Braving the pigeons, thousands of photographers demonstrated in Trafalgar Square against the "stop and search" laws granted British police by a 2000 anti-terrorism law.
In December Guardian reporter Paul Lewis was stopped and searched while taking pictures of the Gherkin building in London and Grant Smith, an architecture photographer, was apprehended around the corner while photographing Sir Christopher Wren's Christ Church.
Other recent cases include Jeff Overs, a BBC photographer who told the Andrew Marr Show he was stopped under suspicion of terrorism reconnaissance while photographing St Paul's Cathedral, and Andrew White, an amateur photographer questioned by two police community support officers for photographing Christmas lights in Brighton.
Last April two Austrian tourists were forced to delete their shots after being stopped by police in Walthamstow; and Alex Turner, an amateur photographer, was arrested under section 44 after taking images of a fish and chip shop in Kent.
Well, the fish and chip shop, that's understandable. But the Gherkin Building? Who'd want to blow that up?
Tragically, however, the same article 44 stop and search powers are sometimes used to investigator people considerably less suspicious than newspaper photogs. You can read the act here, starting with paragraph 28, but the Irish Times description gets the idea across:
Under the 2000 Act a senior police officer may issue an authorisation, if he or she considers it “expedient for the prevention of acts of terrorism”, permitting any uniformed police officer within a defined geographical area to stop any person and search him or her and anything carried by him or her.
The authorisation must be confirmed by the Secretary of State within 48 hours. A search can be carried out by a constable in an authorised area whether or not he has grounds for suspicion, but may only be “for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism”.
The police officer may request the individual to remove headgear, footwear, outer clothing and gloves and place his or her hand inside pockets, feel around and inside collars, socks and shoes and search hair. The search takes place in public and failure to submit to it amounts to an offence punishable by imprisonment or a fine or both.
Of course, the officer on the beat's discretion isn't unfettered. He's supposed to get authorisation (no zeds, please, they're Brits), and that "may be given only if the person giving it considers it expedient for the prevention of acts of terrorism."
Here's a story about how the stop and search powers operate in real life. First, let's set the scene: "Between 9 and 12 September 2003 there was a Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition (“the arms fair”) at the Excel Centre in Docklands, East London, which was the subject of protests and demonstrations."
Okay, so we have an "arms fair" (bet the cakewalk was something else), an organized demo, and a statute authorizing cops to stop and search when "expedient." Put them together and turn them over to the testosterone-influenced and, as Gary Larson might have said, there was bound to be trouble brewing.
[Kevin] Gillan was riding a bicycle and carrying a rucksack [on his way to the demonstration] when stopped and searched by two police officers. [Pennie] Quinton, a journalist, was stopped and searched by a police officer and ordered to stop filming in spite of the fact that she showed her press cards.
The two brought an action in the European Court of Human Rights, a 7-judge panel of which unanimously sided with them against the English police in an unusually wide-ranging opinion.
So far, nothing too out of the American lawyer's experience. But then you get to the remedy portion of the opinion:
92. The applicants submitted that they had felt harassed and intimidated by the police actions and that it would be appropriate for the Court to award compensation of GBP 500 each in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
93. The Government submitted that, in view of the short duration of the stop and search, no monetary compensation should be awarded.
94. The Court agrees with the Government that the finding of a violation constitutes sufficient just satisfaction in the circumstances of the present case.
The next paragraphs, it must be said, go on to award attorney's fees in the equivalent of $50,000, roughly a year and a half of the U.K.'s average annual salary.
In America the same net result would be considered, all in all, a victory for the government.
Monday, January 25, 2010 at 10:03PM in
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