There's been much publicity, and understandable anger, about the provisions of the new Counter-Terrorism Act that came into force on 16th February. The police are becoming more and more aggressive in their use of video and photography to record and threaten possible offenders - yes, and some real offenders too, but we're more concerned with the idea that some copper can shove a camera in your face just in case you might do something wrong soon …
Yet now we can't return the favour. We can't photograph them back.
Or can we? The relevant legislation reads as follows …
Section 76: Offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc.
(1)
After section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (collection of information) insert- "58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc.
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)).
We have to confess that we don't understand all of this. What does "on conviction on indictment" mean? Why can it earn you 10 years when "summary conviction" only gets you 12 months? And why, for God's sake, is it 12 months in England, Scotland and Wales, but only 6 months in Northern Ireland which is the one place with a recent history of successful and long-term action against the security forces? Perhaps someone with legal training could tell us?
We note also from another website that it is assumed a photographer would have to be linked to terrorism for the law to be applied - in theory. But the danger is that a minority of misguided policemen could use the law to harass both professional and amateur photographers. There is already a steady stream of reports of photographers being abused by police officers, so the introduction of a new law that gives them even more excuse is outrageous.
In the US where similar legislation has been passed, one man has already been arrested and prosecuted because he attempted to use in evidence a video he had made of a police officer being abusive to him. And another is in trouble for taking snaps of a drug bust outside his house.
It's worth remembering that film of Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King in 1991 proved very embarrassing to the police, though none were ever convicted for the crime. And the policeman who shot Oscar Grant in the back at a San Francisco subway station might have cursed the invention of the camera phone. On the other hand some film of the shooting of the young Brazilian man on the London underground could have proved useful to the police in showing that they made an honest and reasonable mistake and that they had followed every step of due procedure (and no, we're not being sarcastic. We're not, really).
That's the reasonable, intelligent approach to this legislation. We at GOS are perfectly capable of being reasonable and intelligent, but we also recognise that other people aren't always, and that as we wrote very recently, if a law exists there also exists someone who can misuse it. And will.
So the most important thing of all is that the wording of the new legislation is deliberately very vague. It doesn't use the words "photograph" or "film", but just lumps them together as "information". Nor does it stipulate the purpose of such photography, or the occasion when it occurs.
This means that under the terms of the legislation it can be deemed illegal to photograph a policeman even when he is off duty, or not in uniform. If it can be shown that the photograph could be useful in some way to a terrorist (if, indeed, you can actually find one of these rare, elusive and sometimes wholly imaginary creatures) it could even be illegal for a member of his family to take a picture of a policeman on the beach, or in the back garden.
So, if your Dad is a policeman, tough luck. Cherish the memory, because you can never have a memento of him in the family album.
It could also be illegal to take any photograph anywhere. Who knows, a policeman in mufti might wander into the background and be immortalised by your camera - and if his likeness could be useful to the alleged terrorist, your picture of the kids in front of the band-stand in the park could land you in jail for 10 years.
Mind you, while serving your time you can console yourself that there's a silver lining to every cloud. There are more CCTV cameras in Britain than in any other country in the world. Some are owned and operated by local authorities or official bodies like the Highways Agency, but many are operated by private companies, mostly contractors and the owners of premises. They capture millions of images every day, and many of these must include police officers. They are therefore potentially illegal.
We look forward to hearing that all the CCTV cameras that constantly watch us wherever we go, have been switched off. Or, alternatively, that some prat in Whitehall has been given the task of framing some replacement legislation that actually says what it means.
Yeah, right, like that's going to happen, innit?
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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