Tower 55
Its DGNO. Not Dingo!
I don't intend this to be to political but Tower 55 makes a good argument.
I agree that the police don’t get to interpret the Constitution. That duty falls to the judicial branch. Since the day the last signature was put on the Constitution it has had to be interpreted. This is a part of its strength and many believe the writers intended this to allow it flexibility to adapt to a future they couldn’t foresee. The police only enforce the law. As in the MTA case the police don't get to make laws that don't exist. The courts say photography is protected by the First Amendment. Like freedom of speech there are limits but in general it is protected.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not open for interpretation. They never have and as long as we live in a free society, they never will. There are no limits to freedom of speech. The man who wrote The Constitution and the Bill of Rights did indeed know that the government would try to overstep its bounds, which is why he was why those documents were written the way they were, so they couldnt be infringed upon. TJ even helped pen the Federalist Papers which explain why the rights were written to be absolute and not up for interpretation.
You can yell "fire" in a public room full of people, but you face the consequences of your actions. You can use a racial slur in public, but expect to have a beating placed upon you.
The right to disagree with the government (redress of grievances) is also protected by the First Amendment. The writers of the Constitution knew the government would overstep its powers and provided for the people to make grievances. Agreed Mr. Fussell shouldn’t have been told to cease his activity. There was no law or regulation in place prohibiting photography of MTA’s trains. A grievance was made and the government agreed it had overstepped its power. This is indeed in part how our government works and what makes it, even with its flaws, one of the best in the world.
The problem is the MTA is not the law, nor are their police officers. I am(Judge Dredd). What they did was against the law. Thats right, they committed a crime when they stepped on the 1st Amendment rights of Mr Fussell.
As this thread has evolved I searched out the Patriot Act and see if it says anything about photography or not. There is lots covering money laundering, surveillance, defining what domestic terrorism is and so forth. Searching through it for photo, photograph and photography I didn’t find anything remotely relating to limits on photographing “critical infrastructure”.
I would encourage all of us to know what our rights are.
...and thanks Tower 55 for motivating me to look at the Constitution again.
You are a wise man.
More people should take a look at The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and dont forget The Federalist Papers.
I am a firearms owner, and the clowns on the left want to take my guns away(so do the bozos on the right). The thing is, whether you like firearms or not doesnt matter, its still a freedom granted to you/me/us. If our political system is willing to take that amendment out, or limit it in anyway, whats next? Take away any amendment, which one goes away next? Hopefully everybody sees the slippery slope that we are on.
Right now Bill of Rights is having war raged upon it. The battlegrounds are the 1st Amendment, the 2nd Amendment, and the 4th Amendment. Lose one, we've lost the war.