Do you know your rights as a photographer?
Taking pictures out in public can sometimes become a legal or ethical issue.
For example, a few years ago I was down near the border where the United States was building a huge fence to keep out the Mexicans. I found the fence interesting and was taking pictures. The Border Patrol stopped me and made me erase all the pictures on my camera. For all he knew, though, I could have had some other memory cards with additional pictures on them.
As far as I know, taking pictures of goverment buildings and such while on public property is not a crime. However, you have to make a decision at the time whether or not you want to argue with an officer. I chose not to.
While standing on public property in the United States a couple of weeks ago, I took this picture of Mexico with the new border fence in the foreground:
My purpose in taking that picture was not to get a picture of the fence but to get a picture of the buildings in Mexico with that beautiful church being the focus.
Mr. Border Patrol Office probably would have made me delete that picture.
For an interesting quiz about photography law, try this link: U.S. Photography Law. There are way too many typos in the quiz questions and choices. With today’s spell checkers and grammar checkers, I always think that if someone misses typos like those, what else did they miss? For the record, I scored 80%, but it’s obvious that one question (the one about basically interfering with police while taking pictures) is broken because it doesn’t matter which answer you choose, it marks both as wrong. Makes a good case that if you’re going to post tests, quizzes, and links for the public, you ought to test them to make sure they are correct and working.
Have fun taking the quiz but brush up on your rights as a photographer. Here are two good resources:
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The Photographer’s Rights, by Bert Krages, attorney at law
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You have every right to photograph that cop, by the ACLU
Happy photographing!
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Posted on April 6, 2012, in Did you know?, Photos and tagged aclu, bert krages, border fence, border patrol, did you know, mexico, photographer's rights. Bookmark the permalink. 10 Comments.
It seems like EVERYONE decided to message me from this site last night–I was overwhelmed–more than 100 notifications!!!! Sorry if I skipped answering some of yours. :O)
Eh, I say if someone says no, then it’s no. That’s what happened when the art vendors where shooing me and asked me to erase the pictures I’ve taken. I didn’t argue at all, immediately erase the picture and didn’t take any other pictures of them.
Great post. We can always use more information. And the shot of the church in Mexico was super. Thanks for sharing your info with us.
Why would they make you erase pictures of a fence. They were jerks. Tell them your tax dollars paid for that fence.
He probably would have arrested me and told me that my tax dollars also paid for the car and the jail. lol
Here is a blog about the border wall. He takes lots of pictures and even talks to the border patrol people.
http://theborderwall.wordpress.com/
That’s over in Tucson. Just another indication that the government is inconsistent, and not just with the border wall!
Hmmm that is very interesting! Thank you for bringing that to our attention
Sometimes its not worth the argument… I would’ve deleted the images also!
I figured I could go back some other time, or even that day, and take pictures more surreptitiously. Ultimately I did.