New York City police officers need better training to distinguish between law-abiding citizens who snap pictures of city landmarks and those suspected of plotting terrorism, a lawsuit filed on Thursday by the New York Civil Liberties Union said. [...]
Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said police offers do "on rare occasions" question people photographing subways and other infrastructure. But he defended the practice as necessary to fight terrorism, saying that there have been numerous "plots involving photography of subways, bridges and landmark buildings in New York since 9/11." The NYCLU countered that dozens of law-abiding photographers have come to them with claims of being harassed by officers poorly trained in identifying genuinely suspicious activity. [...]
Earlier this year, the city settled a lawsuit brought by the NYCLU on behalf of the Indian documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma, who said he was harassed while filming in Manhattan in 2005....Show more →
Surely if you're going to take a picture of a subway or whatever else you'd use a small p+s camera and have a friend with a cheap touristy video camera. It's small discreet, simple and fast. You wouldn't have a giant slr, tripod and bag full of gear. The cops should be stopping and harassing people that look like tourists, and I seem to remember there being quite a lot of them when I was in NY.
