WARNING:  This Posting Contains Illegal Pictures

I Can Be Imprisoned for Publishing Them.

Legal Photograph

A little realised consequence of Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and the ramping up of common hysteria across the English speaking western world is, bizarrely, that it’s now illegal to take pictures of people commemorating, in a patriotic symbolic way, the lives and deaths of the millions who’ve strived to keep us free!

Q. How Can This be Possible in  Free Society?

Illegal Photograph

A. Simple.

Section 76 of the Terrorism Act, 2008, introduced by our freedom-loving government on 16 Feb 2009.

This law has been brought in by a former economics teacher who gets confused about allowable expenses to fulfil her job.

Now lets see the actual text of the law which allows bestial pictures of man’s inhumanity in preference to pictures of heroes protecting our humanity.

It can be read in it’s official entirety here:

76 Offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc

(1) After section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (collection of information) insert—

“58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc

(1) A person commits an offence who—

(a) elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been—

(i) a member of Her Majesty’s forces,

(ii) a member of any of the intelligence services, or

(iii) a constable,

which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or

(b) publishes or communicates any such information.

(2) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for their action.

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or to a fine, or to both;

(b) on summary conviction—

(i) in England and Wales or Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;

(ii) in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both.

(4) In this section “the intelligence services” means the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ (within the meaning of section 3 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (c. 13)).

(5) Schedule 8A to this Act contains supplementary provisions relating to the offence under this section.”.

(2) In the application of section 58A in England and Wales in relation to an offence committed before the commencement of section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44) the reference in subsection (3)(b)(i) to 12 months is to be read as a reference to 6 months.

(3) In section 118 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (c. 11) (defences), in subsection (5)(a) after “58,” insert “58A,”.

(4) After Schedule 8 to the Terrorism Act 2000 insert the Schedule set out in Schedule 8 to this Act.

Now, after wading through this bollox, the key bit is 58a up to sub-section (5) which means that;

It’s an offence to gather information about a member of the police and other governmental forces, serving and non-serving!  “Information” means everything, which naturally includes taking photographs.

Furthermore, you have to have a “reasonable excuse” to save being arrested, and the maximum penalty for not having a reasonable excuse is 10 years jail.  The bollox does not even mention the usual government sweetener that “proper safeguards are in place to ensure fair bollox and safe bollox etc”.  It’s gone so far now that they think (and do) get away with murder, illegal imprisonment, bombing of civilians etc.

I suggest, although it’s not been tested yet, that a reasonable excuse in a free society, is “because I felt like it”.  Here’s a scenario:

In Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear, is a street, Whitley Road that runs parallel to the Sea Front.  To get to the Rex Hotel on the sea front I could choose North Parade or South Parade out of the many options.  Let’s say I go down North Parade.

• Q. Why go down North Parade?
• A. “Because I felt like it!”

AP photo of gun-toting British Police

Now suppose I had a camera and was impressed by the late Victorian and Edwardian buildings and the impressive British Police Sergeant upholding the law.

As it now stands I could be arrested and locked up for 10 years.

• Q. What if I’d gone down South Parade?
• A. It depends if there’s a copper there, really!

But in both cases I would be doing what I’d be doing “because I felt like it!”

And that’s the trouble with this stupid, stupid law, enacted by a government devoid of common sense.

Legal Photograph

It opens up a free path to a society like this photo, where the man being killed did far, far less than take a photograph.  He was a man born in the wrong place, that’s all.  The people at top are commemorating a struggle to free the world of acts like this and ensure it ‘never happens again’.  Now I need a ‘proper reason’ to go there and photograph them.

And the ultimate irony, of course, given that the police have direct control over who they arrest, is it’s also illegal to photograph a policeman beating up an innocent! But if I photograph a person shooting someone, like here, that’s okay.

It really is a police state.  The actual police, derived from our citizenry to ‘uphold the law’, unfortunately,  are asked to deal with this crap – I see it in their eyes sometimes, when they’re finished dealing with the piss-heads and dregs of society.  And with a morally bankrupt home office and financial system, what chance for fairness?  See the acquiescent uniformed people in the background watching these people die in the photograph?  How many times have we seen this happen since WW2?

That’s the future unless we fight to stop it.

So far, no-one has been arrested for the ‘offence’ in Trafalgar Square or outside Buckingham Palace yet.  But let’s see someone taking pictures outside Whitehall or the Admiralty or any air-base in the country frequented by the anoraked airplane-spotters?  What hope on Fairford Open Day?

Links:

• http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/ – POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Ruralshire Constabulary, England 2009.  Fiddling Whilst Rome Burns.
• http://www.rainham-history.co.uk/html/war_memorial.htm – Rainham’s War Memorial
• http://markdaniels.blogspot.com/2006/04/holocaust-remembrance-day.html  – Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqui_Smith – Wikipedia Article on the lavender devil
• Has our increasingly paranoid society declared war on the humble ‘weekend snapper’? – Excellent Daily Telegraph article on Photography and terrorism by Sam Delaney
• Some Links to Amateur Photographer Magazine articles, all with COPIOUS other links to important related articles.
  • One
  • Two
  • Three – fair play to Austin Mitchell, again.  There’s hardly anyone left in Labour who isn’t a yes-man!
  • Four
  • Five

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