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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 18074
[Civil]
Date Posted:
6/29/2007
8:18:19 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 5,461
RSS: 23,989
Comments: 7
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Photographs Spur Debate On First Amendment
Author: Kelly Brewington Source: Baltimore Sun
Title: PHOTOGRAPHS SPUR DEBATE ON FIRST AMENDMENT
The snapshots seemed harmless, or so Chip Py thought.
Strolling around downtown Silver Spring on a recent afternoon, the amateur photographer began shooting the architecture of one of the city's grandest revitalization efforts -- a popular mix of shops, restaurants and outdoor gathering spaces that has transformed the once sleepy downtown area.
The photo shoot was cut short when a security guard ordered Py to stop, saying that photographs were not allowed on the private property.
Py was upset. Wasn't downtown Silver Spring, a project built with millions in city and state funds, a public space?
According to the developers and Montgomery County officials, the answer is no.
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Community Thoughts: There are 7 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Who's Rights? My Rights! | Jun 30th. at 7:59:12 am EDT
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Bellagunn (Fairmont, West Virginia) - Email Me
"But making a case for First Amendment rights could be tough, Dienes said.
"Typically, a private property owner can't violate your First Amendment rights, only the government can," he said.
"
Creepy.......but sadly true anymore. Thank you patriot act.
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| Same Situation In Los Angeles | Jun 29th. at 3:40:27 pm EDT
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GreeneDragon (Palmdale, California) - Email Me
Here in L.A. we built a fairly effective public light rail system including a subway that has several stops. Each of the subway stations has a unique decor developed by commissioned artists. Of course all of this was heavily subsidized by tax money. Yet photographs of the beautiful decor is forbidden in the name of "private property" and enforced by local LAPD officers. How can a taxpayer funded public transit station be private ?!?
Please note, after 9-11 this rule weakly makes sense as a security concern but the photo-ban has been in place long before 2001 (I personally observed this being enforced several times in both 1999 and 2000) .
Find More info -- HERE
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| Free Market, Unfree People | Jun 29th. at 12:46:25 pm EDT
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Wild Huntsman (Toronto, Ontario) - Email Me
The unfortunate part of this discussion is that no one has identified the truly crucial issue viz., why must a formerly public space now come under private ownership and why that area became derelict in the first place?
Greed is too simplistic a description and not really valid, since every human who desires more can be accused of greed.
This incident is merely a symptom of the general failure to protect freedom in a system devoted to freedom that is based on the iconography of bold, independent individualism as epitomised by so-called free-market capitalism.
The problem begins when an individual, demanding utter freedom to do as they please, also rejects the social necessity of paying into the public purse for the common welfare. Hence tax structure that promotes 'free market' which inevitably results in increasing concentration of ownership and control of resources into the hands of fewer and fewer people. The indisputable fact is that free-markets always tend to monopolies, and in the "free" market system, smaller businesses get driven out by larger ones. As the public are manipulated by mass advertising, business increases at the heavily-advertised corporate franchises in the suburban malls and the small, local businesses disappear, leaving the derelict town centres. Then it becomes only possible to 'revitalise' the core by then turning it over to private enterprise, who turn public space into another mall. The result, then, is that formerly public spaces become privately owned and controlled, with private restrictions on behaviour.
The harsh truth is that freedom to do anything ultimately depends on control of resources, which, in turn, depends on access to public space, which can only be preserved by social contract. The social contract can only be maintained by restraining the corporations. That means restoring the social contract and sense of common welfare.
Or, you can try and maintain your rights dealing with private security on someone else's private property near you. Good luck with that.
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| A Stranger Photographed Her Child? | Jun 29th. at 9:50:35 am EDT
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Lea (Cedar Park, Texas) - Email Me
This is strange to me, be a photo maniac myself. There was a time when I carried a 35mm camera with me everywhere. My trusty Nikon has assisted me in photographing adorable children everywhere, not to mention sunsets and rises, beautiful landscape, old gorgeous architecture and so much more.
I have pics of some very cute kids playing in the surf on Galveston Island, don't know who they were but they were too cute to pass up covered in wet sand on each other's heads and bodies, laughing and scooping it all over each other.
Pics of old buildings simply for the beauty of design and age.
I don't understand this at all but with the age we live in, I suppose many are terrified of cameras and the strangers behind them.
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