Cops Bully Videographer, Videographer Wins

Watch the London community support officers (they're not real cops, but deputied volunteers who fancy themselves real ones) as they confront a videographer who has the temerity to take footage of a public street. It starts with a sudden gloved hand over the camera lens, then it's "give me a good reason why you're filming," then it's on to "papers please"; and when the guy behind the camera, sensibly enough, asks under which law he's not allowed to film there, the bully-boy hisses "shut up." Twice.

To be clear, there is no law against taking photos — or video — in a public space. Not in the U.K., anyway. Not in the U.S., either. Know your rights, and assert them. If you let them atrophy, then, like never-used muscles, they begin to disappear.

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UPDATE, July 1: Reader Cath Unsworth catches an error:

I love this piece, so in the interest of accuracy, I wanted to let you know that you've muddled CSOs with Special Constables. CSOs aren't volunteers — they're not proper cops, but they are paid.

Hereby noted, and apologies for the mistake.

Comments

[RWW]

You have the right to take pictures...
As long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it.

(Paraphrased from The Clash)

[kev]

Great piece - nicely argued.
Just wondered - did you report the plastic policemen? Violation of at least three laws and codes?

[JeanHuguesRobert]

You have the right to take pictures...
But you'd rather not.

[george]

That makes it rather clear, doesn't it?
The authorities have a right to take pictures, they're certainly not asking the general public for permission, the public's right is disputed.
If they proceed to brow beat enough people long enough the public will get the idea and stop taking pictures because it's not worth the hassle.

Have you heard the cop's assertion? "Why are you taking pictures, you're not a tourist'. So, it's ok for tourists, who don't know any better, it's not ok for a native?

Whether the petition was carefully worded or not does not matter when it comes to defending liberties. The debate is far more important than how the message is parsed.

[Frederick Day]

Just as a correction - those people are PAID - that guy is an employee of the MPS.

[William C Bonner]

The most interesting question is do the UK Police have the right to ask you to identify yourself, and detain you if you do not? If so, does that right extend to the "community support officers"?

Unfortunately in the US there was a recent case setting just such a precedent.

The average person is not willing to stand up to such intimidation. I am happy to have the exceptional people that do.

[Jay]

Please tell me this footage was showed to that CSO's superiors. Preaching to the converted's fine, but I'd love to see that guy fired.

[A Cook]

Here in the UK we call them HIPPO's

(Hired Instead of Propper Police Officers)

[nono]

I really wouldn't talk if I were from the UK since that country's citizen (subjects) have given up their rights and freedom to the modern Nazis running the country. Last two times we had such a problem with "authority", we had a revolutionary and civil wars. Maybe its time you folks did the same.

[Sadly, yes]

nono's comment must be ironic, since he seems to say he's from the US, the land of brutal, authoritarian police departments, TSA, Guantanamo, Homeland Security, where crossing the road in a place of one's own choosing is a crime... the land of freedom in theory but not quite in practice. The UK has had a couple of revolutions against overbearing authority, and in the first one we tried and executed our head of state - maybe you should take a leaf out of our book ;)

[casey]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with the brit on this one. We have, over the course of the last ten years, been stripped of our right of open, democratic elections, been stripped of our rights of privacy via the Patriot Act, and have given up our better interests to corporate goons. We've got a lot of work to do.

[gb]

While it purports not to be "chicken little" in its approach, the videographer is a professional provocateur, Rajesh Thind, who has worked for the BBC's show "Mischief," the show that "take(s) a witty and mischievous approach to serious issues."

His method becomes transparent and this video's integrity questionable when one considers this affiliation, and especially when giving even a quick glance to one of his "stories" in which he begs the question, "After the 7 July London bombings, could growing a beard completely change the way people treated a British Asian?" [His technically correct, but euphemistic way of avoiding "of middle eastern descent.] "There was only one way to find out."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4666132.stm

He also works through a group called "Open Circuit," which includes in its list of projects such as TV and film, "activism."

Sadly, many viewing this video will assume he's just a guy who was out for a stroll and got accosted by the "police" who were intent on violating his rights instead of a professional who likely set this up and needed a response [such as we that to which we conveniently happen to be privy] from this "constable" for his story.

You'll notice that the community patrolman did nothing until Thind followed the patrolman's face. One cannot help but wonder how long and what Thind filmed before he got the response for which it's pretty clear he wished, and also how many others in this crowded area were approached by officials merely because they were snapping some photos.

One should also ponder that perhaps if he had been a white older woman appearing to be an American tourist - complete with white tennis shoes and fanny pack - instead of a 30-something (?) male of middle-eastern descent, perhaps the odds of a "spontaneous" conflict would have been quite a bit less. While some may cry "foul," such an heuristic should definitely be considered.

He purposefully produced a tone of a particular frequency and few realize that's why their own strings are vibrating.

This isn't a good example of officials stifling freedom, but instead of mere contrivance soliciting knee-jerk outrage.

[Oh yes, the provocateur..... not.]

If the individual in the film knew what he was doing, he would have smiled to the camera,well knowing that he could do nothing about somebody filming.

The previous comment, trying to pin down responsibility in the film maker is a complete charade.

[gb]

I must respectfully disagree with you, Mr./Ms."Oh yes."

I may be wrong, because perhaps you know Rajesh Thind personally and are better able to exposit his motives, while I must merely infer what his are from his past work and his affiliations and the organizations' stated goals and methodologies (that darn BBC is always misleading us!)

If so, please accept my apologies for any impugning of your friend's character and the integrity of his piece with my naive conclusions. Your insights would certainly trump mine.

However, if this is not the case, would you please parse your position, perhaps with support of your argument beyond speculation via projection's impetus?

Thanks! ;)

[Rogier]

gb:

If I may ask: What does it matter what the videographer's professional background is, or with which activists (oooh, scary!) he alledgedly associates -- or, I dunno, whether his grandmother has a mole on her left ass cheek? All these things seem to me to be wholly irrelevant.

What matters is what's plainly there, in front of our eyes, caught on camera.

If Mr. Thind set up his camera with the express purpose of getting a nasty, unlawful response from some wannabe coppers, the amazing thing -- to me, anyway -- is that he received it without fail.

Please explain what the object of your scorn did that makes his "integrity" so questionable as to render the point of his exercise (if that's what it was) completely moot.

[gb]

Rogier,

Thank you for your response.

I did not intimate that Thind's point was moot (not even close to "completely"), but merely that his (undisclosed) methods sully the credibility of the piece.

There are those of us who believe that manipulation of the masses is scurrilous, even if the cause is believed to be just by the manipulator or his acolytes.

Even the state gets it right once in a while: The courts agreed that even if GM had a problem with their fuel tanks, it was unethical for Dateline NBC to tweak the circumstances to make them blow up on cue (and on film).

Just like so many nannies, NBC's journalists probably believed they were acting in the public's best interest, which justified them sparking the gas tanks to get the truck to blow up, perhaps much like Thind (et tu?) probably believes he's justified to spark the response of the community patrol officer, which is in turn supposed to inflame our outrage.

Indeed, what matters is not just "what's plainly there, in front of our eyes, caught on camera," as those from Industrial Light and Magic might also exclaim, but also the process in which "what's plainly there" is produced.

Let's consider your interest in his grandmother's hind quarters and its mole. Re: her posterior's dermatological anomaly, you are quite correct, it matters little, unless/until Thind is documenting how her favorite butt-cream causes cancer and he has drawn on said mole.

My problem is not with the premise, "There are those who seek to quash our liberties," but about the evidence offered to support that statement.

My statement is about a more fundamental infringement on our liberty, our freedom to choose.

The integrity of our choices is directly related to the purity and accuracy of the information we receive. To truly have liberty, we must be able to make informed decisions, so it is therefor paramount that our sources of information (presented evidence) be untainted and above reproach.

While Thind may have our best interests in mind, prestidigitation as he employs here puts him squarely in the camp of other nannies who also believe they have our best interests in mind but also manipulate information to provoke the desired response.

I recoil at those who choose to fetter others' rationality by exploiting post-modern presentations of reality.

While our liberty is at stake if we allow the state to incrementally encroach on freedoms such as the ability to video in public, our believed liberty is merely a facade if the choices we believe we are making freely and rationally are coerced by those who choose to contrive evidence to support their ends.

You are surely not suggesting a Hobson's choice - either accept Thind's methods as valid or reject the premise that our liberties may be encroached? Could it be that each premise is not mutually exclusive of the other, and that yes, there are threats to our liberties AND Thind's approach is (at least) less than ideal?

Kant said it well, "Act so that you treat humanity...always as an end and never as a means only."

Frankl posits that a human's dignity is directly correlated to his ability to choose.

In his piece, Thind has set out to use us as a means to an end. He seeks to provoke our fears and circumvent our rationality, as do those who post his video without full disclosure, which to me is more offensive and incendiary, as it fetters our freedom at the most fundamental level, at the level of dignity of choice.

[Rogier]

gb:

Thanks. It is, on the whole, a thoughtful and intriguing response, veering as it does from butt cream to Immanuel Kant.

But it's also an unsatisfactory tease. You allege (I think) that Mr. Thind has cooked the books, stacked the deck, and turned us into sheep with marvelous feats of prestidigitation.

Then, you move on to your poor host, taking me to task for, if I have this right, posting the Thind video "without full disclosure," an act which you deem to be "incendiary." You are right: I should offer a full disclosure. If only I knew what it is I'm supposed to be disclosing!

You now really owe all of us here (all THREE of us, probably) an explanation, in the most precise (and hopefully concise) terms possible. Facts, not conjecture. So: How is the Thind video a manufactured or manipulated event? I'm not saying it's not -- I don't know, it hadn't occurred to me. But if you are privy to some borderline-ethical method by which Mr. Thind acquired his footage, you really should share ("put up or shut up," my less-kind friends would demand). This discussion is only useful if you produce the goods at which you have so far only hinted.

[gb]

Rogier,

Thank you for your kind response.

You are quite correct, if those who post or link to Thind's video have not done any investigation, they (including this kind host) are not complicit in Thind's manipulation, but instead guilty merely of expediency. Please forgive my errant implication.

I hope you agree that positional congruence doesn't relieve anyone of the responsibility for doing "due diligence" on "evidence," though. (I'll avoid mentioning Dan Rather. Ooops!)

When one considers the "Facts, Not Conjecture" which are stated by the BBC, OpenCircuit, and Rajesh Thind himself [facts that I have indeed provided] - that he is a journalist who creates situations to get a response - you'll find my position to be wholly consistent with these facts and the position of those who recalcitrantly cling to the contrary to be inconsistent with these facts. It is the latter position that begs for support, not mine.

Re: "Put up or shut up" ;), unless I'm mistaken, I believe I'm the sole soul who has provided ANY additional information besides the video itself (see posts above).

Surely you are not suggesting I track down Rajesh Thind and get a quote. ;)

greg

[Teresa Nielsen Hayden]

Weird stuff going on. This guy tried to post the same unsupported derogatory opinions on Boing Boing, got sat on, and within the hour came back to Boing Boing as a sock puppet to try to re-post it. This behavior is way too motivated for a casual commenter.

[gb]

Teresa,

I merely posted a note to BoingBoing which supported SamSam's comments. A well-intentioned but overzealous housemate (a relative) also posted to support my post.

I apologize for any confusion.

Anyway - it's just my conclusion based on a little bit of research about Thind, which it seems no one else had done.

Your pointing this out is in the exact spirit of my post. :)

greg

[Rogier]

gb/greg:

Sorry man, but I've lost my patience.

I agree with you that manipulated media events need to be exposed. Well, out with it, then. Tell us what's deceitful about the Thind video. If you don't know, don't post.

Your slippery, vague accusations are doing no one a service, least of all you. Don't mask with verbosity what you lack in substance -- it's not what I'd expect anyway from someone so rightfully opposed to hoodwinking people.

[gb]

Rogier,

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to exasperate, and certainly not to hoodwink.

It's clear I was careless in not using the words/phrases "MAY" or "COULD" more strongly, as it can read that I have indicted and convicted Thind. This is entirely my error.

My position is ONLY this:

Perhaps a professional documentarian/journalist who regularly sets out to tell a particular story (as Rajesh Thind artfully has re: his marriage prospects, his family's land in India, the tube bombings and his beard, even pleas for blood donations) - an "I'm going to examine X and I'm going to film it" approach - is not out of the realm of possibility here.

Another way of stating it: Perhaps the impetus for the film was not a serendipitous encounter with an officer, but instead the intent to tell a story about rights encroached, which needed the encounter with the policeman for its launch.

I am surprised that others seem to be insisting that there's NO possibility for my position (which got lost in my excess and imprecise verbiage) and that to suggest that this short is a result of anything OTHER than an innocent encounter is completely unthinkable.

I've appreciated our exchange and your patient and gracious responses, especially as a newbie to the blogosphere.

Thank you again.

greg (gb)

[ebs]

Even if Thind did intend to provoke such a response, it's pretty amazing that he got one after filming the CSO for less than 5 seconds (as the time code shows). Doesn't that still say something of the confusion over the right to film in public places? I believe "contrived evidence" would have to be a bit more contrived to be suspicious.

As a photographer, I've run into similar situations multiple times, as have friends of mine who work the same profession. I also feel like the point of the video was not to "provoke our fears and circumvent our rationality", but simply to make knowledge of our rights more widespread.

[Nik]

It is incredibly rude to take pictures or video footage of someone without their permission. Not illegal but very impolite. The cameraman followed the CSO with his camera. The CSO was entirely within his rights to be pissed off.

[Go Fish]

God you lot know how to kill a comments section; that little thread between rogier and gb was really fucking boring to look at let alone read. The CSO was an absolute arsehole and he was wrong. And ebs, who cares if he 'followed his face' impolitely, I guess he should be really sorry for not constantly vetting every single iota of behaviour cos it may offend someone or seem remotely 'suspicious'. I mean isn't that the fucking point this video is making? You know that old chestnut about constant surveillance leading to an internalisation of systems of control and domination.
Btw if you don't like the swearing then big sweaty tramp bollocks to you. XP

[Go Fish]

Sorry!! Part of the above comment was not directed at ebs but Nik. I read the taglines wrong. Oh and there was supposed to be a question mark after domination too.

[PC Bob]

To William, who asked "do the UK Police have the right to ask you to identify yourself, and detain you if you do not? If so, does that right extend to the 'community support officers'?":

Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), a person can be arrested by a uniformed police officer if their name is in doubt. Of course, most of the time this simply does not happen (custody areas, frankly, are busy enough), and it would only really be used as a reason for arrest if a serious offence were already suspected, or if somebody was clearly trying to avoid being PNC-checked with their name because they know they have committed an offence.
PCSOs do not have the power to arrest, so they cannot use PACE in that way. I can imagine some trying to detain people until a proper copper arrives but believe me when I say "he won't tell me his name, over" is not going to encourage PCs or Specials to hurry to the PCSO's location within the 30 minute detention period. If anyone even attends, that is.

To Jay, who asked "Please tell me this footage was showed to that CSO's superiors":

You can bet your back teeth that he has already been dressed down by his supervision and contacted (if not interviewed) by Professional Standards. Lone gunmen and people who provoke members of the public are not what the modern police force wants. Whether or not he is still employed is difficult to judge, since he didn't really do anything "wrong" (as in, against regulations) other than talking rubbish and "bringing the force into disrepute", the catch-all infraction.

To everyone else: Do not feed the troll.

I agree that there is a problem with overzealous authority, and people being stopped taking photographs/videos in particular, but I do not think this is the best showcase for it. He wasn't innocently minding his own business taking picture, he went out of his way to follow the CSO, close up. I know if someone did that to me I would not be happy, and if in the wrong frame of mind I may even be inclined to give off. Now, it would be fair to say as a representative of the government he should be held to a higher standard and contain his actions/reactions solely to his duties and responsibilities, but then if a person in a place of authority cannot stand up to deliberately provocative behavior, who can? And he is still only human after all - it is not like he brought out his truncheon and chucked him in the back of a meat wagon for 42 days, is it?

There is a very important and worrying trend for 'enforcement officers' to overstep their bounds and intimidate members of the public under generic or purposely vague laws. This piece however, just preaches to the converted, and would show anyone else an arrogant activist provoking a reaction.

[Sindbad]

A cautionary tale purporting to fact yet with little or no substantial basis in evidence; the whole film is an argument with the paucity of a wet seive.

Nor is it art, as the filming style is basic TV reportage and the composition of material is largely unsatisfying, from a filmmaking perspective. We have some talking heads based on a tepid observational calamity. I felt the filmmaker riling the community officer with his tone - the filmmaker's language and pitch amounted to aggravation, as intelligent in its own way it may be.

I have the strong sense of a paranoid filmmaker trying to hit society in the balls. As such, it feels like a false effort and deserves to die as quickly as it was born.

[Rajesh Thind]

Hello,

I'm Rajesh Thind, the filmmaker who made the piece our host has kindly posted here. I just came across your lively and very interesting discussion. It's just great that my little film has got people talking about the issues the piece attempts to address. As a filmmaker it's enormously gratifying when people forget the film itself in a way and move onto talking about the ideas it raises.

It's less gratifying, but absolutely valid, when the discussion focuses on whether the film is in some way the result of some manipulation or sleight-of-hand, particularly when the issues one would wish people to be engaging with seem to be so urgent and widespread in their relevance to people's lives.

So, I hope I can help shed some light on some of the discussion around the making of the film, and that that allows us to get back to talking about the underlying issues.

Firstly, perhaps it'll help to know what the circumstances around this footage were.

On the day I shot the material with the officials, I was actually shooting a scene in an office for another film - a documentary about marriage - around the corner from Oxford Circus. On the way out of that interview, I bumped into a guy who I got talking to - on camera and with his permission - who I accompanied toward Oxford Street. Once he had left I realised I would possibly need some GVs ('general views') of the street to contextualise the scene I had just shot with him, in case I decided in the edit to use it.

Now, as you may have inferred from the film, I've got a pretty good idea of the law, as well as a lot of respect for other people's privacy. What that meant was that I was ensuring that when filming across the passing crowd I was making sure not to settle on anyone's face for too long in order not to draw any exceptional notice to any one individual in particular. (Personally I wouldn't even show the faces of people kissing in a crowd scene without their permission either, even if by law I could under some circumstances be allowed to. Other people's intimate lives are their business not mine).

So when the officials walk into frame, I can assure you that they were both completely unexpected and, if you'll forgive my reticence at the way I was treated, unwelcome. Far from in anyway seeking to elicit a response of this sort, the whole situation arose spontaneously. I couldn't quite believe it to be frank, which is why I didn't even think to turn the camera off at first.

Once the officer had come up and sort of shoved my camera as a way of saying hello, I did make a conscious decision to keep filming, even though the officers were, as you can see, being rather intimidating in their attitude. (I imagine every filmmaker working in public spaces has been asked what they are doing by the police or other responsible figure of official authority at some point, and in London at least, usually they are pretty polite and professional about it. This, clearly, was not one of those occasions.)

Judging from the engaged and engaging comments of the vast majority of posters both here and on Boing Boing and other blogs around the world, and also in terms of my protecting what rights I have as a law-abiding citizen, I have to say that I'm happy that I kept the camera rolling or it would have just been another example of what seems to be a significant global trend of increasing state surveillance accompanied by a corresponding decline in the rights of the general public.

So, and sorry to disappoint those with wilder imaginations, but this isn't the work of some raving activist hell-bent on showing the authorities up. Although in the name of full-disclosure I must admit I did have a nose-stud when I was 20 but that was because of a girl I liked. I promise I've never ever had dreadlocks. Or a pair of dungarees. Ah! The Activists have Landed!

To be frank, afterwards, I felt sorry for the guy who stopped me. As part of the increasing casualisation of the police force and the accompanying growth in the use of volunteer, or less-fully-trained officers in auxilliary services, this guy simply didn't know what he was doing because the resources weren't there to train him properly and therefore he behaved as he did.

Fortunately I did know the law and was able to communicate that to the two officers, and therefore the situation was resolved without my having to report him to his superiors, a path I chose not to later pursue in the hope that making a film and hopefully getting the wider issues discussed was a more constructive option to getting some poor schmuck fired or disciplined.

I also hoped I could raise the wider point that the growth in surveillance and this fragmentation and wider dissemination of powers formerly only held by the police force are part of the same process whereby the exercise of coercive power by both state and non-state actors seems to be becoming increasingly unaccountable at just the same moment that its force is magnified by new technologies.

Or, to put it in more evocative and admittedly provocative terms, terms: is it important to consider what the balance of the relationship between us the citizens and those institutions that we charge with wielding the socio-economic, political and coercive power IN OUR NAMES is?

Or to really go for hyperbolic gold in true Phelpian style: would you be prepared to be acquiescent if you started seeing Baghdad-style private armies, unaccountable only to private interests, armed with all the latest military and surveillance tech, on the streets of our hometowns?

OK, I'm starting to sound like an activist. Damn, maybe by writing this I'm becoming one? I don't think so (sorry, activists! I'm just too busy...) but even if I were one of THEM, I don't think I would throw away my integrity for a cheap, manufactured shot on some poor guy just trying to do his bit for the community. The fact is this stuff probably happens almost everyday somwhere, and far worse goes on in other places at other times. That's what's important. And that's why I made the film.

Of course, I knew I was putting myself up there to be shot at by making this film and working with the good, progressive people at Current TV to get it out there, but frankly, I consider that a part of my job as a filmmaker - to put myself on the line. If by taking the (unsolicited) opportunity to try and say something on this issue I open myself up to having my integrity, my professionalism and my ethics called into question, I have to say I don't really mind. My conscience is clear. In a way, it's gratifying. I mean, people only start digging for muck and getting personal when they can't find enough wrong with the case you're putting forward right? My first attempted smear! Wonderful! I'll frame it and hang it on the wall next to all those old rejection letters in the bathroom.

Frippery aside, I'm just glad it's got people talking about the issues.

I hope taking a little time to write this ridiculously long and meandering message (as the old French guy wrote, apologies but I did not have enough time to write a shorter one) helps get this debate back to the issues. If I've sounded a bit humorous at points, I don't mean it to ridicule the guy who has been calling my integrity into question. You're entitled to question things dude so no stress. It's very important for us all to do just that in fact. But now that I've addressed your concerns, would you mind if we get back to the issues? It seems to me they rather urgently require our attentions. (Oop! Did I just become an activist?)

warm regards,

Rajesh Thind
London
Monday, 25th August 2008

[nike shox saya]

Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to damned, and no body to be kicked? (Edward Thurlow, British Lawyer)