Are police & secuirty staff exceeding their authority in the name of terrorism?

Asks willie2cameras on the ePhotoZine message board. Yes, absolutely is the obvious reply after reading his story.

Having been a photographer for around 30 years, I am getting concerned that police and the £5 per hour security 'jobsworths' are exceeding or misusing their authority under the catch all of terrorism.

Just what on earth is happening?

The restrictions and hassle being imposed for no valid reason I can see, are greater than at the height of the IRA terror attacks.

In the past few weeks, I have been told that photography at railway stations "is banned".

It isn't - photographers are still welcome. I've been threatened with the transport police - I did wait once for 30 mins after I insisted they were called but they never came - and once asked to hand over my memory card! No one has that right.

There was a heated conversation with a security man after I took pictures from a public road of a new building under construction. I was told I "needed permission as the building was copyright".

...

There is a danger that in 20-30 years time there will be no photographs of street scenes, public buildings, everyday life because common sense is not being applied. Someone told me this week a photographer had been apprehended under the Prevention of Terrorism act for taking a picture of a shop in a High Street, and Labour MP Austin Mitchell had aggrevation at the party conference.

I have recently visited Holland, Germany, Ireland, Hungary and Switzerland and had no problems at all.

So why Britain? Are those in authority paranoid? Our rights and freedoms are being eroded and it seems no one is fighting it.

In Holland, Germany, Ireland, Hungary and Switzerland New Labour is not in power. A little fascism makes a big difference.