Can Someone Please Tell the Cops that Photography is Not a Crime!

Via Instapundit in his
USA Today column:

Under the Espionage Act, certain classified military
facilities can’t be photographed, but that’s it. But if
photographing buildings puts you at risk for being hassled, police
often take it even more personally if you photograph them at work.
As attorney Morgan Manning reported in Popular
Mechanics, people who photograph police in the process of
arresting — or beating, or shooting — suspected criminals often
find themselves confronted by officers who demand that they hand
over their cameras or delete the incriminating images.

Again, the police don’t have any authority to do that. In fact,
the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has held
in the case of Glik v. Cuniffe that the right to
photograph police officers in public spaces is so clearly
established that officers who break the law by interfering with
citizens who do so can’t plead “good faith” immunity.Good-faith
immunity is supposed to protect officers who have to act
quickly in areas where the law is unclear. The right to take
photographs of police officers in public places, said the Court of
Appeals, isn’t unclear. (In fact, it’s so clear that the Justice
Department has written a letter to law enforcement
agencies making that point.)

Read the whole thing.

Watch Reason TV‘s great vid on this very topic: