In a distinctly worrying move the UK's police forces have launched an anti-photography propaganda campaign. What annoys me about this is that it is unlikely to have any real impact on terrorism, but will impact genuine photographers around our cities, who are going to see an increased amount of hassle from police, after being "reported" by members of the public.
The majority of the photographers I know carry medium to large digital SLR cameras and don't exactly hide the fact they are taking photos. Any terrorist is not going to do that. Why bother when mobile phones have such good cameras nowadays? All this is going to do is result in increased occasions where we see what I like to call "the theatre of security" taking place. This is when the police react solely in an effort to show they are doing something, and therefore reassure the public, regardless of whether they consider you a threat or not.
View a PDF of the police campaign
UPDATE: I pointed this out to Thomas Hawk who has also posted about this on his blog. He gets a few more comments than me which make for interesting reading as it appears most people are against this.
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