I have a very strong feeling that the era of ambiguous rail photography harassment in the US is reaching a tipping point which will lead to its demise - and we have a Washington, DC Union Station security guard to thank for it.
Like most of the MTA system and stations, DC’s Union station has no rule regarding the prohibition of recreational photography - although harassment of photographers by station security has suddenly become inexplicably commonplace.
A local Fox news reporter was actually shooting a stand-up in the station with the head Amtrack spokesman, who was stating on camera that there was absolutely no photography ban whatsoever in the Amtrack parts of Union Station, when a security guard interrupted the standup and told them to stop!
The response from the security guard when asked to identify himself and state which rule he was enforcing is eerily familiar to anyone who has been harassed by an MTA employee - he simply refused.
Thankfully, this situation is now the tipping point which has gotten the attention of a congressional delegate - Eleanor Holmes Norton, who sits on 2 especially relevant committees in the house: Homeland Security, and Transportation. But best of all, she was a former assistant legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Fox news reports at the end of the video that Delegate Norton is considering legislation addressing the issue. I would encourage you to send her an email to encourage her to do this, but unfortunately the contact form is designed to only allow contact from constituents.
My advice is to contact your own representative with a link to the video, and encourage them to take the initiative themselves.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Stamford Talk // Jun 4, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Wow, that is ridiculous. WHY would photography be banned? You don’t need a license to take pictures…
I guess since 9-11, guards feel like they are preventing terrorism by stopping people who might be scouting out places to bomb… I think they did have that ban in effect after 9-11, didn’t they? Wasn’t there a no filming in the NYC Subway rule at one point?
We don’t need to live in a police state, though. A terrorist doesn’t need to take photos; I’m sure they have sneakier ways.
2 Chris (Admin) // Jun 4, 2008 at 8:25 pm
MTA attempted to ban photography in 2004 but realized they would lose the fight in court, so they now permit it ‘officially’.
‘unofficially’ they have security harass you until you stop, because 95% will.
If you are friendly and disclose to them you are aware of the policy (I bring a printed copy with me), they will generally back off.
3 annulla // Jun 5, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Chris, want to give us a link to a site where we can find the official policy, so we can print it, too?
4 Chris (Admin) // Jun 5, 2008 at 5:10 pm
anulla:
Check out this story and the comments:
http://www.stationstops.com/2008/03/18/mta-ignored-by-employees-after-insisting-do-not-harass-photographers/
irregardless of the policy, any private property which is used as public space is supposedly protected by 1st amendment for photography, but im no lawyer ymmv.
5 Alan Clifford // Jun 5, 2008 at 9:16 pm
It is a problem in the UK as well and Austin Mitchell, M.P., has submitted an early day motion to the British Parliament http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=35375
I have emailed him to suggest there might be some benefit in contacting Eleanor Holmes Norton on the subject and wanted to email her as well, but as you point out, her on-line communication system is for her constituents only.
Anti-terrorism is presumably the rational for the anti-photo obsession but, as Bruce Schneier has pointed out http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/the_war_on_phot.html
terrorists don’t seem to take photographs.
I urge all your readers to contact their government representatives to ask them to enable legislation or, at least provide guidelines, to stop pseudo-policemen and even policemen from harassing innocent photographers.
Alan Clifford
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