Your police at work: a woman was ‘detained’ after using her mobile phone to film the police carrying out a stop and search on her boyfriend.
She said she was detained there for about 25 minutes, during which her wrist was handcuffed and a female officer told her: “We’ll put you under arrest, take to you to the station and look at your phone there.”
A second female officer approached her and said, incorrectly: “Look, your boyfriend’s just been arrested for drugs, so I suggest you do as we say.”
Section 58(a) of the Terrorism Act says it is illegal to photograph a police officer if the images are considered “likely to be useful” to a terrorist. What a wonderfully vague piece of legislation. Does anyone in the Government have a clue what damage they’re doing?
There really should be more of a fuss being made about this. For now, this Guardian blog is the best I can find.
22nd July 2009 at 1:30 am
That’s just one story… check this one out: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/15/tall_photographers/
The sad thing is, it’s happening ALL the time, and it’s only getting more and more common.