedoms- what are we fighting for?
So others can’t be free either.
As one who has been arrested for exercising my right to free speech- symbolic free speech at that- I salute you. If you want to read my story-http://www.esrati.com/mission/Mask.htm
In the end- after 2.5 years- I won in 5 courts- and got a big check (that mostly went to lawyers)
I lost all my corporate accounts.
The jerk who was Mayor ended up losing his seat about 5 years later- only to be quickly elected to Congress-
go figure.
Thanks for letting me vent a bit.
Keep taking pictures! And posting!
Okay, well I am done with this little project. I don’t know what the Sun is going to do, but I feel like I am pissing some higher powers off from the sounds that my phone is making so I guess I am done. This has been a great exercise of citizen journalism and all that participated know how to go about it if there’s a real need, for me I think there really isn’t. Thank you all, I really appreciate your support.
The Calgary Sun article on the incident is online now.
Can’t believe the ignorance here. Re: Sami Khan
Poor fellow. Out taking pictures and gets questioned supposedly by a CPS undercover cop. Does he know that for sure, no of course not but lets just assume that out of ignorance and move on. It sounds believable. Lets blame them and promote hatred towards them. I thought there were hate crime laws to prevent this type of ignorance. Only applies to certain groups I guess.
I’m sure Calgary Police has a surplus of undercover cops that they can afford to waste the manpower to go after ( as Sami refferred) the poor brown person taking pictures at or around the Campus. When Sami made reference that he didn’t question the persons authority because he was afraid of being harrased, beated tassered, killed????????? Thats intelligent. You read about it all the time about random killings just for the fun of it by the local Police. Get educated before you shoot your mouth off .
Then there is idarkknight that makes the comment that he has never been impressed by the way CPS treated minorities. Good 1. CPS is composed of almost every ethnic background in the world. They even have a few white people.
Sami ends with, ” I feel like I am pissing some higher powers off from the sounds my phone is making so I guess I am done”. I’m sure they would tap your phone because you are so important. Put the tinfoil on your head so the aliens can’t read your mind. Don’t be such a racist.
I don’t get it . We pay a police department to protect us, yet we give them no powers. Truth is unless you are under arrest or in a motor vehicle you can tell them to %%%% off. when they ask you who you are or what you are doing. Does this make you feel powerful and in control? Imagine this. A terrorist or other sick bastard is questioned by Police or some other evil person that society has entrusted as a person in authority to protect us. He asks what is in your back pack that smells like C 4. The terrorist say $$$$off because that is his right. The Police say . have a good trip and send him/her on his way. He/ she sits next to you. You exchange smiles and hello’s and hugs. Seconds later you and he/ she become one as the explosion unites your body parts and DNA as one. Guess you showed them imperialistic cops eh. We exercised our rights. Our system gives me a lot of confidence.
Individual rights should never oversee the rights of the community. Unfortunately this is not the case. I always thought our tax dollars were for the Police to save our asses, not kiss them.
Dean – he was meaning the “ring” sound, not some indicator of wiretapping. Not going to respond to the rest of your comments.
For a collection of articles on the campaign to criminalize railway and transit photography, see:
http://www.lightrailnow.org/industry_issues.htm#security-issues
LRN – only one word for that. Yikes.
Yeah – I heard from both my Alderman and the Calgary Transit representative. Both agreed that it is completely legal to take photographs, and that the permission that was mentioned is really just a courtesy usually extended by media outlets (TV stations, etc…) who will be filming on/near transit locations. Not required, and not wanted for personal photography.
Their stance is that it was just a big misunderstanding, and an officer who was a little overzealous (but within the bounds of his duties). No harm, no foul.
But, I’m still glad we were vocal about this so it didn’t get to stick as the de facto way to be treated by the police while photographing.
D'Arcy,
Just wondering if you ever did get an answer from your Alderman or MLA and if so if you still were planning on posting them?
Thanks again for that D'Arcy, I appreciated it!
I have been told that it is illegal to take pictures in and around Calgary Transit and other public locations. I had a cop question me yesterday and ask to see some Identification. I don't know where they get their information from but I have been taking pictures of stuff for years. The cop asked to see the pictures on my camera and that is when I got upset. Basically it came to freedom of expression and speech and the only way that he was going to see the pictures was if he arrested me. I was very embarrassed the way that he cornered me in public. It did little to build a feeling of respect for the Calgary Police. I am a middle aged fairly well dressed guy who has a large telephoto lens (which may have attracted the attention). I do not look like a subversive individual. On another note the Calgary Transit Police have always been very nice to me! Kudos to them! I have a few dozen stellar B&W shots of trains at sunset and some nive B&W shots of the Zoo and Brentwood LRT stations. Anyways I am babbling now but sure hope that I don't get cornered like that again. Hopefully the police can go and catch some real criminals instead of picking on some of us poor photographers
Raj, that shirt is awesome!
I know this is old and it's been talked about quite a bit already, but I thought you might like to see this (and thanks to the recent comments some of you will
)
Yeah…if that was me, and I am a photographer…I would have said, fine I will give and show you everything you want with my lawyer present and holding your search warrant, until then, I am happy to provide you with my ID.