I thought the Nazi's lost WWII but apparently, in this world terrorized by the thought of terror, I'm wrong. In both the US and UK, street photography is strongly frowned on and, in some instances 'illegal'--by which I mean, the police will stop you, sometimes even confiscating your camera, and will make you delete your pictures. Just for taking photographs of public buildings, landmarks, interesting sites.
A few links to show you what I mean:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7351252.stm
http://www.vividlight.com/articles/3802.htm
http://www.alternet.org/rights/22084/
http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2005/05/23/public_photography_becoming_illegal
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/201207_b_illegal.htm
http://flickr.com/photos/21500190@N07/2167976932/
http://digg.com/security/Photographer_Told_Taking_Picture_of_Building_Illegal
I've recently moved to the UK. I thought that, although they had their idiosyncrasies, they were still better with human rights than the US. Now I'm not so sure.
Incidentally, you can check here: http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf for you rights as a photographer (unless they quote 'national security'. Then all rights go out the window).
Interestingly, in all cases it seems you are more likely to be accosted by the authorities if you look professional (ie: are using a 'real' camera vs. a cell phone)!? Does this strike anyone else as a little backward? After all, anyone looking to take clandestine photos would likely try and hide the fact. Although, in reality, any terrorist target is already going to have a million photos all over the net and probably the blueprints to go with it.
Does anyone still believe the 'allies' are winning the war on terror? How can we be when almost daily our rights are being stripped away. I'm sure this is how intelligent Germans felt as the Third Reich strengthened their grip on power, slowly stealing the basic rights and freedoms of the German citizens.
On the chance you believe the state and believe that the paranoia about terrorists is justified, I have the following questions for you (aimed at those living in western countries):
1) This year, how many people in your country have died unnatural deaths? How many of those deaths were due to terrorists?
2) In the last 10 years, how many people in your country have died unnatural deaths? How many of those deaths were due to terrorists?
#2 intentionally includes 9/11 to demonstrate a point. In the US, in the last 10 years there have been more than 160,000 murders ( http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm --that's a lower estimate as I was a bit lazy to add the yearly figures. The upper estimate of 9/11 deaths was 3000. That means that in the last 10 years 'murder' by terrorists accounts for less than 2% in the US (and that's not even factoring in deaths by car accident, accidental shootings, etc.). But financially, including the Iraq war (war on terror) it accounts for a huge percentage of the US budget (trillions).
Incidentally, in the UK, the murders by terrorists in the last 10 years is a much smaller percentage (approx. 60/8000 or approx. 0.75%).
We are killing ourselves at a much faster rate than 'they' (the terrorists) are, so why all the fear about 'them'?
In my opinion?
It's an excuse for a power grab, a convenient excuse to build to unreasonable levels in order to scare the people into handing over sweeping powers to the government. This is no conspiracy theory people, and this is not Orwell's 1984. This is real and it is happening now. And it is only the power of the people that can stop it.
Think I'm crazy? For all our sakes, I hope you're right.
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