Yesterday NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear gave evidence of escalating police restriction and intimidation of photojournalists to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights session on policing and protest. The Committee, comprising MP's and members of the Lords, heard Dear describe failure of police to implement the existing ACPO guidelines, intimidatory use of FIT monitoring, arbitrary threats of arrest and use of violence against photographers in public order situations. A DVD containing photographs and video of some of the alleged incidents was given to the Committee.

Turn on the telly at 3am and you may have watched a handful of noble Lords debating the 2008 Counter Terrorism Bill. Their Lordships have maintained a steady to-and-fro of erudite arguments about the rights and wrongs of detention for 42 days without charge. Scant attention has been paid to the problems this Bill creates for photographers, and its implicit and substantial threats to press coverage. As the Bill has been batted back and forth between the Commons, Lords and Committee it has mutated somewhat from the draft discussed here back in March.

In the latest post-committee version, the Part 1 powers of seizure of any 'document', for up to 96hrs during a s.43 search remain intact. As before, this specifically includes electronic documents such as memory cards, laptops, PDA's and mobile phones. However the earlier version contained no recognition of legal privilege. Now seizure of legally privileged documents is prohibited.

In theory this should mean that bona fide journaliists will be able to avoid having their material seized.

In a written answer to Conservative Shadow Attorney General Domininc Grieve, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith yesterday stated that new guidance would be issued to police in November regarding s.44 searches of photographers:-

An Edinburgh man has been fined after photographing a woman in the street, according to BBC News Scotland:

A man who took a photograph of an ill woman outside an Edinburgh bar has been fined £100 after being branded "unchivalrous" by a sheriff.
The woman had been drinking with friends in an Omni Centre bar when she felt unwell and went outside for air.
Sebastian Przygodzki took a photograph with his camera, which upset Rebecca Smith and her friends called police.
He was arrested and charged with breach of the peace, and pleaded guilty to the offence at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
Przygodzki, 28, who moved to Scotland two years ago from Krakow, told police he had spent the day taking photographs of performers at the Edinburgh festival, which was in full swing at the time.

The Omni Centre is surrounded by pavement so it seems certain this photograph was taken in a public place. The Sherrif's statement that 'The lady concerned was entitled to her privacy and not to have a passing stranger take a photograph" has no basis in law or even common sense.

"The NUJ has released a short film highlighting some of the problems faced by journalists covering public demonstrations.

The video was released the day after the TUC in Brighton condemned the erosion of civil liberties and media freedoms in Britain. TUC unions unanimously backed a motion, proposed by the National Union of Journalists, which called for a rethink of government policies that put journalists at risk of imprisonment just for doing their job".

Full NUJ story here

This is a fairly old video from Undercurrents.org. It dates from before the 2000 Terrorism Act and s44 stop and search, or for that matter the ACPO media guidelines agreed with the NUJ, or the escalation of harassment of photographers to include amateurs.

It may come as a shock to those who believe the press enjoy special privileges, or that press cards are a VIP ticket for access.

Terence Eden gets stopped and searched under s44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 at Waterloo station, and makes a movie of this 'security theatre' whilst it's happening.

According to photographers who attended the Camp fpr Climate Action at Kingsnorth today (Tuesday), police are now paying special attention to photographers and journalists. They are reportedly stopping and searching journalists during the two hours allowed for media access by camp organisers. Professional photographer Marc Vallée reports that this took 40 minutes, leaving a reduced opportunity to work within the camp.

Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General) MP for Beaconsfield, Conservative):-