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Photos as a libertarian issue Following from Philip Chaston’s post immediately below, is the point that needs to be repeated as to how bad it is that the authorities are now trying – in vain, hopefully – to ban people from photographing the police. Had such photographing been prevented, then this incident, which threatens to engulf the police in further turmoil, would not have been recorded.
I cannot believe I am now writing stuff like this. This is Britain, right?
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The deterioration of our rights has accelerated shockingly since 2006. Those 7/7 bombers succeeded in destroying what was left of Britain alright.
Watch this space, if the Tories don’t table a Great Repeal Act soon after being elected, I suggest everybody who can emigrates.
I know!
It’s hard for me to now recognise the country of my birth anymore – Thanks to an Authoritarian, Repressive & Totally Corrupt Labour Government.
I do hope the Tories DO repeal every one of Labours 3000+ ‘laws’ and give us back our freedom.
But I won’t be holding my breath on that one.
Every day I am disappointed that the Conservatives haven’t announced that they will bring forward a Great Repeal Act as a matter of urgency.
As well as being principled it’d be good politics.
There are liberatarian-inclined Conservatives, what sort of pressure do they put on Cameron?
But don’t forget that both Cameron and Osborne are not loath to mis-represent libertarianism.
I know I am not a classically pure libertarian; I don’t think it is only the pure who would favour a Great Repeal Act.
I’d imagine that we’re not far from the state making the circulation of such photos and videos on the internet directly illegal on the basis of “national security”.
They’ll have to ban camera phones before they can really stop people taking pictures – such devices are too cheap, too small, and too ubiquitous to control any other way.
But I wouldn’t put such a thing past them – after all, India has just banned handsets that don’t have IMEI numbers, because they’re untraceable.
The last toryboy said: “Those 7/7 bombers succeeded in destroying what was left of Britain alright.”
The terrorists in Westminster destroyed Britain.
In American terms, I wish we could amend the Constitution to say, “Public awareness of official misconduct being essential to the security of a free society, the right of the people to carry and use recording devices for sight and sound shall not be infringed.”
The “ban” on taking pictures of the police is a bit of a hysterical myth. The actual legislation people refer to prohibits “eliciting information” about the police or members of the armed forces that could be useful to terrorists and was a direct response to that plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier.
Much noise has been made about this being a “ban” on photographs of the police, but it’s no such thing – as the G20 showed
This statement makes no sense whatsoever.
Yes, we’re talking about Britain, the prime poster-child nation for Nanny Government. The land of CCTV cameras, asinine and ass-backwards self-defense laws, gun bans, hand-wringing governmental concern over how many sweets you eat.
What was your point again?
MTR – “Much noise has been made about this being a “ban” on photographs of the police, but it’s no such thing”
I think the point is that the legislation is so loosely and broadly worded that it could be interpreted as banning photographing the police, basically on the whim of a policeman.
This is the real issue here. For all their awfulness I don’t think that the current government are intentionally bent on introducing a police state. What happens is they introduce hurried, sloppy legislation in response to some short lived panic, or particular situation with an eye to earning a few friendly headlines. There is very little consideration or even apparent concern about the long term impact.
But the long term impact is hugely corrosive of our liberties and traditions of tolerance. One of the purposes of law is to make it clear what we can and can’t do and to make it easier to predict how others will behave. Poorly worded legislation that is unclear makes this harder, and gives officials huge discretion making it harder still to predict what we can and can’t do in any given situation. We are lucky that traditions of liberty are strong enough in this country that civil society’s immune system can attack the infection of such legislation, but like any immune system it can only deal with so much before it is overwhelmed. More and more badly written legislation undermines confidence in and respect for the law. This can lead to a decline in respect for the police, for the freedom of others, and will eventually extinguish civil society’s respect for freedom and tolerance. That is the very real danger, that is where New Labour is taking us and they must be stopped.
Good news from the Free State (http://freestateproject.org).
There exists a “wiretapping” law in New Hampshire which forbids audio recording of individuals without their consent. This law has been used to arrest liberty activists who taped their encounters with police.
The New Hampshire House has recently passed an exception to this law, which would explicitly *permit* audio taping of any police officer when they are on duty.
Hopefully, this will pass, as several Free State Project activists have vowed, if it does not become law, to none-the-less record their encounters with law enforcement, as an act of civil disobedience, and to risk prison to do so.
It’s good to be in the Free State.
For what it’s worth, there’s a petition been set up on the Number 10 website about this. It’s depressing that only 2300 people don’t want to live in a police state:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Photorestrict/
Tim writes:
This statement makes no sense whatsoever. Yes, we’re talking about Britain, the prime poster-child nation for Nanny Government. The land of CCTV cameras, asinine and ass-backwards self-defense laws, gun bans, hand-wringing governmental concern over how many sweets you eat. What was your point again?
My “point” is that even given the pace of change, the sheer outrageousness of this government still has the capacity to shock. When you think things cannot get any worse, they do.