Take Picture Of Your 4-Year-Old Daughter Eating Ice Cream... Get Investigated Under Terrorism Act [Updated]
from the the-new-face-of-terror dept
We've covered plenty of ridiculous stories concerning police going after photographers lately, but this one is a bit different. As a whole bunch of you have sent in, at a mall in Scotland, Chris White took a photograph of his 4-year-old daughter eating ice cream at an ice cream stand.Of course, the attention that this has received resulted in the mall changing its official policy
Update: Important update to this story. While the mall has apologized, the police are hinting very strongly that White's account is not accurate, and that there was some other (unnamed) activity that was the reason he was investigated...
It is because Mr White chose to seek publicity for his account of events and because of the planned demonstration that we feel compelled to take the unusual step of making our findings public.
“In reaching our conclusions, officers took statements from a number of independent witnesses and viewed the substantial amount of CCTV that was available in the centre.
“On reviewing all of this objective evidence, I have to tell you that we can find no basis to support the complaint which MrWhite has elected to make.
“The members of the public who asked for the security staff to become involved have told us that they did so for reasons which had absolutely nothing to do with him taking photographs of his daughter. They had a very specific concern, which I am not in a position to discuss publicly, that they felt the need to report. It was because of this very specific concern that security staff became involved. They were right to raise their concern and we are glad that they did so.
“The security staff were the ones who asked for police involvement. Again, this was not because Mr White said he had been photographing his daughter, but was due to the concerns that they themselves had regarding this particular incident.
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So I can cross the UK and the US off my list of places I want to travel to. The US is there because of the TSA, especially now that they're searching luggage if you just take a train or a bus.
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Disclaimer: Although it's funny in that sentence, prostate cancer is serious business. make sure you have your exams. :)
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Those damn HIPAA laws are painful.
I'd rather get groped by the TSA than face one of those fines.
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FTFY. This was in Scotland.
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Einstein?
A genius can freely admit when s/he is wrong; an idiot cannot.
Note how the mall changed it's policy but the UK Terrorism Act will remain unchanged...
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to recognize a common scene
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Re: to recognize a common scene
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The Patriot Act in America, this law in the U.K.... ALL of them need repealed or rewritten and their scopes severely limited.
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Re: take picture get investigated
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Wee image o' my bonie Betty
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Re: Wee image o' my bonie Betty
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Two sides to each story
Anyways, of course the shopping centre is perfectly within its rights to stop people from taking photographs inside, and throw people out for not doing so - however, I can't see how the Terrorism Act could have got involved... certainly not to a degree that would stand up in court.
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Re: Two sides to each story
All mall floor plans can be found online.
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Re: Re: Two sides to each story
The shopping centre can have any reason it wants to for not allowing people to take photographs, unless they're a public authority they don't need to justify their actions to the public or demonstrate them to be proportionate.
There also doesn't seem to be any suggestion that this rule was to prevent terrorism, iirc it is usually to "protect" staff from being photographed excessively while at work (iirc there's actually a law against CCTV being pointed at staff workstations).
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Re: Re: Re: Two sides to each story
I highly doubt that as most cameras are aimed at cash registers and usually someone works in front of that cash register, depending on the business, all day.
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Also I resent the fencepost/IQ comment as you can now get electronic fenceposts with the ability to turn a light on when you pass by.
Also you'll notice they're called food "concessions" for a good reason. Yes, its food, but you have to concede that a least a SMALL amount of mucus will end up in your burger.
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Re: Two sides to each story
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"Police have taken the unusual step of issuing a public denial of accusations made by a father who claimed he had been questioned for taking pictures of his young daughter at a shopping mall.
Chris White said police interviewed him at Braehead Shopping Centre near Glasgow because they thought he may have posed a danger to children. He claims he was questioned under terrorism laws."
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-central/274528-braehead-photo-row-father-reported-by-poli ce/
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Re: Two sides to each story
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Just to make it clear technology is advancing and augmented reality is already here, video diaries are a reality not something that is in the future, it is happening now.
Vicon camera logs your life.
http://www.switched.com/2009/10/18/wearable-vicon-camera-lets-you-log-every-moment-of-your-li fe/
Cool goggles that could record your life one day.
http://www.gizmag.com/zeal-recon-transcend-gps-head-mounted-display-goggles/16605/
Sexy earphones that would change how people see those things in public.
http://www.gizmag.com/the-orb-bluetooth-headset/12313/
Helmets that are approaching the SciFi level already.
http://www.gizmag.com/go/2430/
AsianWolf sport glasses that record your life. Up to 2gigas of data, not much yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOoRejofVfY
YouVision glasses that record your life.
http://dvice.com/archives/2009/12/you-vision-glas.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOoRejo fVfY
Layar, tag the world and see it on your phone today, could they throughout people for tagging them?
http://www.youtube.com/layarmobile
TagWhat, tag the world and show it to others.
http://www.tagwhat.com/
You see, why look to a small screen when you can have a 50" screen in front of you just by using glasses that can record everything you do and show an overlay on top of what you see?
Everyone in the future will use glasses. Maybe even full masks that can record, overlay information, filter sounds and smells or create local environments on a personal level.
http://www.frogdesign.com/news/frogconcept-a-digital-escape-05162008.html
Are those going to be outlawed?
There is a camera in every corner today, people eventually will start hiding their faces, I doubt they will want to use makeup to to keep their privacy.
Anti Facial Recognition Makeup
http://www.geekosystem.com/anti-facial-recognition/
Those technologies will change some laws and how people think of privacy in coming years.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Two sides to each story
Now, I'm not saying that you're entirely wrong here either. I understand that there is a difference between private property closed to the public (like your personal house) and private property open to the public (like a shopping mall). But, and Mike has talked about this before in various posts, there are serious issues to consider here. Whether or not a property owner, who owns private property open to the public, can kick someone out based on their use of a recording device and to what extent is a question I think open to debate. One could argue, however, that it's bad business practice. If such a property owner doesn't wish to allow cameras on his property, instead of patronizing his property, you can choose someone elses property to give your money to. If enough people boycott such property then property owners will eventually learn to allow cameras on their property.
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Re: nobody should be kicked out of anywhere because of a photograph
Those are, in theory, their rights. In practice, if they want lots of people to visit their shops and buy things, they have to be reasonable about things.
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Re: Re: nobody should be kicked out of anywhere because of a photograph
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Re: Re: nobody should be kicked out of anywhere because of a photograph
Photographically document your life and the places you go should you wish to.
Now, if they find someone taking pictures up women's skirts or something like that? That is punishable by OTHER laws and they should only intervene when something like that is happening.
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Re: Two sides to each story
> to discuss publicly, that they felt the need to report."
So he was doing something else, but they won't say what he was doing, but we should just trust them that they had a real good reason.
Riiighhht...
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Re: Two sides to each story
Not technically an Act of Parliament, more an Act of a bored/racist police officer (i.e. most of them).
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And this is how the terrorists win.
First, it's a win because they've managed to manipulate the authorities into doing their work for them. It's always best to get an enemy to inflict damage on itself, as has happened in this case. It's even better -- from the terrorists' point of view -- when you can publicly announce your intention to do so and STILL get your enemy to fall for the ploy.
Second, it's a win because every minute of time spent viciously harassing harmless people is a minute not spent actually doing something useful. Of course, it's easy to threaten a father with a child; tracking down terrorists is hard work. So it's much easier to do the former and pretend to do the latter.
So not only is this incident infuriating (every law enforcement official involved should be fired and banned for life from serving) but it's depressing: it's yet another way that victory is being handed to terrorists on a silver platter. They need not concoct elaborate plots or build complex devices or anything like that; they can just sit back and watch the self-inflicted wounds accumulate until there are enough to be fatal.
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Damn Terrorists!
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law?
You break a mall rule they can cask you leave, but call the police for something not a crime? Wow... I'm not a sue happy kind of guy but that shit should be left to stand.
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http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xJIS02fDiL8J:www.braehead.co.uk/Wh ats-on/News/Statement-from-Braehead+braehead+statement&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
N ow there are hints and inferences that the dad may have done something wrong? Is this a case of CYA on the part of the police??
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Sounds like BS
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no photos?
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creepy
Making him look as creepy as possible?
So they reviewed their CCTV footage, which apparently was OK for them to take under their "no photographs" rule, and they somehow found that no-one mentioned terrorism? Did they have microphones as well?
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Re: creepy
A sure sign of a pervert! No decent adult male has ever forgotten to zip up, or had their zipper come undone due to normal movement...
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Granted that is assuming he want going commando
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Well, unless you're a premiership footballer or in Cameron's cabinet....
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Re: creepy
What was the member of staff doing wearing Mr Whites trousers?
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Re: Re: creepy
Personally, I have had the zipper to my shorts (don't wear trousers) come down and open all the time when I am walking around from the natural movement of my body, unless they are those 'locking' zippers.
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cameras
I hope they get whoever put up those CCTV cameras.
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ice creem
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Misspelling in blog post
Specifically, the tagline reads, "from the the-new-face-of-terror dept." when clearly it should be "from the the-new-farce-of-terror dept." instead.
HTH; HAND.
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this line means one thing to me the police are making it up as they go along if they got something then say if not BUTT OUT
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I know what it was
Did he know where there were any:
Skanks to have sex with on top of their car
High-quality Cocaine for the Chief Constable
Persons of ethnic origin to beat with nightsticks and accuse of being terrorists
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Clearly a pervert
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Re: Clearly a pervert
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We are concerned... we can't tell you about what, but we are concerned
We think you are doing bad things, we can't tell you what those things are, but we think you are doing them. No if we told you what we thought you were doing, you would know what we think you are doing and you would be sure that you didn't do it anymore. Only by not telling you what we think you are doing, can we really tell if you are doing what we think you are doing, of course now that you know that we know that we think you are doing something, you won't do what we thought you were doing, and so all we are doing is wasting a bunch of everyone's time.
What was it that we accused you of doing again? All this 'justification' thing kind of got in the way of me remembering what we were persecuting the tourist for....
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Re: We are concerned... we can't tell you about what, but we are concerned
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