The NYPD, as usual, is overstepping its bounds with regards to what’s legal and illegal.

Police, MTA Officials Crack Down On Subway Photography
February 24, 2006

The vice president of the New York Press Photographers Association says police are routinely cracking down on amateur and professional photographers alike on city subways, even though it’s perfectly legal to take picture anywhere on the subway and commuter rail systems.

“Most people will not do something that a police officer does not want them to do, because they don’t want to be arrested,” said Todd Maisel of the New York Press Photographers Association. “They don’t want to go through the system. They don’t want to deal with the courts.”

“We’re very concerned that police officers, without any legal authority, are telling people they cannot videotape, they cannot photograph,” said Christopher Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “And people, because they respect the police, or they fear the police, are complying with that, even though that’s a completely unlawful order.”

MTA spokesman Tom Kelly says it’s a longstanding policy for the media to let the agency know before taking pictures or video, both to maintain orderly operations and as courtesy to passengers who may not want their pictures taken.

But critics point out that policy’s not written anywhere, leaving it up to individual police officers or transit workers to make their own rules.

I can tell you first hand, this is indeed an issue. The NYPD seems to have an issue where they enforce laws that don’t exist. For years they’ve enforced an anti-Critical Mass law that doesn’t exist, and now they’re enforcing a photography ban that doesn’t exist. If only they’d spend as much time on laws that do exist.

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