Photography Is Not A Crime

An active duty US Army soldier was confronted my military police at Hunter Army Airfield at Fort Stewart Georgia for taking photos of a KC-130 aircraft performing touch and gos. The soldier was told that he would be charged with a felony and images were deleted from his camera.

Details are still being forward to me at this time and I will update this story when the facts are in.

So far the facts that have been reported to me are these:

1. The photographer is an active duty US Army soldier who has served in Afghanistan

2. While detained, the military police told the service member that he would be charged with a felony. To my knowledge he has not been charged with anything yet.

3. The aircraft being photographed was a KC-130, a 4 engine propeller driven transport plane designed in the 1950's and used to refuel other other aircraft (nothing secret, stealth or high-tech about it)

4. Two photos of the KC-130 were deleted from his camera

5. The military police searched the soldier's facebook and flickr page for aircraft photos and said that he "must be doing this illegally"

6. The military police informed the soldier that he is no longer allowed to take photographs at Hunter Army Airfield or Savanna Hilton Head International Airport.

7. The soldier was told that it is "illegal to take photos of a runway"

One thing that must be kept in mind regarding this case is that rules, regulations, rights and freedoms for active duty service members on military property can be very different than they are for us civilians. But even considering that fact, it seems that this soldier may have had his rights violated by MPs that are making up the rules as they go along. We will see.

More details to come as they are forwarded to me.

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 03:54 PM | Permalink

After 4 years of running this blog and trying to bring attention to the issue of photographer's rights and point out violations of photographers right I have been called a "fake" by someone that I thought was fighting the same fight with me. The photography rights advocate and blogger Carlos Miller recently posted a blog entry calling my site a "Fake PINAC Blog Soliciting For Donations".

I am dumbfounded by this recent event. Aside from the occasional small donation I have received over the years I have run this site out of my own pocket, on my own time and asked for nothing in return.

I do not know Mr. Miller and I have never done anything to invite this sort of reaction from him. Actually I would have assumed until today that were allies in the same battle. I guess I was wrong about him and his character.

In his post Mr. Miller claims that my website was apparently launched in August of 2011 and only has 7 blog posts .... a fact that even if it were true (it's not) seems irrelevant. My website was launched 4 years ago and has 43 posts.

Mr. Miller seems to believe that I am somehow trying to make people believe that this little blog is his and therefore I am somehow infringing on his rights and his apparent desire to profit in some way from his advocacy of photography rights. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Mr. Miller, for whatever reason, seems to be offended by the fact that I have a "donation" button on my blog as many people do. He does not seem to understand that a donation to the site is optional and there is no profit motive associated with this site.

An email I received from Phillip Breske (I'm not sure what his connection (if any) with Mr. Miller is) suggested that someone might confuse my site with Mr. Miller's site. His comment: "Really? You can't see any way in which someone might confuse the two sites? None at all? I think a court would feel differently. I guess you'll find out."

Mr. Breske's comment has gotten me thinking, perhaps there is some remote chance that someone might confuse the two sites and if that's that case perhaps I have a case against Mr. Miller for infringing on my rights as I am the legal owner of www.photographyisntacrime.com and he has named his blog with a name that VERY similar to my domain name. I suppose if you have a blog you can name it anything you want, but I think if you use a name that is one letter away from a registered domain name there may be an issue of infringement ... I'll have to look into this.

If anyone knows what Mr. Miller's problem with me is please feel free to comment. After running this site for 4 years now this recent development has come completely out of left field. I've never had any correspondence with Mr. Miller and I cannot imagine what caused him to react in this way.

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 04:56 PM | Permalink

Posted by Allen Rockwell at 12:05 AM | Permalink