Strictures like this are unfortunate. No doubt. However, I can’t help but wonder if this policy exists largely in response to camera-abuses that have become fairly commonplace in Lancaster’s public forums. Some local activists (whose causes are often honorable) have lately taken to pointing cameras in the faces of public figures while blasting them with questions. If the spontaneous interviewee is bothered by the camera in his face (I would be, regardless of the circumstances) the conversation becomes a dispute over the filming itself.
As the camera continues to roll, the interaction becomes reminiscent of a tourist taunting one of the motionless British Royal Guards.
The collected footage is then posted online to suggest a scandalous suppression of the truth. I mean, heck, if someone doesn’t want a camera in their face, they must be hiding something, they must be involved in this scandal, they must be oppressing someone—right?! Wrong. Bring a video camera to a family gathering this holiday season and start taping your relatives while they eat their mashed potatoes. Step in nice and close and see what happens.
Here a video posted by one such activist: http://vimeo.com/14564575 Around the 4:18 mark you’ll see our host video-recording a random wagon-full of preschoolers as they are carted through downtown for a little day trip. And—surprise, surprise—the women entrusted with their care ask him to stop filming. How scandalous! A preschool teacher didn’t want a strange man to videotape their students.
This is just one of many, many abuses that I have seen. A First Amendment right? Perhaps. But, then again, is it a First Amendment Right to follow someone down the street, waving your hands in their face and calling them names? Maybe that is, too. But it’s also harassment.
Just to re-state my point: Excessive restrictions on camera-use is unfortunate. It shouldn’t be. And certainly LGH can bear some of the blame. But MOST of the blame should be on the heads of those who push their cameras in peoples faces like some annoying, drunk uncle while calling it political activism.
An interesting article that raises some interesting questions.
These days when everything, everywhere is subject to being monitored by video, even when people are not aware of it, there is hardly any expectation of privacy to complain about. If the film-maker is not obstructing your path and/or not threatening you, if you don’t want tt be filmed, perhaps just keep walking rather than feeding into the drama?
While wiretapping laws do vary from state to state, the underlying safeguards were to protect people from unknowingly being recorded. I don’t think that is how DaddyJustic.com operates, at least from the video that was shared in the post on “some abuse camcorders.” Unfortunately, that is what it sometimes takes for people to take notice of things that otherwise go undetected or exposed.