speak, it ain't illegal yet

I just read an article in the New York Times about how New York City is trying to require photographers to get permits and insurance for shooting on public grounds. At first you might think, well a lot of cities already do that, but not to the extent that NYC wants to.

They want to make it illegal to take photographs in a group of 2 or more people for longer than 30 minutes in a single area without a permit and a million dollar insurance coverage. Furthermore, if you have a tripod and a group of 5 or more people, the limit is 10 minutes.

A practical example is if you are with your family and want to get some nice night pictures in the park by using a tripod, you have 10 minutes from the time to start setting up to the time you are out of that area before you would be breaking that law.

This seems ridiculous. It appears they have made the proposed law intentionally vague in order to avoid professionals(who the law was intended for) making loopholes. However, there seems like there are numerous ways they could focus the law better without creating loopholes. For instance, they could limit the rules to photographers who are making money from the pictures they are taking and/or are shooting as part of an employment for a company.

With the law the way it currently is, if a photographer was at a public press conference outside, and the press conference lasted more than 30 minutes, they would be potentially breaking the law.

It seems the proposed laws for having a camera are stricter than those for having a gun. In New York City, you just need a single permit for the whole city, not single locations. Also, gun owners aren’t required to carry insurance. I fail to see how a camera could be so much more dangerous than a gun that it requires these restrictions.

I hope the people of NYC try to get this blocked, so the idea doesn’t spread to other cities like Chicago.