[NetBehaviour] Cell Phone Picture Called Obstruction Of Justice.
marc
marc.garrett at furtherfield.org
Tue Aug 1 01:38:08 CEST 2006
Cell Phone Picture Called Obstruction Of Justice.
Man Arrested For Shooting Photo Of Police Activity...
Cruz said that when he heard a commotion, he walked out of his back door
with his cell phone to see what was happening. He said that when he saw
the street lined with police cars, he decided to take a picture of the
scene.
Cruz said police told him that he broke a new law that prohibits people
from taking pictures of police with cell phones.
"They threatened to charge me with conspiracy, impeding an
investigation, obstruction of an investigation. … They said, 'You were
impeding this investigation.' (I asked,) "By doing what?' (The officer
said,) 'By taking a picture of the police officers with a camera
phone,'" Cruz said.
Cruz's parents, who got him out of jail, said police told them the same
thing.
"There is no law that prevents people from taking pictures of what
anybody can see on the street," said Larry Frankel of the American Civil
Liberties Union. "I think it's rather scary that in this country you
could actually be taken down to police headquarters for taking a picture
on your cell phone of activities that are clearly visible on the street."
Frankel said Cruz's civil rights might have been violated.
Cruz, a Penn State University senior, said that after about an hour
police told him he was lucky because there was no supervisor on duty, so
they released him.
"They said if the supervisor was there I wouldn't be a free man and that
he is letting me go because he felt that I was a good person," Cruz said.
more...
http://www.nbc10.com/news/9574663/detail.html
related story>>>>
Cell Phone Camera Ethics Under Scrutiny.
Cell phone cameras seem to be everywhere and people are using them to
witness just about everything. An NBC 10 cameraman used his cell phone
to take pictures of an accident.
A civilian snapped a picture of bombing in Beirut and posted it on
YouTube.com, a video-sharing Web site.
One man the NBC 10 Investigators spoke with was arrested when he snapped
a shot of police activity on a public street.
"It's my way to connect to everybody," said Shannon Lundeen, a camera
phone user. "It is part of my life. Just as important as a handbag,
eyeglasses, keys."
In fact, camera phones are so widely used, eventually you may even see
reporters delivering their stories to cell phones or by the cell phone
to computers.
"For breaking news, people can get there where journalists can't, so it
gives us opportunities for information that was not seen before," said
Andrew Mendelson, a journalism professor at Temple University.
The upside is that camera phones help people capture special moments and
send them to friends and families.
The downside is that the cameras can be a distraction, such as an
incident at the British Open when Tiger Woods was interrupted at a key
moment by the sound of camera phones clicking.
more...
http://www.nbc10.com/news/9580607/detail.html
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