Posted on 07/22/2008 5:31:18 PM PDT by AJKauf
A couple of weeks ago while visiting Cambridge, Massachusetts, my friend was refused permission to take pictures of squealing kids messing around in a park.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
At the very least, it’s impolite to take pictures of other people’s kids without their permission or without some other vested interest in the photo (like your OWN kids are in it).
This is just another reason why it’s so essential that people be willing to break the law and engage in collective civil disobedience. Taking photos from a reasonable distance is not assault. Video taping your child’s school play is not a crime. 100 parents should have shown up with their video cameras. A dozen photographers should show up at the Cambridge park.
There is nothing more tyrannical than a liberal do-gooder on a crusade. C.S. Lewis had this to say about the matter:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
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My niece and nephews are swimmers. The boys are still competing. She has now moved on to be a lifeguard.
My brother took his camera to a summer event recently, where one or both of the boys was participating in water polo.
One of the referees came over to my brother and informed him that not photos were allowed.
Evidently, there is a law on the books, but it is rarely enforced. The next outing, he was not prevented from taking photos of his sons competing in singles and relay races.
I know, because I took about 30 minutes worth of video clips myself. I also took some panorama shots of the indoor pool area. I like to be able to look back on events and remember the good times.
It’s my brother’s kids and my nephews. Someone is going to have to make a pretty good case to tell me I can’t document their childhood.
We are becoming a society of idiots. The human race is in serious trouble friends.
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Years ago, a friend of mine took a few days off from work to paint his house. He finished up in the afternoon and decided to go pick up his kids at school. Of course, he was wearing dirty, paint-spattered clothing. When he got to the school yard to wait for the kids, he was challenged by a teacher asking who he was and what he was doing there.
Of course, the most danger to your children does not come from the scruffy stranger. It is the relative, the neighbor, the family friend, the youth leader, the scout master who is most likely to try to abuse your children, and they are usually well dressed.
At my kid’s play last year I saw an older guy taking lots of photos. Figured he was a grandpa until intermission came. Folks talking, etc. and he just sat there taking pictures, so I kept my eye on him. I saw my wife’s friend speak briefly with him. Kept my eye on him throughout the show and watched him leave. Saw the friend and asked her who he was. She didn’t know - but said he was taking photos for his website! Something about “my girlfriends”. Pretty sick (the kids were 9-13 years old). If I had known I would have talked to him myself and probably called the cops. Granted, it is a public place and no law against taking photos - but perhaps he was a sex offender that had some restrictions on him?
And of course all the names of the kids, their ages, etc. are in the program. Easy enough for some pervert to follow up on.
Yup - sign of the times.
My son was playing with some kids and it looked cute.
I started taking photos and parents ran over, grabbed their kids, and gave me snotty looks.
The helicopter parents leave the launch pad right at birth and stay around for 25+ years.
If you have any friends who teach or coach kids (infants UP TO COLLEGE level), ask them about it.
You can’t make this stuff up.
America is so over with.
I don’t think that’s exactly true.
Use for profit - maybe, but you are free to take all the photos you want in a public place.
I remember it.
My response was to the assertion that for some reason “A dozen photographers should show up at the Cambridge park.” I suppose to protest their right to photograph your kids. I probably misunderstood compound w’s use of the word “photographer” to mean “professional” photographers, who have no other reason to be in a park photographing your kids except to sell for publication, otherwise they are not “professional” photographers. Maybe compound w meant “a dozen parents with cameras” to go along with the 100 parents with video cameras.
Our daughter heard this term for over-protective parents for the first time this summer, and thought it was a hilarious name! We were certainly NOT helicopter parents, so she had no idea of the concept.
Would your friend agree to having his picture taken of him taking pictures of child strangers? He may or may not be collecting them for perverts. I may or may not be collecting mine for the Cambridge police.
You think this is bad?
A good friend of mine has been a model railroader all his life, his house is filled with model trains, his basement is filled with an HO gauge railroad stretching from one side to the other, he eats, drinks, breathes, and lives trains. He loves trains (did I mention he really likes trains?).
He does what is called ‘scratch building’ his own railway structures like water towers, roundhouses, etc., and he USED to be able to spend hours and hours at his local railroad freight yard, roaming around, taking pictures of everything (which would be used later as references for his own model building projects), but in 2003, he got arrested and was hauled in for questioning because (you guessed it) his picture taking was deemed ‘suspicious’ and while everyone can appreciate the need to be vigilant in the post-9/11 world, this friend of mine was in his early 70’s, skinny as a bean pole, a shock of white hair left, made you think of the old comic Ed Wynn. HARDLY a ‘terrorist’ type, and he carried enough identification to establish that he was just a retired old guy who used to work for Alcoa Aluminum.
He was informed that he was no longer allowed to take pictures of ‘national security infrastructures’ and that any further picture taking would end up with him facing federal charges (no statute or law cited of course). My friend, being a patriot first, handed over his film willingly and promised never to take another picture.
But it was always my impression that he seemed a little sadder after that.
Agreed...
They'll F with a guy like this, then wait for the next boatload of Saudi Nationals that arrives and slap them all on the back. Glad to have you.
This isn't about stopping terrorism. It's about getting the the citizens of the United States accustomed to the Jack Boot.
I wouldn’t bet on anyone wearing jackboots prevailing. This is still the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave and millions of firearms hidden away in all sorts of nooks, crannies, caves, barns, toolsheds, etc., says that one day when push comes to shove, there will be a new American Revolution, and our future Minutemen and Patriots will give no quarter and take no prisoners.
That’s assuming that Jesus doesn’t come back first, making it all moot.
I was at the local mall one time with my friends and their parents. The parents had just come over from their country and had never seen an American mall, so naturally they wanted pictures to take back home. I thought nothing of it, and we walked around and snapped shots here and there. Then out of one store some nazi clerk came yelling at us and threating to take our cameras (like hell she would have, I would have beat her ass!) I found out later there is a policy about taking pictures in the mall, store owners are afraid someone is trying to steal ideas or something, yet there is no rules stated on the front enterence of the mall saying “no cameras allowed”. This was 10 years ago, now with cell phone cameras I would how they would enforce that rule.
But a dozen or more non professional photographers would tell you that for decades in this country and around the world it was perfectly acceptable to take photos of people in public places, as long as it was done unobtrusively.
We need to get back to a place where people don’t become suspicious and call the cops or lawyers every time they or their kids fall within a camera’s range.
In my heart I’m with you. In reality you can take a look at every weapon they’re using on the terrorists, and realize they’ll be using them on us about five minutes after we object.
This nation is done. You don’t like it. I don’t like it. It’s still done. Over this next four years, we going to sink back into the primordial muck, or at least get so entangled that we’ll be sucked down shortly thereafter.
Name one national leader on “our” (using the term loosely) side that has addressed what McCain truly is. Then tell me we have hope.
Thank you George W. Bush and the Republican Congress.
I would have dared the referee to call the cops. Or, if I was in a better mood, I’d have smiled, nodded, then proceded to take more pictures.
I was prohibited from taking a photo of the OUTSIDE of a mall while I was in the parking lot, and that was in the mid-1980s.
Sure, there may be a bit of over-reaction here. You’re probably right.
I understand the mall thing, since that’s private property. But I rhave taken shots inside malls and stores. But a couple weeks ago I was sitting in a Beijing noodle shop and I desperately wanted to take a photo of some “Engrish” on the menu. But when I took out my camera the waitress came over and said, “bu ku yi! bu ku yi!” (not allowed!).
Makes one wonder by what assessment we will be able to ever conclude that we have won this war...
At best I think you’d have been asked to leave the event. I’m sure the cops would have been more than happy to make sure you did. I don’t know what to tell you other than that I think these people are really melting down.
I agree with all that you said. Very nice.
Your friend is lucky. Under Section 201 of the grossly misnamed The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003 he could just vanish. It is against the law for anyone to even tell anyone that he was in custody.
SECTION 102 states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power.
If your friend is caught taking pictures of trains again he can be declared a “foreign power” and an “illegal combatant”. But you and his family will never know. He will just be gone He will become just one more of the 840,000 people a year who go missing in the U.S.
If you or his a member of his family should some how find out that he was in custody it would be illegal to tell the rest of the family or anyone else.
But, we know nobody in government would ever abuse that power. So there is nothing to worry about.
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