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Title: Photography Banned in Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland
Source:
Now Public
URL Source: http://www.nowpublic.com/photograph ... owntown_silver_spring_maryland
Published: Jun 23, 2007
Author: Now Public
Post Date: 2007-06-23 05:57:27 by Zipporah
Keywords: None
Views: 216
Comments: 13
You're going to want to read the following two paragraphs twice because you're not going to believe them. A protest has been scheduled in Silver Spring on July 4th to draw attention to this issue. Photographers participating in the will be meeting at Ellsworth Avenue in Silver Spring, and then will walk and snap their cameras. More information about this demonstration can be found here. Disclosure: I've contributed photos to the DC Photo Rights Flickr group. here to view photos
"This past Tuesday I went to downtown Silver Spring, had lunch, and then took out my camera and standing on Ellsworth Avenue, I began taking shots of the buildings with the blue sky and clouds as a backdrop. Almost immediately, a security guard approached and told me 'there was no picture taking allowed in Downtown Silver Spring.' 'What do you mean?' I said, 'I am on a city street, in a public place -- taking pictures is a right that I have protected by the first amendment.' The guard told me to report to the management office.
"There, Stacy Horan informed me that Downtown Silver Spring including Ellsworth Avenue is private property, not a public place, and subject to the rules of the Peterson Companies. They have a no photography policy to 'protect them from people who might want to use the photographs as part of a story in which they could write bad things about us.' And she told me that many of the chain stores in Downtown Silver Spring don't what their 'concepts' to be photographed for security reasons."
It appears that this street, Ellswoth Avenue, in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland is, in fact, a private street.
But when you peel back a layer, you find that actually it not pure private property, although the Peterson company is treating the street as private property. This part of downtown Silver Spring was developed using public and private money, and what the Peterson Company claims to be its property is actually owned by Montgomery County, and leased to the Peterson Company. As part of the lease agreement, Peterson has to allow the public to access Ellsworth Avenue, which is connected to city-owned streets on either end.
What's happened in Silver Spring, Maryland is an example of what's happening all around the Washington, DC area: Police and security guards are claiming a right to bar photographers where no such law allows them to do that. And when the police and security guards aren't barring photography, they're asking photographers for identification and an explanation -- again without a law permitting them to stop a photographer and ask for identification.
These events spurred Chip Py and Kate Mereand to form a Flickr group promoting photographer rights in Washington, DC, http://www.flickr.com/groups/dcphotorights. This is group where people can post photographs that "security" has tried to bar, and can discuss issues and problems about photography in the Washington, DC area. I asked Kate Mereand why she founded this group. She said:
"I created DC Photo Rights in response to the numerous instances of harassment local area photographers have cited. I am an amateur photographer who has been shooting for about two years. I have found the DC amateur photographer society, especially through Flickr, to be a very supportive atmosphere. The city itself, however, seems to pose a constant challenge, especially to beginners.
"The specific impetus was a photographer who was harassed for taking photos from the street in downtown Silver Spring, MD. This struck a chord with me. I live and work in Silver Spring, and I have been a supporter of the development projects in the downtown area. These projects have faced some resistance, and I was saddened to hear that the downtown area that I often defend is associated with this sort of behavior.
"I am specifically interested, also, in the role that security guards at federal buildings play in this. Many incorrectly inform photographers that photos are illegal. While this is prevalent with security guards everywhere, I find it more disturbing when federal security guard do this; many people regard there claims of protecting national security interests more seriously. And of course, in a few cases, photos of federal buildings are not allowed. So this often leaves photographers, amateurs especially, on uncertain grounds where easy victims of harassment.
"I think what is chilling now, however, is how often 'national security' and 'terrorist threats' are used as an excuse for illegal harassment and abuse. The most disturbing trend I see is when people are asked to present identification when they are not breaking any laws."
She added, "Often in this situation photographers are made to feel like a perpetrator of a crime, while they are actually the ones being victimized."
When the police ask for ID, they usually write down your information. When you're approached by the police, or even by a private security guard, and quizzed about what you're doing, that can be unnerving and upsetting. Why am I being questioned? What's going to happen next? Might I be arrested if I give the wrong answers?
It's been said time and time again, to the point of becoming cliche: The world changed after 9/11. We have to accept new security restrictions. We have to be cautions, careful, questioning, even suspicious. But being stopped in the street for completely lawful activity is not only un-American, and possibly unlawful itself, but it's likely to be ineffective, even counter productive. Regarding photography as suspicious activity diverts valuable brain power away from thinking about real dangers. Besides, terrorists can photograph sites surreptitiously if they want.
These are the issues that Kate Mereand and Chip Py's DC Photo Rights Flickr group is focusing on.
Additional reporting on DCist
DC Photo Rights Flickr Group
Photographer rights information page
Marc Fisher's Washington Post column about photography in Silver Spring
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#1. To: Zipporah, *libertarians* (#0)
ping
I read about a dozen articles recently on this topic. It public. Period. I would tell the security or cops to arrest me, so then we could go to trial, or have the charges thrown out. The new angle is "illegal wiretapping" charges. It would never hold up on a jury trial.
Mark "I was real close to Building 7 when it fell down... That didn't sound like just a building falling down to me while I was running away from it. There's a lot of eyewitness testimony down there of hearing explosions. [..] and the whole time you're hearing "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." I think I know an explosion when I hear it... — Former NYC Police Officer and 9/11 Rescue Worker Craig Bartmer
This brought to mind Disney and their issues..
Fat women in lime-green Spandex pants?
Freeper motto: I read, but do not understand, I write, but make no sense, I think, but nothing happens.
It amazes me how easily people will buy into a all controlling entity. Be it government or corporate. The whole concept is like that movie with Jim Carey.
Mark "I was real close to Building 7 when it fell down... That didn't sound like just a building falling down to me while I was running away from it. There's a lot of eyewitness testimony down there of hearing explosions. [..] and the whole time you're hearing "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." I think I know an explosion when I hear it... — Former NYC Police Officer and 9/11 Rescue Worker Craig Bartmer
DHS.... a stroke of genius! Allowed the Tribe to roll the SS, Gestapo and Brown Shirts into one neat package for their comfort and convenience in institutiong the governement they like....oppressive tyranny... Make a movie and fill out the script...who would play whom? Look at the players Chertoff ~ Goebbls; Boy Jorge can plat Himmler, keep on with the casting !! and AIPAC can rightfully be re-named NSDAP
It is rather like a bad play.. isnt it? Everytime I read of these things.. this portion of an article Pilger wrote comes to mind.. "During the 1970s, I filmed secretly in Czechoslovakia, then a Stalinist dictatorship. The dissident novelist Zdenek Urbánek told me, "In one respect, we are more fortunate than you in the west. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and watch on television, nothing of the official truth. Unlike you, we have learned to read between the lines, because real truth is always subversive."
I just wanted to see it again in print!!!
...good stuff isnt it? And so different than how Americans think.. if its NOT on TV they dont believe it..
Sounds like a model of things to come - universally.
ah...my old stomping ground. this is where i grew up...wheaton/silver spring area.
They probably get nervous when they see angry looking men in surplus cammies plotting the angles of their sniper attacks.... ("We're with the New South Militia, Col. Jeremiah Beauregard commanding.") Or, if you choose to assess your preferred shopping areas for safety and vulnerability to a Beltway Snipers-type of attack, then you too would be suspect. Only two types of people should have any awareness of the best hides, blinds and perches around them....
#2. To: Zipporah (#0)
#3. To: Kamala (#2)
#4. To: Zipporah (#0)
Photography Banned in Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland
#5. To: Zipporah (#3)
#6. To: Zipporah (#0)
#7. To: JCHarris (#6)
#8. To: Zipporah (#7)
"During the 1970s, I filmed secretly in Czechoslovakia, then a Stalinist dictatorship. The dissident novelist Zdenek Urbánek told me, "In one respect, we are more fortunate than you in the west. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and watch on television, nothing of the official truth. Unlike you, we have learned to read between the lines, because real truth is always subversive."
#9. To: JCHarris (#8)
#10. To: Zipporah, Jethro Tull, Christine, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Diana, All (#0)
#11. To: Zipporah (#0)
#12. To: Zipporah (#0)
#13. To: Zipporah (#0)
Hey, wait. I got a new complaint.
Forever in debt to your price of supply. - Nirvana
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