Photographers Can Be Detained If Their Photos Have 'No Apparent Esthetic Value'

You might be interested in the discussion from 2 days ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2884072

I think this piece is fluff. According to the original article, the story unfolded a bit differently. A suspicious cop with no 'Aesthetic Values' asked a photographer for his license. This not being Nazi Germany, the photographer was offended and talked back, then later publicly complained. He was not detained as in hauled to a police station, but rather not allowed to leave before the policeman assessed why he was taking photos in a refinery. The cop did his job and the journalist his. No story here, other than the cop trying to be a bully and threaten to use terrorism charges if he feels like it. This is business as usual it seems anyways.

    1 After running Wolff's driver's license, Kahn left the scene without ordering Wolff to desist.

    2 Legally, a police detention has occurred when "a reasonable individual" in that circumstance would be believe he or she is not free to leave 

http://www.lbpost.com/life/greggory/12188

In other news: http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/photo-ok/

I don't see how limiting right to make shots of public space it is good for a society. I think it simply isn't and the said right should be codified.

I'm getting really close to automatically flagging anything from TechDirt. I don't recall ever seeing a worthwhile story on TechDirt that wasn't covered much more accurately elsewhere.

Most vacation snapshots have no apparent esthetic value. Virtually all "partying people" have no esthetic value. If this pseudo-law will deter people from taking poorly composed, red-eyed, overly-flash-filled shots of tipsy partiers, I'm all for it.

Talk about your unintended consequence!

I thought it's in Europe... California? who came up with this horrible idea?