On Monday Morning you'll get ten years for taking this photograph....

A copper at the railings at the end of Downing Street.

Take this picture again on Monday and get a free ride to Paddington Green

by johnofgwent

I believe the British National Party needs to write to that well known supporter of their point of view, the British Broacasting Corporation, and give them, and in particular the panellists on the normally oh-so-left-leaning-they-ought-to-fall-over friday night "News Quiz", a pat on the back.

For while Andy Hamilton was trying to impress us with the fact that he's actually read the bible whilst at the same time sticking the knife in the back of a certain dutch politician, he let slip a remark that speaks volumes about the way this country's government has lurched away from the needs of the people.

Did you know that as of Monday Morning you can be thrown in the slammer for photographing a policeman ? Well, you can, and you will.

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'.

Ok you say. So what. Well go look at that picture again, and now go take a good, long, read of this web page, and then this one.

Now I bet you a year's free subscription to their magazine that before today you'd never even heard of the British Journal Of Photography. I have, but that is because, to quote Billy Joel, "whenI wore a younger man's clothes" I had quite an interest in the art, and the science behind the photographic image. And the organisation behind this publication were quite helpful to me in my scientific research. So I don't exactly hold these guys up an example to revolutionaries everywhere.

Yet now even the NATIONAL UNION OF JOURNALISTS whose members are sworn to bash the BNP at every possibkle opportunity, have woken up and realised what's going on. Look at this quote fromthe second of those web pages.

The National Union of Journalists, in association with BJP, has called for photographers to make their voices heard at a rally on 16 February as a new law is introduced that allows for the arrest - and potential imprisonment - of anyone who takes pictures of police officers '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.

The Home Office argues that the Terrorism Act 2000 already makes it an offence to 'collect or make a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism' and that the new law will not change anything. However, photographers fear that the Counter-Terrorism Act will, by explicitly mentioning constables, give more power to police officers to stop photographers, including press photographers, from taking pictures in public places.

Of course it's all dressed up as "anti terrorist measures" with those lovely weasel words about taking photographs of officers that are likely to be of use to a terrorist". But we all know what this is really about don't we. They don't want to be seen as puppets for a "government" that is too scared to go to the polls in its dying days. And they don't want to be reminded about stuff like this.


Or maybe they just don't like to be reminded about their "pride" in unorthodox lifestyles.


And if this country descends to the state it is in across the pond, then anyone having the bare faced cheek to film and then hand to the TV networks the shooting of a passenger on the tube - as happenned here where a man is taken off a New Year's day BART ("tube" to you) train, held on the floor and shot in the back, will never see the light of day again.

Of course, that sort ofthing will never happen here, will it. OUR police don't go round shooting unarmed men in the head for no reason, do they ? Tell you what, why not ask this man ?