The Comment Factory

Last week the New Labour government began the latest stage of their effort to dismantle the remaining civil liberties of the British people. This time round it’s Section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, a sinister piece of legislation which effectively makes it illegal to take pictures of police officers if the feel like arresting you. The section prohibits “[e]liciting, publishing or communicating information about members” of the armed forces, police and other law enforcement “which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”, which gives the police on the ground carte blanche to arrest anyone photographing them (it’s likely terrorists don’t advertize their trade on their t-shirts).

If you have been on protests on the streets of Britain over the last decade you will know how authoritarian this law is likely to become. Not content with having more surveillance cameras per person than any other country in the world, the British police are punctilious archivists. On any given protest, the police will have a squad of photographers and videographers recording the demonstrators, without any pretext; just walking down the street with your kids with a placard makes you a suspect, with no recourse to finding out what is done with the information. In response demonstrators have taken to recording the police back, and sometimes getting footage and pictures of police brutality, which isn’t popular at the Met. Now for this little bit of cheekiness you could languish in jail for 10 years.

FIT Watch is a guerilla activist group which was set up to combat Forward Intelligence Teams — the police that watch protestors. They often get into scuffles with the police, but now they could potentially be arrested and put in prison en masse. Emily Apple, 33, is one of the founders. “It was set up as a response to FIT trying to harrrass people off the streets, and what was a clear campaign of intimidation against activists… We oppose the use of cameras on demonstrations, through publishing details of police officers.” She continues, “They keep records of us, so we keep them on them.” She says the reasoning given by the government — that terrorists could use such information for their own purposes — is tosh. “We’re obiously scared that it will be used against us, but nothing we are doing is of use to terrorists, associating pictures with terrorism is ludicrous, we will continue doing what we are doing because it is important, systematic repression of protests needs to be highlighted and challenged.”

Another law — Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 — had already given the police the right to stop and search any individual for “articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism”. For photojournalists, this has often mean their cameras, and reports of stop and search of photographers are growing.

Being eager to test out this new law I went down on Friday to the Animal Rights demonstration outside the Bank of England deep in financial district of London. It was the first major protest in the UK since the new law came into effect. For a workday it wasn’t a bad turnout, probably about 350 people, with large numbers of police too. I got out my BlackBerry and started snapping the police and — nothing. There was no reaction, no-one tried to stop me, even though I was right in their face. Then one officer remarked to another that I was “persisting in taking photos”, but nothing happened. The FIT police, with their video cameras were there too, and didn’t seem to mind as I put my BlackBerry up close. I stopped when one officer saw me taking a flick and pulled his hat down over his face to obscure it. But I was not arrested and did not have my camera taken. “So you don’t mind me taking photos of you?” I asked one cop. “No, it’s fine, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the protest,” he replied. And that was that. But the real problem with this law is not one amateur with a BlackBerry; it will be about the abuse we don’t see, the photographer capturing the malfeasance of the police and having their camera confiscated and the protester eager to document those documenting them. Watch this space, and look below at the selection of photos I got from Friday’s demonstration.

PC Plod... Not bothered

He said: "Take photos as long as it doesn't interfere with the protest"

Watching them watching us

This protestor, Roger Harris, 72, said: "I expect to be arrested and detained or have my camera taken today," as he took photos of the police

Don't look into the camera

This camera-shy one hid his face from my BlackBerry

Mutual documentation; no arrests

"My right side is my best"

And remember CF readers, please do not use these photos for any “terrorist-related activities”, as you could land me in jail for up to ten years.

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And below are some famous pictures of British police that might now be classed illegal:

Arrest of Josie Smith, a retired, disabled miner, during police efforts to escort returning miners back to work, 1984, (Keith Pattison)

Miners strike in Ogreave in 1984, (Don McPhee)

Poll Tax riots, 1989