Police Allegedly Threaten A UK Photographer With Seizure Of All His Computers (wordpress.com) 299
Andy Smith is a Scotland-based news photographer (and a long-time reader of Slashdot). He writes
Recently the police wanted to seize some of my work photos to use as evidence in a prosecution... Rather than trying (and likely failing) to get a warrant to seize the photos, the prosecutor used a tactic that nobody had heard of before: He got a warrant to seize all of my cameras, computers, memory cards, etc, even though the photos were in a secure location, not at my home or in my possession. I was then given 24 hours to retrieve and hand over the photos, or the police would raid my home and take everything, effectively ending my career.
His blog post describes erasing every computer and memory card, though he believes the police only wanted the leverage that came from threatening to seize them. But the journalists' union advised him to surrender the photos, since otherwise his equipment could be held for over a year -- so he complied. "I regret my decision. Everyone on this side of the case has reassured me that it was the right thing to do, but it wasn't."
"As for the warrant, it remains active, with no time limit. I now conduct my work knowing that the police could raid my home at any time, without warning, and take everything."
His blog post describes erasing every computer and memory card, though he believes the police only wanted the leverage that came from threatening to seize them. But the journalists' union advised him to surrender the photos, since otherwise his equipment could be held for over a year -- so he complied. "I regret my decision. Everyone on this side of the case has reassured me that it was the right thing to do, but it wasn't."
"As for the warrant, it remains active, with no time limit. I now conduct my work knowing that the police could raid my home at any time, without warning, and take everything."
Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:5, Insightful)
Preferably in a secure location, in a country where it's unlikely that some bully government can get their way.
I suggest Iran.
Re:Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:5, Insightful)
Andy Smith might have saved himself a lot of pain, and you can't blame him for that, but he's also absolutely right in his final assessment that it wasn't the right thing to do; this tactic needs to be booted up to higher courts and stopped ASAP. Putting a *suspected* criminal on the spot like that is bad enough, but doing so to someone you *know* is innocent of the crime in question is completely and utterely unacceptable for any country that doesn't want to lay claim to being a police state.
Re:Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you expect the same system that permitted this injustice to correct it? Not only that, you expect that same system to outlaw the injustice it committed? There's a dry laugh in my throat right now, filled with sarcasm.
A government that makes the above demands, is a police state. If the police wield so much power, that they can end the livelihoods of completely innocent people for no more than failing to comply with their demands, (the forced password handover requirement made this a reality years ago), then it is a police state. You can't expect freedom or democracy to survive in that kind of environment. The only real power is the willingness of the thugs to permit it under such a system.
So no,
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The only exit is then to commit suicide in a spectacular way with a lot of spectators.
Re:Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, precisely because the system is supposed to function that way. Not in that an injustice is committed in the first place, of course. But the whole point of courts is to try to resolve injustices and the whole point of higher courts is to deal with injustices that lower courts bring for any number of reasons. If all of that fails, then either (1) you're simply in the wrong and don't realize it or (2) you're in a police state and the whole system of seeking justice is a farce.
The issue is that a lower court made a very, very bad decision to grant the warrant and should rightly be smacked down hard for it. However, the tools that the court allows (a broad warrant in collecting evidence for a crime) for the police are a necessary aspect of a justice system when dealing with things like criminal organizations. You seem to believe that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater because the system has failed in one instance.
You'd be right if this warrant had been challenged and allowed to stand. Instead, we sadly have compliance to a request because the threat was too great to challenge. We need that when the person involved is a criminal and we need to collect evidence. We also need a means for people like this photographer to challenge unjust warrants. That's where there's a failing. It's not enough, though, to simply dismiss any hope of freedom or democracy because of this instance.
PS - Meanwhile if we do have a clear police state, then, yea, perhaps the answer is suicide in a spectacular fashion as the other poster suggests. Although it hasn't done much to stop the Chinese in Tibet. :/
Re: Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:2, Insightful)
Imagine if the slaves had that attitude, we wouldn't have Tubman with the under ground railroad. Or if America had that attitude towards WW 1 and 2. Or if our founding fathers had that attitude. You get the point.
Never give up, always fight. It might not benefit you, but it will benefit your children and their children.
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Well, in any sane jurisdiction, both prosecutor and judge would go to jail for what they did.
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Re: Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:2)
Re:Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:5, Insightful)
This just illustrates the fact that the criminal justice system has become a threat to ordinary non criminal non violent citizens. You think that immigrants, criminals or terrorists are the greatest threat to your security, but actually the greatest threat to you personally is your own countries bureaucracy. We used to think that Russia or the Chinese system were bad but basically the illusion of freedom is just that - an illusion. It is bizarre but the only people likely to have any sympathy for you are the 'hated leftists'. Be careful what propaganda you believe in, corrupt systems and corrupt politicians are not your friend.
Re:Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Re:Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:4, Informative)
Could we dig him out? Even as a corpse he's a better president.
Re: Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:5, Funny)
*golf clap*
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Leftists like, say, Pinochet, Marcos or Franco?
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Hint: he would put his Manhood in escrow during the Reagan Admin.
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Oh, wait....please remove your 1-D-10-T(shirt)
Re: Offsite backups become more and more important (Score:2)
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I have no beef with Iran. Yes, they're by no means the epitome of freedom, but they also have no reason to prosecute me. Hell, China would work, too. And I guess we all know their track record when it comes to alien concepts like personal freedom.
What matters is that you find a government that isn't interested in cooperating with a government that's out to get you. Like, say, Russia when you're Snowden.
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No idea. If I did, I would probably have been able to make a lot of money selling that secret to Saddam Hussein when they asked him about weapons of mass destruction.
Couldn't happen in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
The US constitution (4th am.) would prevent this. So the cops would have taken them using civil forfeiture instead, sold them, and spent the dosh on hookers and blackjack.
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Trump's rhetoric, which his followers lap up, is that the USA is now in an unprecedented state of emergency where Constitutional safeguards might have to be temporarily superseded to protect the American public from a vast assortment of Jihadis, bad hombres, and enemies of the American people (mainstream press) peddling lies and fake news. Until we have a better understanding of the the threats we're facing, i.e. as long as Trump wants.
The travel ban was meant to be the start of that. I'm sure Trump is su
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The funny thing is the conservatives were saying the same thing about Clinton in the late 1990s. Especially with the Y2K bug.
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Holy shit, you people are insane in your cherry picking. It's no wonder you guys are resorting to burning down your local starbucks and pepper spraying women with "Make Bitcoin Great Again" hats.
The 7 countries list was compiled by THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION and approved BY CONGRESS. Which includes... Democrats.
So please explain how Obama and Democrats in Congress were apart of "Trump's plan" to destroy constitutional safeguards.
Meanwhile, while don't we talk about Obama's war on journalists (demanding a jour
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Sorry about your spelling and punctuation problems and all the cognitive problems they imply.
Re:Couldn't happen in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
The saddest part of this story is that it will get virtually no play in the free press compared to a police brutality issue, and the offense is equally egregious.
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The US constitution (4th am.) would prevent this.
Really? I think that depends on how you define "unreasonable" - or rather it depends on how a judge defines it and given what the US has been up do in recent years I would not trust a US judge's definition to match with mine.
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US Warrants (in theory) also need to describe in detail what they're searching for with rationale.
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In theory, yes. But police and prosecutors know which judge will be most sympathetic to them, and how to play the game of timings and procedures to make sure their warrant goes up before the right one.
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The US constitution (4th am.) would prevent this. So the cops would have taken them using civil forfeiture instead, sold them, and spent the dosh on hookers and blackjack.
"In fact, forget the blackjack!"
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Civil forfeiture how's this for crazy in Canada (Score:4, Informative)
In Canada especially in BC civil forfeiture is now being used as a punishment in some cases when the crown lost the case. Its sounds crazy but http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... [www.cbc.ca] there are other cases and even judges has stated on record that what the Civil Forfeiture office is doing goes beyond the punishment but the judges are power less to over turn it.
More rescent info (Score:2)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politic... [www.cbc.ca]
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This is normal. (Score:5, Insightful)
Any time you deal with the cops, you've already lost. Hell, in some places in the US, they send kids to jail and then bill their parents for the jail stay when the kid is found innocent [washingtonpost.com]. And inner-city cops have a saying: "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride".
Of course, if this were in the US, the police might just seize everything anyway, hold a trial against the property (instead of against the photographer) and then auction it off for profit.
And the saddest part is, this is still well above average for a justice system.
Re:This is normal. (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn son, you really still think America is all that? Nope. There's plenty of decent legal systems in the world. Yours ain't one.
Apparently, the UK isn't one either.
So is the rest of Europe as bad as the UK, or are we to believe that the UK is somehow a big exception in Europe?
And what we're seeing in Turkey isn't looking too hot either, and the Europeans have long been trying to make Turkey out to be a European nation.
Re:This is normal. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yep, sounds about right.
It seems like the powers-that-be in the UK read "1984" and thought it was a great idea. They're making Trump's vision of America look like a great place.
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1984 is not a great idea, it's a manual for the government.
Re:This is normal. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is normal. (Score:4, Informative)
There is a constitution, it's just that Parliament is supreme and can't be limited by a prior Parliament so the constitution is weak. Basically a Parliament can repeal any law, even those considered part of the Constitution such as the latest treaties and associated enabling acts that turned over some powers to the EU.
Re:This is normal. (Score:4, Interesting)
And what we're seeing in Turkey isn't looking too hot either, and the Europeans have long been trying to make Turkey out to be a European nation.
Actually, the US has pressed on for Turkish membership in EU for decades:
Washington's support for Ankara on the issue of Turkish membership in the EU became part of the agenda of U.S.-Turkish
bilateral relations in the late 1980s. However, it vvas during the course of the next decade that American offcials began to engage in
intensive lobbying efforts among key U.S. allies in Europe to promote Turkey's EU aspirations.
[...]
http://dergiler.ankara.edu.tr/... [ankara.edu.tr]
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And the EU has been seriously entertaining the idea. It's not America's fault: this is like one on your friends talking you into marrying some alcoholic loser. Who's fault is it? Your friend's, or yours for doing it? Sorry, but you're responsible for your own decisions and actions.
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It's your own fault of course, but I wouldn't call that person a friend either.
If you continue to call that person a friend, and keep them as a friend, even after they talk you into dumb decisions, then yes, they really are your friend, even if they're not good for you. And what does that say about you when you continue to keep them as a friend and follow their advice?
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Yeah, just like that. Except that your friend is a wealthy and powerful person who could make or completely mess up your life at the drop of a dime, and the alcoholic loser is their sister.
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I guess in that case the best course of action is to try to seem friendly to the "friend", and find a way to secretly poison the sister.
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regarding: " http://dergiler.ankara.edu.tr/ [ankara.edu.tr]... [ankara.edu.tr] "
If you read about halfway through this article you will find that it's all about the US military presence. Only Turkey will tolerate a US base in that region, and since Bush, American leaders have felt the need to impose our 'authority' there.
Both countries win- We get a military base, and Turkey gets an aura of respectability, plus some possible Euro advantages. (And they still don't have to admit to Armenian genocide.)
Even idiot Republicans
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So is the rest of Europe as bad as the UK, or are we to believe that the UK is somehow a big exception in Europe?
Given how the UK is actively trying to not even be Europe there's a lot going for the exception theory. But there's even more to it than that.
Different government structures around the world ensure there are very different things at play. While I see it as a possibility of every western democracy which has amassed too much power to control their citizens like this, we only ever seem to hear about it happening from members of the 5 eyes (USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and NZ).
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Sounds like it's the EU that needs to build a "big, beautiful wall".... It shouldn't be that expensive, because the Greece/Bulgaria border with Turkey isn't that long; it looks like roughly 200 miles judging by a map. Or they could just invade Turkey and seize most of the European part, short of Istanbul; then they'd only need a wall about 25 miles long.
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I'm not sure what failure of reading comprehension would make someone believe I'm suggesting "america is all that."
However, let me throw some names out there. First of all, by population: China. India. Our neighbor: Mexico. Then, just some of the worst: Venezuela, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Uganda, Bolivia, Bangladesh, Honduras, Nicaragua, Kenya, Turkey, Myanmar, Guatemala, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Uzbe
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Found the guy with no concept of how American checks and balances work.
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How bad could Best Korea be? They have 'Democratic' right there in their name.
Bottom line... (Score:5, Insightful)
Was there ever a better incentive for a comprehensive off-site backup program?
Re:Bottom line... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, you know who needs this?
The cops.
If they're going to hold data-containing devices as evidence for up to a year, they'd better back them up. And once they have a disk image backup, there's no reason to hold onto the actual device, except as economic leverage on the suspect.
Re:Bottom line... (Score:4, Informative)
In the UK there is no right to a speedy trial. Our legal system moves at glacial pace. There is a massive backlog of electronic equipment that they have taken but not yet examined, so it usually takes them many months or even years to get that far. There is no penalty for them taking a long time, and no way to force them to speed up.
The fact that they just need a few photos relating to one incident is irrelevant. To preserve them as evidence they will have to do a forensic extraction that can't be questioned (e.g. photoshopping) in court. Typically they will also look for evidence of any other crimes, because there is always some. Even if it's just a dodgy banner in the browser cache somewhere, they like to throw a few random child porn or terrorism charges in too, as punishment.
If they did take his stuff, I'd be amazed if he got it back within 2 years. When it does come back, they will probably have wiped it anyway and broken anything delicate like a camera, for which there is no penalty or compensation.
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How would that help? He makes his living taking timely photos that are published in the local paper and then largely worthless. It's not about the loss of data, it's the loss of the equipment he needs to work.
This has long been a problem in the UK. The police can easily get warrants that destroy you life, with no compensation or comeback if they turn out to be bogus, and the judiciary are far too often strongly biases in the police's favour.
It's why we have so much police corruption here. Even when there is
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Was there ever a better incentive for a comprehensive off-site backup program?
Yes. There are much better incentives given that in this case it wouldn't have made even the slightest bit of difference.
Dicks (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't beat yourself up for what dick heads do man. Just remember enforcement of law always comes down to someone holding a gun to your head. Its basically like you complied with a robber which is the smart thing to do so don't beat yourself up over your decision.
Who were the police protecting? (Score:3)
Was this illegal activity that might have been captured on video, or was it some kind of security service activity that the authorities didn't want to see the light of day?
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The police might just have a policy against letting people film car accidents - it's embarassing when that stuff ends up on youtube, and the number plates and faces are sensitive information. The officer wasn't going to let someone film police at work just because he was a journalist, and when a non-police-person ignored his polite request resorted to the default police tactic of heavy-handed intimidation.
Not unheard of (Score:5, Informative)
> Rather than trying (and likely failing) to get a warrant to seize the photos, the prosecutor used a tactic that nobody had heard of before: He got a warrant to seize all of my cameras, computers, memory cards, etc
It's known as a writ of assistance and it was part of the reason why we sent a loud Fuck You to His Royal Majesty, by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith, King George III.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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You stopped reading at the end of that paragraph?
"Doing so would have set a dangerous precedent and would compromise the impartiality of myself and the other press photographers who work at the court. It’s quite foreseeable that one photographer handing over photos would endanger all other photographers at the court as we may be perceived as informers or allies of the police."
The photographers need to be seen as impartial observers, not collectors of evidence that can be used against people. That mean
Re:Why didn't you jus publish the photos? (Score:5, Insightful)
You stopped reading at the end of that paragraph?
"Doing so would have set a dangerous precedent and would compromise the impartiality of myself and the other press photographers who work at the court. It’s quite foreseeable that one photographer handing over photos would endanger all other photographers at the court as we may be perceived as informers or allies of the police."
That doesn't hold up. Reporters are supposed to report on what happened truthfully, regardless of which side it favors. By refusing to publish and release these photos, he has biased himself and chosen a side. If it would have embarrassed the police and/or the court, would he have felt compelled to withhold it in order to be "impartial"? No, because that is what a reporter does. But that works both ways. He must report on what is favorable for them as well as what hurts them.
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Reporters aren't firehoses. They don't list names and faces of everyone they see at rallies. They don't give the names and home address of the police officers. At some point, their job is to cover the story and that often involves leaving a lot of potentially embarrassing or abusable information.
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If the police had just kept quiet the photos might have been published. Depends on how graphic they were, and chances are only one in the series would have made it to print, maybe two on the web site.
The problem was created by the police asking. Once the police ask a journalist for something, the journalist can't give it to them because it would make other people unwilling to trust the journalist. Imagine someone gave an interview on condition of anonymity, and the police forced the interviewer to give up t
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The incident in the photos brought about the immediate collapse of a trial, and an arrest, potentially leading to another trial. Publishing the photos would have been contempt of court.
I don't know... (Score:3)
Remember, understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth. (with apologies to JMS)
Something doesn't ring true (Score:4, Insightful)
If the prosecution, i.e. Queens Counsel, in a criminal trial wants his photographs to use as evidence against someone else, I would expect them to subpoena them.
What they don't do, AIUI, is have the police get a (search) warrant to search the home of an innocent third party. for "evidence".
Maybe standards have slipped in the UK, but I really can't imagine a judge in Scotland approving such a warrant. Some other places in the world I can see it happening, but I wouldn't have thought in Scotland.
But IANAL, not in Scotland, not anywhere. (Even though I play one on TV)
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If the prosecution, i.e. Queens Counsel, in a criminal trial wants his photographs to use as evidence against someone else, I would expect them to subpoena them.
They did. He illegally refused to comply. Making him a criminal.
I'm still not a lawyer, but AIUI the judge can find him in contempt of court. I don't know what the penalties are for Contempt of Court in Scotland. Over here you can be fined, and even jailed. A few days in the pokey usually puts people in the right frame of mind to comply with subpoenas and court orders.
What they don't do, AIUI, is have the police get a (search) warrant to search the home of an innocent third party. for "evidence".
Except this criminal is not innocent. He's broke the law.
Thank you Captain Obvious. Criminals are – generally – not innocent. At least of the crime(s) they were convicted for.
So he's been tried, has he? And convicted? AFAICT he might only be in conte
The guard dog fell asleep..... (Score:2)
The guard dog fell asleep........ (Score:2)
informed, not served (Score:2)
Sell all of your equipment. To a friend, to a family member etc. Sell it all, have everything in writing.
Another Glorious Triumph (Score:2)
Another Glorious Triumph for the National Socialist Scottish Workers' Party and Police Scotland. All hail the victory of True Scottish National Socialism and the Almighty, 1000 year blockhouse blockhead Fuhrer, Mrs Rab C Nesbitt!
Re:citizens injunctions? (Score:5, Insightful)
In most countries and states police use overbroad warrants to as a sort of pre-emptive retaliation for the likelyhood that they will fail to get court approval for the illegal or unconstitutional nature of their goal. How come citizens cant do the same thing to the police?
Sure, you can do this. Get a whole raft of lawyers (solicitors), a whole bundle of money and a lot of patience.
That was Mr. Smith's dilemma. Despite having some access to representation (the Journalist's guild), he was heavily outgunned by the Crown. You need to have assets like Kim Dotcom to pull this off.
Lawyers, guns and money.
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One thing seems to hold true in every country, from the strictest police state to the most liberal of democracies: Law enforcement always hate to see their authority challenged, and will take action against anyone they believe is doing so.
In any encounter with the police, unless you have actually done something criminal it's probably better to act subservient and do as they say - because if they decide they want to punish you for speaking back, they will always be able to find something to arrest you for.
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And that is why in any place that values freedom and the rule of law, the police needs to be kicked in the nuts hard and regularly to remind them that they serve the people, not the other way round.
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Now this is an idea I can get my foot behind..
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police use overbroad warrants ... for the likelyhood that they will fail to get court approval
Warrants are issued by courts. So if the police have requested an 'overbroad warrant' and served it, that means they have court approval.
Re:Another perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this perspective: Those are the words of a police state apologist.
There was no warrant from the police, therefore they had no right to his photographs.
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The police does not issue warrants.
Warrants are issued by a judge!
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But police do request warrants, and almost all are granted. Partially because police do know enough law that they make sure everything is in order and the warrant is reasonable on almost every occasion, but also partially because they know enough to play the system on any occasion they do feel the rules need to be bent, how to make sure they get a sympathetic judge, and what key phrases tick the legal boxes.
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The police does not issue warrants.
Warrants are issued by a judge!
at the request of cops or some other official. Judges don't issue warrants if no one requests one
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Re:Another perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the police did *NOT* ask for a warrant-- They asked to be allowed to seize all of his electronics, crippling his ability to work-- and then didn't SERVE that warrant, they merely said they would if he didn't cooperate.
In other words, this was legalized extortion: "That's an awfully nice career you have there-- would be a shame for something to happen to it. Now how's about you hand over those photos?"
That's not how it should work. The police make an official request for the photos, if the photographer refuses, when the case goes to court, a subpoena is issued, and if the photographer still refuses, he's held in contempt of court.
THAT is a legal process. What actually happened is government assisted extortion.
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Problem is that the warrant wasn't for the photos, it was for all the stuff he needs to earn a living that doesn't contain the photos.
RTFA (Score:2)
I took advice from the National Union of Journalists, who advised that there is a standard procedure in such cases: The police issue what is known as a production order, then the photographer either co-operates or the union contests the order. We told the police that the photos wouldn’t be handed over voluntarily. The only copy of the photos was placed in a secure off-site location.
It was at this point that events took an unexpected turn. The police chose not to issue a production order. Instead, the Procurator Fiscal (the Scottish equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service in England, or the District Attorney in the United States) applied for a warrant to raid my home and seize “if necessary by force” all of my electronic equipment.
It sounds like there was more to his discussions with the police than he lets on here, and he doesn't say whether he told the police that he'd moved the photographs offsite. I get the impression he was being a dick about it so the prosecutor (not the police) got a warrant to seize everything that might contain the photographs instead of just the pictures.
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Literally quoting from the article:
Doing so would have set a dangerous precedent and would compromise the impartiality of myself and the other press photographers who work at the court. It's quite foreseeable that one photographer handing over photos would endanger all other photographers at the court as we may be perceived as informers or allies of the police.
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In French, an umlaut indicates that the vowel is to be separately pronounced, as opposed to being pronounced as part of a dipthong (see Noël). In this instance it indicates that the pronunciation is "co-op" as opposed to "coop" as in "chicken coop". That said, an umlaut is not a component of English so who knows why they are using it.
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That said, an umlaut is not a component of English so who knows why they are using it.
To make it more mëtäl?
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It's not an umlaut, it's a diaresis.
Re:The thing to do, here (Score:4, Informative)
It's not an umlaut. There are no umlauts in English. Coöperate isn't a German word.
it's a diaeresis. It's tells the reader that you pronounce the second 'o'. It's not pronounced coop-er-ate, it's pronounced co-op-er-ate.
It's most commonly seen in scholarly papers, and in the New Yorker magazine, where it's the 'house style'.
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Diaeresis#English [wikipedia.org]
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Ok, I'll just shoot you dead.
In the UK that would be a violation of the criminal's rights, with worse penalties than mugging.
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I've heard of another rule. One third "it's a job", one third "I want to do good" and one third "I want to dominate".
That's one reason never to give in to the idea of 'we are here to protect you so give us more power'.
The other reason is that even if they're all good guys, the system can still go bad. Note that in this case the prosecutor has gone bad. The police are just doing their job.
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I never understood why people living in totalitarian regimes complain about not being able to have free speech. Right now you have the ability to leave your country and go to one where you can do your job without being persecuted (as much). Let the UK slowly shrivel with its backwards laws and misguided ideals. It will naturally crumble when its citizens won't be able to support it.
Maybe because he would rather stay and fight those destroying his native country that he loves rather than flee and allow the descent into totalitarianism to proceed unopposed? To where will people flee when the last relatively-free nation(s) joins other less-free nations (the world's majority) in oppressing the people? Fleeing is a temporary solution at best, and submission to tyranny at worst.
There are only a small handful of nations which are relatively "free". We're each already at our 'Alamo' and we'd
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"purchase an insurance policy against this for a relatively modest periodic fee"
Insurance policies have exceptions. It wouldn't surprise me if they made seizure by the authorities one of them.
Even if that isn't the case initially, the fact that the warrant remains open means his gear can be seized over & over.
How many times would Lloyd's or Stiff Upper Lip insurers replace his stuff within, for example, a 6 month period?
Once, twice, weekly?
Re: (Score:2)
does this asshole knows it's impossible o erase data from a memory card?
LOL, a memory card is non-magnetic storage, it's all electrical. You can fill up the entire card with other files, it'll write over all the old content. There is no magnetic residue left over like the old harddisk system with a spinning magnetic disk where you could find earlier data due to misalignement over the years.
Re: (Score:2)
If he has evidence, the normal thing to do is subpoena it. If he refuses to deliver it he can be found in contempt of court, and penalized appropriately by the court.
AIUI that's how it works (is supposed to work) here (USA), and how I suppose ti works in the UK too since our legal system is based on theirs.
What you don't get to do is get a so-called warrant, for jack booted thugs to confiscate personal property.
The fact that you seem to be okay with jack booted thugs is – cough – troubling to me