police

Updated 15 February (apologies for the slightly disjointed nature of this. Am writing it between wrestling sessions with the new puppy):

Yet another installment for the government's 'helping ourselves to your liberties' file:

The British Journal of Photography reports that from February 16, the thrill that is photographing coppers acting like arseholes will be taken from us by new laws 'that allow for the arrest - and imprisonment - of anyone who takes pictures of officers ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.'

The BJP continues:

'A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine.

The law is expected to increase the anti terrorism powers used today by police officers to stop photographers, including press photographers, from taking pictures in public places.

‘'Who is to say that police officers won’t abuse these powers,’ asks freelance photographer Justin Tallis. Tallis, a London based photographer, was covering the anti-BBC protest on Saturday 24 January when he was approached by a police officer.

Tallis had just taken a picture of the officer, who then asked to see the picture. The photographer refused, arguing that, as a press photographer, he had a right to take pictures of police officers.

According to Tallis, the officer then tried to take the camera away. Before giving up, the officer said that Tallis ’shouldn’t have taken that photo, you were intimidating me’.''

Pity that photos of police intimidating the rest of us will be erased from history in advance by these laws - that, you can be sure, is the point of this little initiative.

Slipped into law as an unassuming adjunct to last year's counter terrorism act amend to the terrorism act, these laws could see photographers banged up for ten years for catching a copper in an act that ought to get the copper a lot longer than that. Rodney King, anyone? How about the great war photos of Larry Burrows - one of a number of extraordinary and extraordinarily brave artists who helped change the American course in Vietnam with pictures that showed Americans at less than their best? (Members of the armed forces will also be out of bounds after 16 Feb).

Hell to pay at Parliament Square just now: a wagonload of coppers and flunkies in high-res jackets have fenced Parliament Square in on behalf of London's very own GLA, and are ripping up tents in the peace camp. Charming.

'There was no eviction notice, or no warning - they just came here this morning and said they were taking the tents down, and then the fence went up,' says an exasperated Maria Gallastegui. Maria, a Londoner, has been camping in Parliament Square for about a year. She joined the camp to support Brian Haw - 'he wasn't allowed to leave the site unattended (the site being Brian's pavement protest with his anti-war billboards and signs), so we joined the camp to help him and look after the site when he wasn't there.' She says the police have 'never said anything about the tents before. They can't do this. There was no warning for us at all.'

Brian Haw says Ken Livingstone was the culprit this time. A year into the peace camp, the GLA has developed some sort of hangup with peace-camp hygiene, apparently. 'They're saying that the people in my camp are defecating and pissing all over the square,' Haw says. 'Well, they're not. The people who help me out are clean. They don't do that. They have been here for a year and nobody has said anything about it.' Haw says the weird thing is that the police told him that the peace campers could stay, as long as they move their 20 tents into the tiny area around his own protest site - an area of about half the size of a garage. Presumably, the peace campers will still have to wee, though: Haw isn't sure why the cops think putting 20 people into a different part of the Square will change that.