Muni Photography Ban: Update
To follow up on our previous story, we're not sure whether the Muni photography ban is the biggest threat to our personal freedom, but we have a feeling that if we don't blow this all a little out of proportion, it will probably be ignored. Civil liberties in our country seem to be dying a death by inches, and what worries us more than simply having a rule banning photography on Muni station platforms is that it is being enforced without having been publicly reviewed or even codified in a legal document. Secret laws selectively enforced is not our idea of Democracy.
First of all, Steve's story has been corroborated in many details by other sources we found in comments to both his own post and other posts regarding the issue. For instance, Merlin Mann of 43 Folders fame relates the following tale in the comments to Jeff Veen's post on the topic:
"Except for the police intervention point, this is similar to an experience I had at Castro Station Sunday before last (2/6). I was taking this photo and heard the voice over the Station intercom very pointedly announcing that taking photos on MUNI is illegal."I walked straight over and asked what law I was meant to be breaking and under whose authority I was being asked to stop. They had no idea. I wouldn’t leave without a code that they could cite. Spent 12 minutes watching two workers flip through comb-bound books to find the reference to this notional law. After 15 minutes, one of the booth folk stepped out, and was very nice but not particularly helpful. I said 'Is this a city, state, or federal law that you claim I’m breaking?' and she said, (yes, I wrote it all down), 'I think it’s because of 9/11.'"
When we emailed, he pointed out that "I don't have an axe to grind with those MUNI folks—whom I perceived thought they were just doing their job. I guess I'm more troubled by the idea that some apparently baseless legal zeitgeist might be allowed to persist at a higher level at MUNI." Indeed.
Steve got in touch after we had emailed him and we had a lengthy chat about the incident. Steve wanted to stress that no cause will be served by angrily confronting, verbally abusing or otherwise disrespecting Muni and law enforcement officials. He comes from a law enforcement family, both his step-father and mother having been officers. While the actions of the two officers in this case extremely upset him, it behooves us to remember that they are following the rules as laid down by their superiors. Of course, in the end, we are their superiors -- hence the concerns over the lack of public information on the ban.
As Steve points out, he is "Joe law abiding citizen." He has no outstanding parking tickets, no warrants, and that when confronted by the Police, his main goal was to challenge the constitutionality of the ban. "Okay, [shutter click] I want to be cited," was his attitude. The fact that they they were dismissive of his constitutional rights and offered to cite him for an unrelated crime, Steve points out, is "a pretty clear indication that no such code exists." SFist scoured the Muni charter, the MTA website, the SFPD website, the CalTrans website and even the USA PATRIOT Act and found nothing to contradict Steve.
"I'm a reasonable guy," he continued. "If you can demonstrate to me that we gained security by not having photography...[that] there's a need for secrecy...I appreciate that. I don't think the Pentagon should publish every memo that crosses Donald Rumsfeld's desk." It was clear from our conversation that Steve is not a bomb-throwing anarchist. Constitutional freedoms, to him, are "the fundamental principle behind the authority the people give the state," which only in today's political climate could be considered an opinion only of the left. Though Steve admits that "it's hard for a beat cop arresting the scum of the earth to step back and take a long view of the constitution," but being the son of officers, he has "an idealistic view of law enforcement."
The only person who responded to emails for clarification on the rules was Maggie Lynch at the MTA press office. "For both safety and security reasons we require that a request be made to our Agency in advance of any filming on Muni Property." When we asked for a clarification as to who to ask for permission, she replied: "I am the contact, although for many film shoots etc. I pass them on to someone else in Operations to coordinate. Staff knows if someone has permission because they are either accompanied or I have informed them (staff in affected area) personally." But we had asked her specifically what regulations govern filming and photography on Muni platforms, so we don't feel this necessarily answers our question.
Steve says that his professional organization, the National Press Photographers Association, have been very helpful and supportive. We spoke to David Greene of the First Amendment Project in Oakland, who is a co-chair of the Freedom of Information Committee at the Society for Professional Journalists (who have lobbied in the past for photographer's access to the NYC Subways). He agreed to ask the SPJ to lodge a formal request for clarification from the city as the the laws regarding Muni station photography, which is frankly all that Steve, our SFist, has asked in our communications with city government.
Since we don't have a team of lawyers (though we've got our money on SFist Rita in a game of one-on-one), we can't get the access to demand any sort of formal response, or even an agreement that a formal response will be prepared and given down the road. What we can do is quietly and peacefully assemble at noon this Saturday, the 19th, at the Embarcadero station Muni fare gate and start taking pictures. Steve stresses that "People being led away in handcuffs will not help the cause," so "hotheads stay home." We couldn't agree more. What we are looking for is a citation under the laws governing Muni station photography so that we can bring it up in court. We get no sense of security from officials enforcing unwritten laws by bullying the public and hoping that they're too scared or confused to argue for their rights.