Photo by threecee

Along with the rest of the right-thinking world, Popular Mechanics believes in photographers’ rights. In an essay on the magazine’s web site, author and law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds calls law enforcement’s suspicion of cameras “misguided,” claiming cameras make us safer, not the other way around. Citing the Times Square car bomb incident where law enforcement officials sought out private cameras and footage that might yield clues in the case, this guy says photography enhances public safety.

He says:

…it’s a problem that stems as much from cluelessness at the bottom of the chain of command as from heavy-handedness at the top. The officers who crack down on photographers no doubt believe they are protecting public safety. But evidence that photography might be useful to terrorists is slim.

And:

…we need better education among security guards and law enforcement.

But that’s not all:

With the proliferation of cameras in just about every device we carry, digital photography has become too ubiquitous to stop. Let’s have a truce in the war on photography and set our sights on the real bad guys.

To read the whole article, go to Popular Mechanics