Tourist or Terrorist?

According to this article from The Memphis Flyer be weary of taking photos in Memphis. You just might be a terrorist.

A man walking through Tom Lee Park pauses to snap a photo of the iconic Hernando DeSoto Bridge. Another man shoots pictures of numerous downtown buildings.

Many would assume the men are tourists taking in the city's sights, but law enforcement officials say they could be terrorists staking out possible targets.

The scenarios were described at an anti-terrorism town hall meeting last week hosted by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office. The meeting, held at Cordova's First Assembly of God Church, was one of four public meetings that occurred in conjunction with Operation Sudden Impact, a new local anti-terrorism initiative.

"You may think a guy is just shooting pictures, but if you report it to us, we'll send it on to the FBI and they may have four or five other reports of the same thing," said Richard Pillsbury with the Tennessee Fusion Center, a collaboration between the Department of Safety and the Department of Homeland Security.

Shelby County sergeant Larry Allen warned attendees at the meeting to look for people who appear to be doing surveillance outside public buildings, such as shopping malls.

I'm glad I got my photos of Graceland a few years ago.

The War on Photography: NYC

I've  been reading more and more stories about police and government warring on photographers who are well within their rights to do what they're doing. As a photographer myself I'm starting to get a little nervous. Until now I've failed to post much about this issue but that stops here. I can't not share this video.

via Boing Boing

Thing #9: Searching for feeds

I'm trying to play along, honest, but really, do I need to go looking for feeds to add to my aggregator? That answer is simply no. Not because I feel that I have too many feeds, or even enough feeds, but instead it's because feeds find me not the other way around. Here's an example:

I was just catching up on some of my Library-related blog feeds when I saw a link to a new blog named Photography Friendly. Here's the first post:

Welcome to Photography Friendly

I have heard stories of photographers who have gone to a location, such as a park, to do personal photography. They would end up being told by an employee at that location that photography is not allowed or requires an application and a fee to take photos, even if they are just personal photos. I have also heard that some locations will consider you a professional photographer if you are using a tripod!

Finding information on photography restrictions for various locations can be difficult, if not impossible. I am hoping that this site will become a location for photographers, whether they just take photos for special occasions, as a hobby, or professionally, to look up information on how photography friendly a location is - no restrictions, some restrictions, application and fee required, or no photography allowed at all!

Your participation will help make this site successful. It can just be sharing your experience at a site. Better yet, link to an official policy or extract the text from an email from that location that gives their policy. To do so, leave a comment. All comments go through moderation. Site your source and how you would like to be credited. The more detailed the information, the better.

Well, that sounds interesting so a few clicks later I'm that blog's first subscriber in Bloglines. I don't know how long I'll keep it but I'm interested in photography-related legal issues so I'm giving it a shot. If it becomes not worth my time I can always unsubscribe.

Odds & Ends

There's been a few news items of late that I've been thinking about yet somehow can't bring myself to write long posts about so I'll just throw out my general opinion on the issues here:

The SAFE Act
Many a library blog have been complaining about the implications of this potential new law when it comes to offering public and open WiFi in the library. While I'm not defending this bill in any way, shape, or form, I think certain bloggers are overreacting. Here's the relevant text:

"Anyone providing an “electronic communication service” or “remote computing service” to the public who learns about the transmission or storage of information about certain illegal activities or an illegal image must..." [emphasis added]

The key phrase here is "who learns about". In other words, providers of open WiFi are not required to troll for illegal activity, just report it if they find out about it. Which, in my opinion is something that we should be doing from a moral standpoint anyway. (You see child porn on a computer in the library, you say something.) If you're concerned about having to report, this is just another reason to not look over the shoulders of your patrons.

The Kindle
I've held one and I'm not impressed. I have a Sony Reader (and not even the latest version) and that impresses me. (I may have one or two of my facts wrong in this bit so please correct me if appropriate. The Kindle is $400. The Reader, $300 or less. The Kindle has a keyboard, the Reader doesn't. So what. I'd rather have that space taken up by the screen instead of having another device on which I have to type with my thumbs. I can easily get pretty much any document I want onto my Sony Reader through an iTunes-esque interface. For the Kindle I either need to buy it from Amazon or go through some undocumented hack-like steps to get my files into it. The Kindle is physically larger than the Reader and just feels more cumbersome. The Reader does audio, the Kindle doesn't. (Ok, not a big deal to me but it might be tom some people.) Those big honkin' buttons on the side of the Kindle are too easily accidentally pressed. The Kindle's WiFi? From what I hear every little thing you do is going to cost you. But you might be in the airport and finish off the last book and need to buy a new one you say. Sorry, but if you're on a trip and have read everything on a device that can hold hundreds of books, you've either had way too much free time to read (go out and get some exercise) on your trip or it's the result of poor planning on your part. Go buy a paperback for $7.99 at the gift shop. At least then you'll own something more than a license.

No, the Sony Reader isn't perfect but I don't believe the Kindle is the killer app of eBooks or even much of an improvement. It's tacking on a bunch of features to a good product that no one really needs. And no, I'm not going to get into the whole DRM discussion here as that applies to both platforms. (Well, no more than I did at the end of the previous paragraph.)

RIP Pandora

Pandora is dead due the the recently new (retroactive no less) Internet radio royalty rates. As Doc Searls put it:

"In a move that recalls the Vogons' decision to destroy Earth to clear the way for a highway bypass through space (a thankfully fictional premise of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), the judges comprising the Copyright Royalty Board have decided to destroy the Internet radio industry so the Recording Industry won't be inconvenienced by something it doesn't know, like or understand."

Viacom sues Google/YouTube for (insert Dr. Evil joke here)

Here's the basic story and the Google Copyright Blog has the full text of the complaint as a PDF.

"YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google."

The feds want ISPs to keep data

The feds are at it again. Data retention seems to be their latest thing. This time they want image-sharing sites to keep data "in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate." Normall this would be something I'd comment on just on principle. However, this quote just makes it way to funny:

"Only universities and libraries would be excluded, one participant said. 'There's a PR concern with including the libraries, so we're not going to include them,' the participant quoted the Justice Department as saying. 'We know we're going to get a pushback, so we're not going to do that.'"