Weekend snapper wars

"Has our increasingly paranoid society declared war on the humble 'weekend snapper'?", Daily Telegraph article.
"An amateur photographer is chased by the police after taking pictures on the seafront; another man is frogmarched away when using his camera in a town centre. Since when did carrying a camera in public provoke so much suspicion and hostility?"
... "The police were responding to a 999 call from someone who claimed to have seen Rigg taking photographs in a public park earlier that afternoon. They had tracked him from a control centre on a series of CCTV cameras before sending the squad car out to apprehend him."
"The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) is unequivocal on the matter: 'Police officers may not prevent someone from taking a photograph in public unless they suspect criminal or terrorist intent,' they say in a statement. 'Their powers are strictly regulated by law and once an image has been recorded, the police have no power to delete or confiscate it without a court order.'"

Finally these issues are reaching the mainstream press.

Howard added:
Front page of the 'Metro' free paper in London today: Police falsely arrested a man for taking photographs of them reversing their van the wrong way down a one-way street before parking outside a Fish and Chip shop and going in. The man was held for five hours before being bailed. During that time he was forced to have a DNA swab taken as well as his finger prints. The arresting officer claimed - among other things - that the photographer was drunk and disorderly, carrying drugs and behaving in a threatening manner. The charges were later dropped and the Chief Constable of the Constabulary concerned issued a written apology. The arresting officer has apologised in person, but has not been disciplined. The photographer is now pursuing a civil action against the officer and the Police Force.

This highlights one of the very real dangers that we are, to quote the UK's Information Commissioner: "sleep walking into a surveillance society". The irony here is that the Police acted illegally, yet it was the innocent photographer who had his DNA taken not them. That DNA will now be on the UK national DNA database (remember, even though the false charges were dropped), and there is currently no routine mechanism in place for his DNA to be removed from that database.

So far, I have never been challenged whilst taking photographs in public places, or even while just carrying my camera and bag. Perhaps I've been lucky, maybe I've just not been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am left wondering how much of this hysteria is a reaction by both the public and the authorities to what they might see as excesses of the Paparazzi? I don't know, I just raise the question for consideration. One just wonders if things go on as they are, how long before a photographer gets killed in such circumstances?