Mini Shard Protest update

Honestly? Southern Trains caused a huge amount more disruption and fuss today...

...this lot will be lucky if anyone even notices, especially when the hoard starts to pour around them on the big commute home again...on a normal day there are more people sat there having a smoke than there are people protesting today...bit of an anti-climax really...

Protest at the Mini Shard 23rd March

Yep, so a bit worried what the office would be like this morning (as there is an "Occupy" protest due to happen this week, starting today)...

...the answer?  A bit of scaffolding around the escalators covered in anti-climb paint, a bit of glue on the windows (I guess to make it easy to remove any spray paint/permanent marker pens), a *lot* more security guards and a lot more police...and basically nothing else!

I guess it's tough to get up early in the morning and commute to a protest eh?

Update - According to Facebook it's at 11:30am that they plan to "Take  the space"...let's see what happens! ;)

Update update - You can watch the protest live here - http://bambuser.com/v/5372441 (their cameras)

Earlwood Crime Map!

Well, here it is, after trying (on and off) for almost 36 hours I've finally managed to get a completed search out of www.police.uk...the decidedly dull result? Lots of "Antisocial Behaviour", or ASB as they are calling it (unsurprisingly mostly at the nearby hospital) and a few miscellaneous crimes which aren't embellished with any sort of interesting detail...I'm not sure what I was expecting, but actually this doesn't tell me very much that I didn't already know - for example, I'm well aware bored kids on the estate muck about outside smoking and drinking 10p taurine drinks while they are waiting for Mum to finish burning their turkey twizzler dinners, and I'm also well aware drunk teenagers (air lifted en masse from Redhill/Horley town center) regularly express their displeasure at loosing their fight (outside the pub) to the kind doctors and nurses trying to stitch them back together...but just categorizing everything else as "Other" makes all the rest of the results rather pointless, worse still is the fact that there isn't any information about whether any of these crimes were investigated (after they were reported), let alone solved...so basically (in office/twitter banter) it's come down to a numbers game - "Oh, you had 1260 crimes in your area in December? I only had 3"...but none of us are really any the wiser, it's just a list of how many people rang the police to report a crime...For the insight I've been afforded, I'm not entirely sure that was worth £300k of tax payers hard-earned, frankly...

Still, no doubt it'll do wonders for certain parts of London's house prices... >;(

Marine Policing Unit...

Spotted this in "the Wharf" the other day, which did sort of prompt me to wonder if a "Marine Policing Unit" wouldn't be better off if their chosen mode of transport could actually float (images of crestfallen Police officers standing with their heads in their hands as crooks slowly vanish into the distance rowing a small dingy popping involuntarily into my head) -

- but when I got a look at the side of the vehicle it seemed to make a bit more sense, it was actually the "Underwater and confined space search team" (which sounds like just about my worst possible nightmare of a job) -

- I spotted them a bit futher up West India Quay (shivering), several members of support staff manning (what I presume to be) the oxygen supply machinery, the rest looking on -

- so probably a training exercise, either that or Lord Sugar dropped his helicopter keys... ;)

...and yes, I know he doesn't really work in Canary Wharf, he just likes to pretend he does (while sitting in a business park in St. Albans... ;)

July 2010 Neighbourhood Watch

How exciting! Rather than the usual sort of things (6 incidents of old dears reporting the new postman as a "suspicious person" and 2 naughty kids playing with a tennis ball (a "nuisance disturbance") on the ("no ball games") green) apparently we have had an...actual crime...! *Gasp*!

It was only two roads away from where I live, two guys arrested - one with 13 bags of "a green herbal substance" in his car and another with two similar bags and five (rather-difficult-to-explain-but-not-actually-illegal) coffee grinders in his house...in response police have "stepped up patrols in the area" (to everyone's great relief) - stoners (of course) being renowned for the trouble they cause eating everyones cheese, listening to the Ozric Tentacles and falling asleep) - the nosy swish of the curtain means we can stop camping out in front of our fridges and biscuit barrels... ;)

Seriously though, I wonder if anything similar to this will happen? It's actually a pretty big deterrent...

Police abuse anti-terror laws to detain innocent photographers

This is starting to get really rather annoying, more stories of photographers being criminalised by police who are blatantly abusing anti-terror legislation, even going so far as to lock some photographers up (although not for terribly long, admittedly)...! 

I've only had one brush with the authorities personally, which was when I was through customs and approaching my gate at Gatwick airport, I took a very quick snap of the doorway and ramp to the plane (on a small point and shoot) and then got surrounded by officials demanding that I actually delete the picture from my camera...not really having a leg to stand on (as they could detain me or stop me getting on my flight), I yielded and wiped the shot (but not all the others I had taken in the airport ;) and was allowed to proceed, but hearing the Association of Chief Police Officers saying "Police officers may not prevent someone from taking a photograph in public unless they suspect criminal or terrorist intent. Their powers are strictly regulated by law and once an image has been recorded, the police have no power to delete or confiscate it without a court order"...

This makes me a little angry, as they obviously used their position to bully me into doing something even a police officer has no right to do without lawyers locking horns before a wigged gentleman...

However, it looks like we are (while not actually having a list of defined rights at the moment) at least starting to be able to guess where the invisible line is drawn...and about time too...

Now if someone could just tell all the police officers what their own Chiefs think about the matter we can all get on with our enjoyable, harmless hobby (or full-time job as the case may be)...

T-Ray Cameras at Canary Wharf

Interesting...looks like terahertz range cameras are in use at Canary Wharf, normally used by astronomers to render stellar dust clouds invisible, they can be applied terrestrially to peer right through clothing, showing up concealed explosives, drugs and weapons (and the subject's naked outline)...all very "Total Recall"...actually today there were about 15 police officers at the foot of the escalator on the tube, apparently randomly stopping and interviewing people, but it's just possible that someone was using T-Ray vision to steer them towards those who looked like they had something to hide...?

Big Brother can see you in the nude...

Metropolitan Police - The war on photography and UK Photographer's rights

(this picture originally found here)...

Oh no...please don't let it end up with everyone getting stupidly paranoid...*sigh*...first (the worst bit of counter terrorism advice...*ever*) we have to keep an eye out for anyone with two 'phones (like both Flyingpops *and* me, and probably countless other people who either have just got a new one or have to carry a second 'phone for work), but *now* we need to add to the list anyone that is wielding -*gasp*- a camera...a camera? In London?

Well, let's just (for the sake of arguement) take a quick look at me - two 'phones? (check) - Camera? (oops - double check!) - Lurks on public transport or around other high profile targets like Canary Wharf shooting off pictures? (check and check) - bonus points? I *even* carry it all around with me in a large *rucksack* (BAM)...! I guess this would put me firmly in the -*very*- suspicious catagory - if I wasn't arguably "white" (apart from in the summer if I manage to get out enough) - so, apologies to anyone of middle-eastern appearance that works around high profile sites in the city and has an interest in photography - you'll need to shoot subtly from now on, making you look even *more* dodgy on the CCTV footage that ends up getting you a visit from PC Copperfield... :(

It reached the point in the US (well, in New York at least, yes, the "Land of the Free"), after 9/11, paranoid subway workers/security guards would come up to me and tell me I wasn't allowed to shoot pictures...even though I *knew* US citizens had a law-given right to do so (as they have clearly defined "Photographers rights" based on their happy "Freedom" concept) but I didn't have a leg to stand on being a British visitor, rather than a US citizen (and didn't wish to risk being arrested over a point of principle, even if I was in the right)...

Anyway, for those of us here in the UK concerned, thanks to Linda Macpherson (a lecturer in law at Heriot Watt University, specialising in IT, Intellectual Property and Media legislation) we do have a (although somewhat untested) legally sound UK Photographers rights document...want a summary? We basically don't have much of anything...(not that any of this is enforced in any way)...but did you know it could get you in seriously hot water if any picture you took while on "a railway" could be demonstrably useful to terrorists? That's it, I'm going down, mine are all even Geotagged! How about the fact that it's 100% illegal to take any pictures of bank notes??? Why did no-one mention this when I bought my camera!!? Probably because no-one in the UK is aware of that fact...! Most suprising? We have *extremely* wooly privacy legislation in the UK meaning you can take a picture of anyone, as long as they are in a public place, without any fear of reprisal, they can't even claim harrassment (well, unless you take *two* shots)...

Somehow, I think this needs firming up, even if just a little...and asking the public to keep a close eye on people with cameras? I refer the police to their appeal for pictures that were taken just prior to/and of the events of 7/7 (to which I contributed)...make people nervous about shooting in the capital and that evidence stream is depleted, if not deleted...folly...

UCLA Police - America's finest caught on video

Someone kindly posted this video (recorded on a mobile phone) of the events that unfolded as a student who had forgotten his ID card was asked to leave the library in the Powell Building at the University of California, Los Angeles...

Why would this be of interest, I hear you ask? I, too, would have imagined it would probably have been either "Well, you'd better go fetch it then!" or "Well, I know your face, don't forget next time, that's all I'm sayin'" (depending on how the officer was feeling at the time)...what actually happened simply defies belief...

We hereby redefine "disproportionate force"...