[Leica] The story of my detention by the NYPD

[scott at adrenaline.com (Scott McLoughlin)]

Daniel Ridings wrote:

>FYI, several of my parishioners from semi-rural CT went in to NYC, not
>to protest, just to see the spectacle, and were summarily rounded up off
>the sidewalk and forced inside storefronts by police, while the Cheney
>motorcade went through.  Not "detainment," strictly speaking, but close
>enough for discomfort.
>  
>

Hey! That's exactly what they do in Zimbabwe when Mugabe's motorcades
passes through! Kewl. :(

Daniel

----------

That's an interesting comment. I'm 38, and as a kid in the 70's
I remember scary news stories of Idi Amin's entourage detaining
and even brutalizing whole city blocks of citizens as his
motorcade drove through towns. 

I was just a kid, but I guess these Idi Amin horror stories really
stuck in my head, because that was the first thing I thought about
reading this report of the rounded up parishioners.

For the record and to the would-be flamers, I pay lots of taxes, LE has
helped me out on more than one occassion, I have relatives who have
served in military and intelligence, and I'm a cultural non-relativist
when it comes to matters both political and ethical.

But to get back to PHOTOGRAPHY,  I bought my Leica M6 to take pictures,
and not just of b'day parties. My M6 is small enough to take anywhere
and take pictures of the important places and events around me. By gum,
that's the photographic modus operandi and ethos that Oskar Barnack
invented or enabled or whatever.

I want my money's worth from my new Leica, not needless  (note this 
adjective)
conflict with authorities.  If someone want's to see my drivers license and
verify that I'm a constitutionally protected US citizen and then let me 
go about
my business, that's very fine with me. But anything more is ripping me 
off both
as a US citizen and as a Leica user.

I just bought my first Leica lens - 28/2, yeah! - and I didn't spring 
for some
of the worlds finest glass to be told I can't use a tripod in lots of 
public
places around Washington, DC. My hands are a little shakey, and using
a tripod is the classic way around this. I'm not sure how tripod usage got
on the "watch list" of security folks, but it did, and it diminishes the 
value
I get out of my newly, and for me dearly, acquired Leica glass.

 From the Leica snaps of the detention activities under discussion, you can
clearly see that some (many?) of the harrassed folks were men and women
in their late 40's or early 50's, by all appearances most likely reasonably
well-off US tax payers.   Harrassing and detaining such people is a complete
disgrace. I don't care if they were marching for "Pro-Life" or "Anti-Bush"
or whatever. Citizens deserve some respect, plain and simple, and common
sense tells us this is particularly true for well behaved law abiding 
middle
class citizens where there's just no just cause for suspicion.  And if they
were only taking some photographs of good old American political 
activity.... 
I  just can't fathom the current goings on.

This is about photography. I was a liberal youngster, but I heard President
Reagan's stories of the Soviet evil empire most weeks of the first eight
years of the 1980's.  The themes were largely about restrictions on free
speech. Banned books. Restricted access to photocopiers. And yes,
restricted ability to take and publish photographs. I heard about brave
freedom cells who took photographs and wrote stories and published
their work in underground magazines. "Samizdat"  I think it was called.

Photography, like writing and like the exercise of free assembly, is the
activity of a free people in a self-governing and therefore largely
transparent society.   President Reagan's life was almost taken, and
yet our society did not degrade to the current state of affairs - 
surveillance,
harrassment and intimidation.

A few evil blokes hijacked some planes and destroyed some buildings with
truly horrifying consequences. But I'm dumbfounded how this has led to the
current "police state" such as it is.  I'm not a fan of President Bush, 
but I
honestly don't think he's particularly interested in harrassing middle aged
folks protesting the Iraq war or taking pictures or whatever.  I don't 
really
think many or even most of the NYPD are individually interested in doing
so either. After all, these are our own people - ourselves, our own 
daughters
and aunts and mothers and brothers.

This is about photography. So how did we arrive here? Who is in charge?
When can we just go out with our Leicas into any American city and snap
away again without fear of harrassment or even detention (!) ? When will
we freely photograph in - and again take pictures of - President Reagan's
"Shining City Upon A Hill" ?  God bless our fair land.

Scott