"Cops Target Photographers This author is one of the victims. By Carlos Miller Published on July 10, 2008
With camera in hand, Momoko Sudo headed from her Schenley Park home to the Biltmore Hotel gym for her morning workout. It was June 10, and the sun was bursting through the clouds after an early-morning shower. The demure 39-year-old Japanese artist paid particular attention to the raindrops on the leaves. She planned to photograph them.
Drawn by the picturesque entry into Coral Gables via Coral Way, she crossed Red Road and strolled along a sidewalk until she spotted a police officer sitting on his motorcycle talking on a cell phone. Thinking it a good image, she snapped a photo and continued walking.
'Come here!' Ofcr. Nelson Rodriguez barked. Then he demanded her camera. Soon he deleted more than 150 photos. He ripped out the memory card and slammed it on the sidewalk.
'I was very upset,' says Sudo, who stands five feet two inches talls and considers herself a passive person. 'But I didn't want to say anything because he was very big and angry.'
The incident is one of at least four that have occurred in Miami-Dade County over the past year in which photographers have ended up arrested, handcuffed, threatened, intimidated, or accused of being a terrorist. (I spent 16 hours in jail as a result of one of them.) Taken together, they raise the question of whether the First Amendment means anything anymore. 'Officers do not have the right to seize cameras, look at the images, or delete the images,' says Oregon attorney Bert Krages, who wrote The Legal Handbook for Photographers: The Rights and Liabilities of Making Images."
I vote it protects the government by giving the facade of freedom and fundamental fairness. It is like in the drug zones you could at one time see people dealing and using and the police looked the other way for whatever noble or ignoble reasons. Because there was NO fist of law currently directed at these individuals some believed that this proved they had liberty as long as they weren't violating their neighbor's rights or being an asshole. Tempting it is to accept such a vision when the alternative is that you're just very fortunate not have met the government's fist firsthand.
To those who believe they have freedom of speech, I would say your freedom is as secure as your right to bear arms or your right to travel or your right to sovereignty over your own body or any other purported right. In other words it is pathetic joke to be decided at the whim of government at any level and those who involuntarily serve it to protect their asses.
Bottom line: You might get away with enjoying a stripper. You might get away with taking a few photos. You will NOT, immhoo, get away with photographing strippers!!! LOL!!! :)
Sadly these things are becoming commonplace.