How do they explain shows like 'COPS' !

Didn't a cop threaten to arrest someone who was taking pictures of an auto accident in Downtown this past summer ? And did this guy go back and finish taking his pictures ? Perhaps he was taking pictures of signage for a traffic violation.

From the New York Times:

The right of photographers to stand in a public place and take pictures of federal buildings has been upheld by a legal settlement reached in New York.

In the ever-escalating skirmishes between photographers and security agencies, the most significant battlefield is probably the public way ? streets, sidewalks, parks and plazas ? which has customarily been regarded as a vantage from which photography cannot and should not be barred.

Under the settlement, announced Monday by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Federal Protective Service said that it would inform its officers and employees in writing of the ?public?s general right to photograph the exterior of federal courthouses from publicly accessible spaces? and remind them that ?there are currently no general security regulations prohibiting exterior photography by individuals from publicly accessible spaces, absent a written local rule, regulation or order.?

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10 ... hat-federal-building/#/1/

Jersey City needs to discipline those officers immediately, or the commanding officer who order them to harras the photographer, and this needs to be followed up by a department wide educational program on the right to photograph from public spaces.

A man whose camera was taken by Jersey City police after he photographed vehicles in a police parking lot has filed a complaint with the U.S. Attorney General's Office's Civil Rights Division.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... ersey_city_cops_conf.html