City sued over limits on photography (article from today's (NJ) Bergen Record)

I hope not. The First Amendment applies to such filming. The whole point of
requiring permits for such ventures isn't to regulate the actual filming but
to ensure that the filming doesn't interfere with the daily routine of
others. If you can film what you need with a handheld camcorder and you
don't need to stand in the middle of a street for long lengths of time to do
it, and you don't require a sound technician and lighting equipment that
would crowd the sidewalk or street, there's no reason for a permit.

 

At least you can tell them to get lost, without fear of arrest.

 

Steven,
Same here when I went to New-York 2 years ago.
Never once was I stopped, and I was taking photos continually all over
the places I visited, some of which might have been deemed "sensible".
Marcel

 

........of course, I meant "sensitive"...

 

||
||| Here are some circumstances: your name is "Jeremy" and his
||| is "Rakesh Sharma."
||
|| True.
||
|| This story has the most details I was able to find:
||
||
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/nyc-film0111,0,6804363.story
||
|| Evidently he was filming the underpass at the MetLife
|| building at 39th and Park for half an hour, which might
|| justify a conversation but probably not detention.

Depends on his reaction upon being questioned. A smartass or
confrontational anwser would likely get him detained.

|| But his story about having a police officer charge at him,
|| shove him,
|| and grab the camera seems somewhat unlikely, without a whole
|| lot more circumstances.
||
|| Some of the reports make a point of noting that his
|| subsequent permit application for filming was denied, but no
|| one mentioned whether he has the required liability insurance
|| to get such a permit, so that doesn't have enough context to
|| be meaningful.
||
|| We also have no idea how he reacted to the police. He may
|| well have escalated the situation himself. I'd like to see
|| the police reports,
|| for the other side of the story.
||

Likely there is a lot more than is being discussed in the
articles.

 

|| Jeremy Nixon wrote:
|||
|||
||| Private security guards are much worse than police. They
||| are, after all, just doing what they're told, and have no
||| interest in anything else.
|||
|| At least you can tell them to get lost, without fear of
|| arrest.

Not necessarily, ever been knocked along side the head and
tossed out of someplace by a security guard?

 

There are innumerable security cameras aimed at the streets in NYC,
operated by banks and other businesses. Those are commercial ventures
too. Where are their permits?

 

Per Jeremy Nixon:

The few times I've been in NYC, the impression I got was that their force is
weighted more heavily towards people who just wanted a job - as opposed to those
who always had this desire to become a police officer. For my money, that's a
good thing...

 

I got tossed out of a lumber yard once... By the drunken owner no less!

JT

(They don't call Austin weird for nothing)

 

Permits are required when one intends to impede traffic,
close streets, park where parking is normally not allowed,
etc.

All sorts of folks use hand-held movie cameras on the
streets of New York every day. They cause no problem.
Just as the folks with the Canon dSLRs (who are everywhere)
cause no problem when the stop suddenly, mutter that "they've
got to get this shot" and proceed to do so.

---- Paul J. Gans

 

Ha! There are a number of places in New York where taking
pictures is not allowed. Someone just mentioned 1PP (aka
One Police Plaza) which is Police Headquarters. I believe
that the prohibition is posted.

Another is taking rather pictures from our many bridges.
That's forbidden (and posted) too.

There are others as well.

Of course all those prohibitions stop are folks who want
to take a picture. I doubt they'd stop anyone else
since a camera is fairly easy to disguise as a cell
phone or PDA or what have you.

---- Paul J. Gans

 

I was bullied by some union mopix suits in Chicago in the sixties. It did
not go well for them at all. See, it was in the midst of a riot. Wearing a
suit to a riot is like painting a target on your face.

 

If he was charged there is no doubt whatsoever that he
threatened the nice police man. Probably put the nice
police man in fear of his life.

He no doubt did this by being polite. New York city
cops are not used to civilians being polite. The
usual response is "Look M****r F****r, why aren't you
out catching real criminals", followed by "I don't need
no steeenkin permit" and a few things like that.

The policeman, realizing that they have a fellow New Yorker
under observation (and who is likely to have an uncle who
is a Lieutenant on the force) discovers that he's late
for end-of-shift at the Station House.

----- Paul J. Gans

PS: For the humor-impaired ;-)

 

Seriously, the New York City Police Force is really quite excellent.
There are occasional real problems but in general they are very
decent to folks.

Anyone who was here on 9/11 or soon after got used to seeing the
police doing duty in twos and threes with tears streaming down
their faces.

They sometimes get overzealous in not wanting to see it happen
again.

---- Paul J. Gans

 

The ycan also be quite ill-informed. I dropped-off my wife outside of a
store in a "No Parking" zone. I stayed in the car, which was running, in
the No Parking zone. A shopping center security guard saw me, knocked on my
window and informed me that I was not allowed to park there. I politely
informed him that I was not "parked" but I was "Stopped" since I was in the
car and the car was running. If the sign indicated "No Stopping" in
addition to "No Parking" then I would not have remained there. He said
they're "the same thing" and became abusive and threatened to have my car
towed. Had he remained polite I would have moved on but I wasn't going ot
at this point. I simply told him to go ahead and call the tow truck but
he'd better have a police officer there to move me. The cop would have told
him that I was not illegally parked and that would be the end of it.

 

The NYPD are underpaid for what they do, at least in comparison to the
police on neighboring Long Island. after about five years on the job, a
Long Island police officer hits six figures in salary, NYPD cops may get
halfway to that point. They have a tougher job for a lot less money and
many are college grads too.

 

Sorry, that still counts. "No parking" means you can stop there while
actually engaged in loading or unloading, or having passengers getting in
or out of the car, but sitting there waiting is "parking".

I frigging hate people who sit there in their car as if they're special.

 

Which, in fairness to the people who end up getting harassed, is really
pretty silly. There was nothing, not in the wildest stretches of the
imagination, that NYPD could have done to prevent 9/11. It had nothing
to do with them. And nothing they can do can prevent it from happening
again.

 

Their pay is actually pretty lousy for the first couple of years on the job.

 

I wonder if at anytime, anywhere it has been shown that acts of
terrorism were preceeded by the perpetrators taking photos of their
interests before their actions? Did those who piloted the planes into
the WTC take photos from the ground previously? Same with the
Pentagon as an intended target? How about the train and subway
bombers in Madrin and London? Did they need photos taken in plain site
to plan their operations? Have any major structures, bridges or
trains been imperiled by people taking photos?

We keep on hearing of innocent people taking innocent photos being
hassled for doing so. Are there any concrete reasons?

One of my interests is trains. I take photos locally once in a while
without any problems. But in this part of my hobby I've heard of all
kinds of horror stories about innocent photographers being given a hard
time and worse when trying to take photos of trains when on private
property in daylight and in plain sight. No covert operations here at
all.

B. Boudreau