Freedom to film

That woman makes a very interesting point about the number of CCTV cameras. Bit hypocritical of the people trying to stop them. I certainly don't like or approve of being filmed that many times a day, that should be illegal.

Is obstructing people going about their business against the law? If so, then surely the council employees who are obstructing your charity going about its legal business (ie media education) are the ones who are in the wrong. Next time they stop you, call the police! Bring the legal point to a head!!!

As some may be aware, in Vancouver, Canada in October 2007, a Polish immigrant named Robert Dziekanski was murdered by four airport security policemen after being tasered four or five times and subsequently restrained by a knee hold to the neck. This event was filmed by a citizen with a phonecamera and this evidence alone became instrumental in pressing for an inquiry into the death, despite attempts by the police to sieze the footage.

This has not been an isolated case, and before and since, some police have attempted and in many cases succeeded in securing or destroying such evidence.

I suspect that in your case, in Hackney, this movement to restrict photography and filming is arguably related to pure rent-seeking with respect to the issuance of licences to do so, but the fact remains that this proscription bears a real risk to the public at large and its right to document abuse.

Freedom to Film looks at how society’s overreaction to terrorism and paedophilia routinely leads to WorldWrite volunteers being stopped from filming in public spaces, when in fact it’s perfectly legal unless the film crew is doing something like causing a disturbance. And this from a government that films the public several hundred times a day through CCTV.

Perhaps its too tempting to call the council jobsworths potential paedophiles and see how they like it! But really it seems that asserting that you have the right to take pictures on public property is the way to deal with it. A case of no permits are required, mister?

Just the other day we were stopped in our local public park on the grounds we could be paedophiles taking pictures of children when in fact we were a group of 12 volunteers with a tutor teaching us camera! Even when we told the man in a council uniform that we were in our rights to film he still told us we must give him our mobile numbers and we may well hear back from him. This mistrust must be challenged.

It would be good to know of other Current TV film maker's experiences of getting stopped - how widespread is this problem - how you get round it- deal with it? Is it a peculiarly UK problem? We've never had problems with members of the public its always some jobsworth interrpretting policy as they see fit we have even had rows with local council film units telling us public space-squares are private property - which is not legally the case - not tolerable methinks