[PRCo] Re: Brilliance in Transit Management

[Fred Schneider]

You would throw in a moral or ethical question in the last paragraph, wouldn't
you?

It is generally considered illegal for me to sneak onto your private property to
take your picture but perfectly legal if you are on a public street as part of a
crowd.

But what do you do with a religious sect such as the Amish, right here in
Lancaster County, who believe that the camera takes away part of their soul.
Their religion forbids photography.   By not driving, they escape photo drivers
licenses.  By not traveling outside the U. S. or Canada, they evade having a
passport photo.   Most recently their was a suit by one Amishman who entered
from Canada that they should not have forced him to have his picture taken for
an INS immigration card.  He tried to sue from Canada and lost.  But now he is a
citizen of the U. S., and is suing from a slightly different platform.   Ah, but
what about all the tourists who come to Lancaster and very rudely stick cameras
out of car windows at the Amish, or pull over to photograph them in the buggy as
they go by.....   Not illegal but it does force some of the most productive and
hard working people to move away to some place where there are fewer tourists
and cheaper farmland.

And should it be illegal to photograph a motorman or bus driver at work and then
use that picture to prove he was lying when he told the court that he had no job
and therefore could not pay child support?   I was lead to believe from some
BSRA members that that was the root cause of the MBTA's prohibition of
photography.

Is it illegal to photograph a transit employee goofing off when he should be
working?   If he was in the break room watching TV and having a sandwich, the
public would naturally believe he is goofing off.  Maybe he is on break.  Or
maybe he is taking the fifth break of the morning.  It has also been alledged
that this is the reason why MBTA doesn't want cameras around.

Should you ask each person out of courtesy before you include them in a
picture?  I think so if they are close enough to be recognizeable.

Wonder how long this will drag out since most of us tote cameras.

Bob Rathke wrote:

> This proposed rule is not new.  I recall seeing signs in New York City
> subway stations in the early 1960's warning that photography on NYCTA
> property was forbidden.  In 1958, a friend sneaked a photo of a train
> approaching an elevated platform in Queens, but it was the only photo that
> he attempted to take on TA property.
>
> Also in  the1950s, a policeman in the PRR station in Pittsburgh stopped me
> from taken a photo of a train there.  The B&O station across town was always
> more railfan friendly.
>
> Such paranoia about photography seemed to ease by the 1980's, but...
>
> - In the 1980's, Chicago sports fans were still not allowed to take photos
> at Cubs baseball and Blackhawks hockey games.  If I took my camera to a
> game, I had to hand it in at the "Guest Relations" office, and reclaim it
> after the game.  By the early 1990's they relaxed the rule, and you could
> take a camera into the stadium, but you first had to sign a form that stated
> that your photos would be for personal use only.
>
> - And after 150 years of photography being an acceptable practice, there are
> still people out there who never want to have their photos taken.  Maybe
> they're doing something illegal, but I have numerous photos of street scenes
> that depict people hiding their faces from the camera.
>
> Bob 1/8/05
> -----------------------------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Schneider" <fschnei at supernet.com>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>; "Richard Allman"
> <AllmanR at einstein.edu>
> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 7:15 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Brilliance in Transit Management
>
> > Todays New York Times contains a nice piece on the TA's proposed rule
> > that will make it illegal to photograph any of their equipment.  I'm
> > waiting for the first tourist to be arrested for photographing Times
> > Square (with a bus in it) or a picture of his family in the subway.
> > What a great way to make an international incident out of stupidity.
> >
> > And today's Washington Post contains a method by which WMATA wishes to
> > increase the capacity of its rail system ... remove the seats from the
> > cars.  They would leave two pairs of seats, those which cover vital
> > electrical equipment and thus can't be removed.
> >
> > I've read that in every group of people, half are below average.   Do
> > they always move to New York, Washington and Boston?
> >
> > That ought to get a response out of someone on the list.  And no, I'm
> > not kidding about the newspapers.  Look for yourself.
> >
> >
> >