Sustaining Democracy in a Digital Age

The photographer posted this photo, which was taken in 2008, on the

DC Photo Rights

Flickr group with the following caption: "A security guard yelled at me for photographing this pyramid outside a hotel in L'Enfant Plaza. Maybe he thought I was a terrorist scoping out potential blast sites?"

Since freedom of the press is the foundation that American news outlets are built on, we all know that the First Amendment is sacrosanct to this country’s journalists. However, there are a few situations that test the limits of this freedom, and one of these situations has been in the news recently. Though it traditionally falls under the protections of the First Amendment, photography occupies that ambivalent space where cameras can be wielded by both journalists and private citizens with potentially harmful intent. It’s the latter group that leads to conflict between law enforcement officials and camera-toting individuals and frames the debate over security and freedom of the press in the incongruous terms of the Second Amendment.

But in the modern information society, the camera is not a weapon; on the contrary, it’s increasingly the main tool of citizen journalists in their effort to spread information. The easiest way that an average person can contribute to the news ecosystem—one of the prime opportunities for civic engagement—might be to take just one picture. As we pointed out earlier this month, this is how citizen journalism first took off.

But not everyone is happy to let your average American snap photos in public areas, even if it is for the good of the community.

Earlier this week, Annys Shin of The Washington Post shined a spotlight on this issue in an article entitled “Freedom of photography: Police, security often clamp down despite public right.” The article tapped into the ongoing debate over whether freedom of the press trumps national security concerns, or vice versa. Last week’s Washington Post investigative series on U.S. national security projects raised the question, and this clash came to a head just this week in the form of the WikiLeaks release of over 91,000 Afghan War documents.

Instead of addressing documents leaked from seats of power, Shin approached the debate over security versus the First Amendment from the perspective of the ground level, as average citizens have been stopped by security when they try to take pictures of sights ranging from a federal courthouse to an airport runway to a traffic stop. Police officers are taught that photography—in both world-famous, high-trafficked areas and locales that are less likely to be the site of a terrorist act—is a suspicious behavior that might indicate a connection to terrorism. However, they are also taught that such photography is generally permitted by law, as the New York City police issued a direct order last year that photographers in public spaces should not be harassed. Obviously, these contradictory directives present a bit of a paradox for security officers, which has resulted in more and more of these clashes since 9/11.

In response to these struggles, concerned citizens have banded together using file sharing sites, such as the DC Photo Rights group on Flickr, to compile the photos that have been objectionable to the police.

Though many of the incidents at issue here deal with amateur photographers and tourists, the problem has immediate implications for the media sphere—related to the rights and perils of being a citizen journalist. Not many average citizens have access to classified documents, but most everyone can use a camera or camera-phone for visual documentation—whether they are fulfilling the role of a tourist, casual photographer, or a full-fledged citizen journalist supporting the content of news outlets ranging from The Post to a hyperlocal blog run by a single individual.

Shin notes that, even though public officials maintain that photography is allowed almost anywhere, many security officers on public transit and in other public spaces have other concerns on their minds: “Law enforcement officials have a hard time explaining the gap between policy and practice. The disconnect, legal experts say, may stem from a dearth of guidelines about how to balance security concerns with civil liberties.” One of the understandable consequences of 9/11 was that safety and security professionals are on perpetual alert, scared that allowing one photo to be taken could cost American lives. This is not to say that all police/security officers place national security concerns over First Amendment protections, but it is clear that a problem exists.

Since this fear is not likely to subside until terrorism is eradicated (if and when that ever happens), the goal now is to find ways to reconcile national security and freedom of the press on a practical level. To prevent run-ins with misinformed but well-intentioned officers of the law, camera-users might want to be aware of the national security context of their actions. Until the culture changes, citizen journalists must be prepared to encounter this kind of opposition, but should not let it interfere with documenting their surroundings for journalistic and personal purposes. In this vein, a long-term answer might be for police officials and community leaders to collaborate and institute specific training for security professionals on media literacy and the importance of press freedom.

Time and time again, America’s guiding principles have come into conflict with each other. The question right now is straightforward, though its answer has clearly eluded us so far: Do we really need to choose between national security and a robust press—between being safe and being engaged citizens?