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Federal appeals court rules that you have a constitutional right to photograph police officers

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Photographing and filming the police is an often touchy topic. Mostly due to a lack of education on the part of some police officers. These officers (and it is a tiny minority) seem unaware of the actual laws regarding it. Or, they outright lie and say it is illegal, sometimes to the point of allegedly beating those filming them unsonscious.

Now, a panel of judges fro the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that this falls under the First Amendment. An individual’s right to film police officers in the performance of their duties has constitutional protection. The decision involves two instances where civilians had attempted to film Philadelphia police officers, and were retaliated against.

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Police Arrest Canadian Journalists at Scene of Car Crash

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Two journalists were recently arrested this week by police at the scene of a fatal car crash in Hamilton Canada.

This hits home for me because I live in Hamilton. As a Canadian, the issue of overzealous police arresting photographers and journalists for the crime of photography always seemed like a US issue or a problem in meaner parts of the world.

To be honest, I never thought that something like this could happen in my home town.

Continue reading for details…

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Police tells attorney he can’t film them, Police Chief invites citizens to film the police in response

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Here is an interesting turn of events. According to the Washington post, what started a police falsely telling an attorney/uber driver that he can’t film them, ended up with the police chief issuing a statement where he invites the public to film cops.

This “incident” started when Jesse Bright, a North Carolina attorney got stopped over by the police. Bright, who pays his school loans by Ubering (is that a word?),  was told by one of the officers that he is not allowed to shoot them according to a “new law”.

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Photographer attacked in San Francisco after photographing an accident

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Photography is not a crime. Sucker punching a man and beating him while on the ground is. This lesson was learned by three individuals in San Francisco recently after attacking photographer Peter Muller. Muller had taken a couple of photos of an accident that had occurred to send to a friend over Snapchat who was out of town.

Muller says the accident was due to a taxi driver falling asleep at the wheel. He drove into the sidewalk, “obliterated the news stand”, continued into a shoeshine shop, critically injuring two people. Muller had been photographing the aftermath of accident when the trio confronted him.

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Biker shooting a 20 stairs BMX jump confronts security and removes security cart (with guard) from road

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Remember that guy in the truck who tried to kill that photographer and eventually got charged with felony? This is kinda the same, only instead of a guy, it’s a girl, instead of a car it’s a golf cart, and instead of the guy trying to kill the photographer, it’s the photo crew almost killing the girl!

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Assaulted photojournalist reunited with his camera weeks after it was thrown into a lake

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Photographing in public locations is a daunting task to many people, and it’s understandable why that is. While the majority of people don’t really care about having their photograph taken, you do occasionally get one or two that don’t take too kindly to having a camera pointed in their general direction.

That’s what happened to photojournalist David Pardo, staff photographer for local newspaper Daily Press, photographing families at a lake for an assignment.

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Photographing on the streets and the law in the UK

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Photographer rights are always a bit of a hot topic, and often brings out extreme points of view from all sides. There’s the law, there’s common sense & decency, and then there’s just outright stupidity.

The world over, the rights of photographers do seem to be becoming more common knowledge amongst non-photographers, but Tim Berry of Practical Photography Magazine wanted to see just what would happen while doing a little architectural photography out on the streets.

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Driver charged with felony assault for threatening photographer with his vehicle

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Yesterday, we showed you a video of a somewhat agitated driver harassing automotive photographer Alex Stone, who he felt was trespassing on his “private driveway” (which police have confirmed was actually a public road), with his truck.

Police were quick to take action and have now identified and arrested 52 year old Mark Gordon as the driver of the vehicle. As well as being charged with misdemeanour battery and vandalism, Gordon is facing a felony charge of Assault with a Deadly Weapon.

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Photographer shooting on public road almost being run over for shooting on “private driveway”

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We’ve seen some crazy folks freaking out over photographers asking photographers to stop shooting but this one goes over the top. This is the first time I am seeing a photographer being threatened to be ran over for shooting cars.

According to Alex Stone, an automotive photographer from LA, he was shooting on a public road when he a truck driver confronted him for shooting on his “private driveway”. The truck driver repeatedly drove towards Alex and his companion and threatened them. Finally, he got out of the car and knocked Adam’s phone (which was recording the event) out of Alex’s hands. (Hit the jump to watch the full video, note that there is quite a bit of language on it)

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Here is the one thing you should say if police detains you for photographing

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We’ve seen it happening again and again, police detaining civilians photographers for recording or photographing them. The two stories mentioned here ended with police having to pay quite a bit of money for doing so. And in the end the message of photographers rights will go through (or not).

But what do you actually have to do if you are stopped by the police for taking photos?

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