An afternoon bicycle, nothing more.
I’m pretty sure that everybody who reads this blog, reads The Online Photographer as well, but in case it ain’t, here is some important information for my British readers. I just repeat what I have written in a mail to a friend:
The Online Photographer recently reported about a petition to the British government. There is a new law in the UK, that makes it illegal to take photographs in public places, in case they “may be of use for terrorism”. This is vague at best. It is the kind of malicious vagueness that should be impossible in any self-respecting democracy. It gives the police complete power to act whenever they feel so, against anyone, without any restriction, without any control. Act in any way a police officer dislikes, and you have committed a crime. No discussions possible. The crime is to act against someone’s arbitrary judgment.
Whatever the reasons are, and terrorism has been abused a lot lately to pass laws like this, this is a law that never should have passed, a kind of law that is incompatible with democracy as we know it.
There is a petition that any British citizen or resident may sign. I would if I could, but at least I can ask my British readers to consider signing. The address is http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Photorestrict/
Please also spread the word. Of course this is important for me as a photographer, but even if neither you or anyone in your family are affected (which may well be), this is important to us all. Ultimately this means to stand up against creeping totalitarianism.
One other creepy thing: As I said, I sent mail to a friend in Britain, asking her to consider signing, and although I’d say that she is one of the more politically active people, she says she has never heard of the law. That’s another sign of creeping totalitarianism: They always begin with minorities, carefully pick out their victims, test how far they can go, try to cut away our freedom piece by piece. Let’s stop them now!
Well, no good fit for what I just said, but a perfect fit for the image: The Song of the Day is “Hangin’ Round” from Lou Reed’s 1972 stellar masterpiece “Transformer”. Hear it on YouTube.