Family Photos and Public Places

The whole debate about taking photographs of and in public places, or even your own children or grand children has arisen once again. The PC Brigade are living in the UK, and are in the best of health, thank you. And the terrorists love them, as they play into their hands!


The police now have the power, under terrorist laws, to detain anyone taking photographs in a public place, and of public buildings, or places of architectural importance. You don't have to be acting suspiciously. So, don't be tempted to take any pictures of old historic places. You could be a terrorist! Don't take photos at the football stadium, or the railway station, or the main street in the town centre, or the statues, or of planes at the airport, or of buses, or of hospitals.... need I go on? Trouble is, that these very structures are the ones which attract the amateur as well as the professional photographer. The police have the powers to stop you, question you at the police station, confiscate your camera, and disturb your life for as long as they want or need. You don't even need to appear furtive.


An extension of this ill thought out law, is the ban on taking photos of children, even your own, in a public place. The trouble is that this ban is not treated the same by all places across the UK. For example, it may be ok to photograph children at the Christmas Nativity at some churches and community centres, but not others. In this case, I have to say there is some reasonable sense behind the law, as long as it is enforced uniformly across the country. When taking a photograph, in the school playground recently, of my granddaughter, and two of her friends (whom I knew well) I was asked by a man standing close by who I was and why was I taking a photo of his girls! No offence was intended, and none taken. Surely this is the common sense approach which the law misses, indeed cannot enforce! This dad, like many other dads, is protective of his daughters, and I wish there were more like him. But a blanket ban, which even covers taking a photo of your own, just in case someone else is in it? I don't think so.


The terrorists are making life difficult for the ordinary citizen, and surely that is what they want? They want to cause disruption at any level, and to all people who they think are opposed to their own way of thinking. They don't mind pleading 'not guilty' (even when caught red-handed) and letting the case drag through the courts, with all the expense and delays involved. I know I am straying off my original theme, but isn't it strange that these terrorists who take their 'religion' so strongly and completely that they will blow up themselves and others along with them, won't even tell the truth when it comes to a court case? They don't have enough of their 'religion' to tell the truth and plead guilty! What does that tell us about their religion of terror? Their commandments are very different from ours! 


So, two points. The PC Brigade take things too far, and we should be thinking more carefully about the difference between 'religion' and Faith, and protecting the Faith.