Fear of cameras

This six minute film of London community support officers hassling someone who was using his video camera on a public street is an indication of the kind of petty officialdom that gets let loose when politicians and mainstream media spend so much energy stoking up fear on a wide scale. Thanks to Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing for the link.



As the star of the film says, there are no restrictions on filming in public places in the UK of the type that the CSOs in the film seemed to think. There are a few specific exceptions and if you're interested in the smallprint, Linda Macpherson, a law lecturer at Heriot Watt University, has written a guide to photographers' rights in the UK.

Bert Krages' guide to photographers' rights in the US is also available on the Web.