One more reason not to go to Long Beach

[Eric Woodbury]

http://gizmodo.com/5831230/long-beac...c-value-photos

This coupled with the fact that there is nothing of aesthetic value in Long Beach.

[Robert Hughes]

There's a thread in the Lounge about this story.

[Ed Kelsey]

I didn't need a reason not to go there.

[Sirius Glass]

I didn't need a reason not to go there.

[GPS]

The land of freedom became the land of feardom...?

[John Kasaian]

Actually there was a training video produced by....Homeland Security I think...I recollect seeing it on You tube a few years ago, instructing law enforcement officers on how to size up photographers as potential terrorist threats. LBPD is just following the game plan.
If you want it to change, don't preach to the choir, hire a lawyer.

[JMB]

Actually there was a training video produced by....Homeland Security I think...I recollect seeing it on You tube a few years ago, instructing law enforcement officers on how to size up photographers as potential terrorist threats. LBPD is just following the game plan.
If you want it to change, don't preach to the choir, hire a lawyer.

The Nazi camp nurses said something similar: "We were just doing our jobs." In my view the LBPD is not immune from the 4th Amendment just because a federal agency ignores it in the name of security. Also, I think that it is important to communicate with each other about this important issue. In any case, I think that you will find that the high court that put modern teeth into the 4th Amendment and fortified the liberty rights, which you might expect the lawyer to assert with confidence has been gone for a very long time. The lawyer would ultimately find himself up against a Supreme Court (if he even got that far) that has been slowly chipping away at 4th Amendment freedoms for over 30 years. The public's conception of traditional American liberty and its importance in our culture is quite different than the view exercised by contemporary courts. And even the public's demand for liberty is softening. The political machinery is selling fear these days, not liberty. Hence, its time for the choir to start singing about unacceptable conditions.

[John Kasaian]

"And even the public's demand for liberty is softening."
The erosion of rights is a direct result of the erosion of culture. It is a folly to think that one is not affected by the other---look at all the other good things that are eroding: financial security, health care, journalistic integrity, the list goes on ad nauseum...
Your Nazi analogy is spot on---a political system will always expand it's power when a society becomes distracted with it's self indulgences, but this gets into matters of politics & religion, which is verboten here, so I'll shut up.

[Michael Gordon]

This coupled with the fact that there is nothing of aesthetic value in Long Beach.

With all due respect, if you can't find one thing of aesthetic value to photograph in Long Beach, you're likely finding challenges everywhere else.

I live in Long Beach and have commented against this constitutionally absurd "policy" . Now that this news has moved widely through the internet-photosphere, I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of police/photographer encounters in the weeks to come.

[Drew Wiley]

I don't see how there's any problem. 99.99% of all photographs have little or no
esthetic value, even if they were taken in Yosemite.