This is a fairly old video from Undercurrents.org. It dates from before the 2000 Terrorism Act and s44 stop and search, or for that matter the ACPO media guidelines agreed with the NUJ, or the escalation of harassment of photographers to include amateurs.

It may come as a shock to those who believe the press enjoy special privileges, or that press cards are a VIP ticket for access.

Terence Eden gets stopped and searched under s44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 at Waterloo station, and makes a movie of this 'security theatre' whilst it's happening.

According to photographers who attended the Camp fpr Climate Action at Kingsnorth today (Tuesday), police are now paying special attention to photographers and journalists. They are reportedly stopping and searching journalists during the two hours allowed for media access by camp organisers. Professional photographer Marc Vallée reports that this took 40 minutes, leaving a reduced opportunity to work within the camp.

Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General) MP for Beaconsfield, Conservative):-

Sceptics who dismissed the fuss we made about forthcoming powers of seizure of flash cards have not had to wait long before having their faith in police judgement shown to be misplaced. They argued that a s43 search requires a 'reasonable suspicion that a person is a terrorist', and this was so serious a matter that it was unlikely to be abused.

A mere 3 weeks later we have Superintendent Neil Sherrington, deputy commander for Portsmouth police telling the Press Association that his officers acted 'reasonably' in stopping and questioning a man under the 2000 Terrorism Act who had photographed their police car.

Last year's Heathrow 'Camp for Climate Action' annoyed press considerably by restricting access to what was, after all, land that the occupiers did not own and had no legal rights over. In an attempt, presumably, to curtail potentially hostile coverage by the evil right-wing MSM, the organisers modelled their press policy on Kim Jong-il and turned the field into a little bit of Pyongang. For sure, Government and BAA are guilty of media manipulation and are bang-to-rights serial fibbers where LHR, traffic and emissions are concerned, but three wrongs don't make a right.

On 16th July the House of Lords briefly debated the encroachment of police and private security on photography in public places.

A few interesting points emerge from some pointed questions, producing a government commitment to meet and discuss matters with police associations and perhaps with the Security Industry Association. The debate manages to perceptively include concerns over CCTV and paparazzi behaviour, both of which arguably feed public and official polarisations. Since the Lords did such a fine job of speaking for themselves, the whole debate is here:

Open government in action...
Photo © Andrew Wiard 2008

Andrew Wiard and a couple of other press photographers report an obstructive encounter with private security guards outside City Hall (the Greater London Authority building) today.

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN REWRITTEN TO CORRECT ERRORS OF FACT.

The 2008 Counter Terrorism Bill has seldom been out of the headlines in recent months for its controversial proposal to detain suspects for up to 42 days without charge.

There is another provision buried within this bill that seems to have attracted little attention and even less comment. The new Bill will allow police performing a S43 search under the Terrorism Act 2000, to seize and retain for examination any 'document' found. A document is defined at S9 of the new bill as "any record and, in particular, includes information stored in electronic form'.

That means memory cards, cameras and mobile phones, PDA's, laptops - anything containing digital information, as well as letters, notebooks etc. will be able to be removed and kept by police for up to 4 days even though no offence has been committed.