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Taking photos of Police to be considered a crime..

http://underclassrising.net/ | 28.01.2009 09:25 | Policing | Repression | Sheffield

I joke not..

The relationship between photographers and police could worsen next month when new laws are introduced that allow for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone who takes pictures of officers 'likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.



Set to become law on 16 February, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer.

The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who 'elicits or attempts to elicit information about [members of armed forces] … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.

A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine.

 http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=836646

Actions are planed

 http://www.pledgebank.com/s76photo
 http://www.flickr.com/groups/1011510@N21/

Please pass onto all your contacts, post into the groups your involved with and spread like wildfire this has simply gone to far
see www.fitwatch.blogspot.com/ now one is not anti police, but if there upto no good, takeing images of us on actions so forth then we should be taking images of them for the widder public good.

I see a time when taking any images in public, or upon land will also be baned, as an active urban explorer and politcal actavist i find this well fucked to be frank.

http://underclassrising.net/
- e-mail: http://underclassrising.net/
- Homepage: http://underclassrising.net/

Additions

Update

28.01.2009 11:52


We joke not..

The relationship between photographers and police could worsen next month when new laws are introduced that allow for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone who takes pictures of officers ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.

Set to become law on 16 February, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer.

The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who ‘elicits or attempts to elicit information about [members of armed forces] … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.

A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine.


Actions are planned

Sign up here  http://www.pledgebank.com/s76photo

Post your images here www.flickr.com/groups/1011510@N21

Please pass onto all your contacts, post into the groups your involved with and spread like wildfire this has simply gone to far see www.fitwatch.blogspot.com/ now one is not anti police per say , but if there upto no good, takeing images of us on actions so forth then we should be taking images of them for the widder public good.

We see a time when taking any images in public, or upon land will also be baned, as an active urban explorer and politcal actavist i find this well fucked to be frank

Squatting: a basic Guide  http://www.myspace.com/sheffieldsquatters

Photography: Your Rights  http://www.urban75.org/photos/photographers-rights-and-the-law.html

Facebook group  http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=57175249318

The big problem with this law, like Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 which it amends, is that it’s drawn so broadly.

There’s no requirement for proof of intent, merely that the gathering or publication of information “which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”

The only defence of a ‘reasonable excuse’ puts the onus on the defence to prove that they were not committing a crime, rather than on the prosecution to prove that a crime was committed. In practical terms, you have to prove your innocence.

We have an example of where this can lead with last year’s case of a Nottingham University student, who was arrested for possession of dodgy material (relevant to his Thesis) and released after nearly a week.

 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08…tt_uni_update/

Quote:

Following Mr Sabir’s release, the police wrote to him. Allegedly, they warn that he risks re-arrest if found with the manual again and add: “The university authorities have now made clear that possession of this material is not required for the purpose of your course of study nor do they consider it legitimate for you to possess it for research purposes.”

Mere curiosity, political interest or even direct relevance to the topic of your research is not a reasonable excuse, according to Nottinghamshire Police, only a University sanctioned course requiring you to possess it suffices.

A couple more Guardian stories, with more background

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/…ereducation.uk
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/ju…rity.terrorism

Now this is at the higher legal level at the point where the CPS will be getting involved.

We’ve seen how s44 is used on a day-to-day basis and how little the police like being observed and recorded even in the absence of law prohibiting it.

It seems all too obvious how it’s going to be used on the street

The act is here:  http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008…#pt7-pb3-l1g76

and the text is

Quote:

76Offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc
(1)After section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (collection of information) insert—
“58AEliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc
(1)A person commits an offence who—
(a)elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been—
(i)a member of Her Majesty’s forces,
(ii)a member of any of the intelligence services, or
(iii)a constable,which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or
(b)publishes or communicates any such information.
(2)It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for their action.
(3)A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or to a fine, or to both;
(b)on summary conviction—
(i)in England and Wales or Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;
(ii)in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both.
(4)In this section “the intelligence services” means the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ (within the meaning of section 3 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (c. 13)).
(5)Schedule 8A to this Act contains supplementary provisions relating to the offence under this section.”.
(2)In the application of section 58A in England and Wales in relation to an offence committed before the commencement of section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44) the reference in subsection (3)(b)(i) to 12 months is to be read as a reference to 6 months.
(3)In section 118 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (c. 11) (defences), in subsection (5)(a) after “58,” insert “58A,”.
(4)After Schedule 8 to the Terrorism Act 2000 insert the Schedule set out in Schedule 8 to this Act.


http://underclassrising.net/
mail e-mail: http://underclassrising.net/
- Homepage: http://underclassrising.net/


Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

stinks of socpa and napoleonic law

28.01.2009 14:03

socpa 2005 was written as a gag order on freedom of expression with the broad drawn non defining word demonstration... for a demonstration to be defined in the courts, as it has been left to do, the current mentality of the judiciary is to use the definition of 'a show of emotion'.

for a show of emotion without 6 days prior police notice, they can lock you up for 51 weeks? wtf mate?

Under common law, everything is considered permitted unless expressly deemed unlawful and you are innocent until proven guilty. Under napoleonic law, admiralty law, commerce law and now immerging european law within british boundaries - juris prudis and statute law, you are guilty until proven innocent and only what is expressly permitted is allowed and all else is forbidden.

They must be on crack to try this on the british nation... and the british nation must be on smack to tolerate this crap... fools writing rules to cover up THEIR CRIMES. this is all heading into a european police state where there is no evidence or dirt on the state permitted while there on nonses sitting on the benches of the judiciary... give me a fucking break please.

peace and solidarity XXX

Charity
mail e-mail: charitysweet@hotmail.co.uk


compassion

28.01.2009 15:47

and compassion for all. including police, lawyers, judges & even politicians. they feed off the low vibrational energies.

when confronted with a situation normally associated with low vibrational energies (fear, hatred, anger, pity, etc) compassion from the heart has the power to move mountains. the heart is a 7 layer liquid crystal oscillator with 5000 times the magnetic power on the brain and 100 times the electrical power.
we have manifested a system which locks down the heart and confuses the mind. let's manifest something different. believe it in your heart and it will be true. if you want world peace, believe in your heart that we already have it. i had a good sob when i did it!
we feel emotions in our heart and this is what moulds our reality. half the ancient scriptures were removed from our modern bible and the other half were heavily edited to remove the emphasis on the heart & emotions. the same cannot be said for many other cultures eg. the vedas (pronounced vayders), buddhism, etc. there are still references to praying that say if you want something believe in your heart that you already have it.

compassion


Fitwatch response to new legislation

28.01.2009 16:41

We will be pushing this for the 16th:

We will not be intimidated – Mass resistance to new offence of publishing information about police officers

The new Counter Terrorism Bill, currently in The Lords, contains an amendment to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This amendment will make it an offence, punishable by up to ten years imprisonment, to publish or elicit information about any police constable "of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".

Furthermore, Schedule 7 of the Bill applies this amendment to internet service providers and web hosting services. This means they will have a legal duty to remove all sites perceived to fall under this offence, and has provisions for use at home and abroad.

It is unclear what information will be classed as “useful” to terrorists, but due to this ambiguous wording, the Bill has implications for bloggers, journalists, photographers, activists and anyone who values freedom of speech.

This is a call from Fitwatch for a mass publishing of information on police officers on the day this Bill receives its Royal Assent. The date will be published as soon as we have it, but it is likely to be early 2009.

Fitwatch are one of the groups who could be targeted by this new legislation. Fitwatch, started eight months ago by activists, resists and opposes the use of Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) on demonstrations. FIT are police officers who photograph, follow, and generally intimidate protesters. They bring, in the words of Jacqui Smith, “harassment style policing” to protests.

As part of this opposition, we run a blog –  http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com/ – where we share information about these officers. We feel this blog could be under threat from this new legislation.

Whilst it is obvious from our blog that we do not like these officers, we are not terrorists.

Neither are:

* people filming, and uploading to Youtube, footage of police officers acting illegally.
* bloggers writing about being randomly stopped and searched.
* journalists publishing details of corrupt or racist cops.
* photographers publishing photographs of police on protests.

The list goes on, but all are under threat.

This legislation not only attempts to stifle our ability to hold the police force to account for their actions, but also attacks the principles of open publishing on the internet. It must be resisted.

Join the mass action and oppose this ludicrous law.

This action can be taken by anyone, anywhere:

* Get hold of a piece of information about a police officer, or a photo or video. If you are stuck, feel free to use anything from our blog!
* Publish this on Flickr, Youtube, your blog, website, myspace/facebook, whereever you want.
* Send us a link, and we'll publish a list on our blog.
* Please circulate and publish this call as widely as possible, and join this act of cyber resistance.

ps – this bill also applies to intelligence officers. If anyone does have any photographs or information on MI5 officers they wish to publish, we would not seek to discourage them in any way, shape or form, but please do send us a link!!!

Fitwatch
mail e-mail: defycops(at)yahoo.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com


Links are broken

28.01.2009 17:47

FYI, all the URLs in this article have been truncated, as if copied and pasted from a forum post. So they're all broken.

Matt


some technical workarounds

28.01.2009 22:38

Obviously it would be best to not have it illegal in the first place, but if it is, here are some workarounds:

* hidden cameras for taking photos - they are getting smaller and smaller these day, so should be possible.
* anonymous networks for making the information publicly available:
Freenet:  http://freenetproject.org
Tor:  http://torproject.org
I2P:  http://www.i2p2.de/

I would suggest people mirror their sites on these networks if they think they might be at risk from a future law change.

anon


Surely this makes the use of CCTV illegal

29.01.2009 05:34

All CCTV footage that takes a picture of a police officer must, under this legislation, be considered in the same way as a camera pointed at a police officer. CCTV are, after all, cameras that take pictures.

If the Police choose to argue that CCTV is not targeting officers then that argument is open to any person who accidentally includes a Police Officer in the frame when photographing the street.

The law as drafted seems to be too powerful for actual use. To specifically exclude CCTV would allow terrorists to legitimately use a CCTV camera (it is perfectly possible to link to a CCTV that is IP enabled) to gather "information useful" but not to carry out the same using the far more obvious hand held camera.

I am not arguing that the law is good or right or proper - just that the law is actually unworkable: if it cannot be applied equally then it cannot be applied.

A member of the public