For Sale: I'm a Terrorist not a Photographer

the government have some seriously misguided ideas about photography/public access/image rights/copyright

http://copyrightaction.com/forum/uk-gov-nationalises-orphans-and-bans-non-consensual-photography-in-public

if the latest proposals make it through the lords then the cool brittania persona of tory blair and his cronies was just a shallow front to a money grabbing regime that followed. madleson is a twisted sour faced liar and a real cloak and dagger merchant.
change law regarding images 'found' on the web.
make a collections agency for royalties that nobody will know how to claim and keep the cash.
ignore international/european law and have no idea how the proposed legislation will work.
have lords with vested interests like lord puttnam who is a majority shareholder in a media company set to profit from the legislation, the likelihood of him admitting this vested interest in the house of unelected representatives is very very slim.

Good grief !

The second part (The ICO code) is astonishing, if (when ?) made law this will be an extraordinary tool for the state to shut down street photography, citizen journalism and curtail press freedoms. We already have the PCSOs, police officers, council officials, enforcement officers (and so on) shoving cameras out of peoples hands and citing Section 4A of the Public Order Act (HAD) - which is spurious at best, but this could well give the power to whoever wants (it's drafting and definitions look to be typically ill-defined) to stop anyone taking a picture.

I suspect there will be further large scale clamp downs like this rushed through with little parliamentary oversight in the run up the London Olympics, I am sure we will see more and more of these wide ranging powers coming into force and I can't imagine they will be revoked after the Olympics.