Photography is our right, our freedom

The abuse of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is infringing on the freedom of photographers – it has to stop

The stories of photographers being prevented from taking pictures under terror legislation are numerous. There was the Austrian tourist who admired a London bus station, a Kent photographer who snapped Mick's Plaice fish bar in Chatham and was questioned because he was deemed to be suspiciously tall, the man who took a picture of St Paul's Cathedral, the BBC photographer who shoots background scenes for the Top Gear programme, and the man who stood on a rail bridge and photographed trains.

The abuse of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is an established part of British life and is affecting the work of professional photographers and journalists, as well as the pleasure of amateurs. It is an outrageous infringement of an elementary liberty and it is something that we all should be concerned about, because this particular battle has symbolic significance.

Before the BBC sat on Justin Leighton in a typical act of faint-heartedness and distanced itself from his remarks, the Top Gear photographer put his finger on two important issues. The first is that it has become very difficult for a professional photographer to carry out his or her work, particularly in London, without being harassed by police officers who seem to have very little concept of the rights they are infringing.

The second is the propensity of police community support officers to throw their weight around. These high-visibility jobsworths have just enough power to cause the public inconvenience and it seems they like nothing more than to exercise it by citing terror laws that boost their sense of importance. They are a thorough menace to liberty and one of the more regrettable innovations of the Labour era.

But there is a deeper struggle at the base of this issue – the ownership of public space, which the state is consciously laying claim to in these actions. Photographers are stopped in the name of protecting us all from terrorism but actually this can also be seen to be a territorial incursion. What used to be public space is rapidly becoming "state space", the area owned, patrolled and policed by various agencies of the state, which establish their ownership by totemic tribal markers. I am of course referring to the CCTV camera.

Deep in the seething psyche of the British state, there is a belief that taking and recording images has profound symbolic importance. That explains why the state is keen to fill communal spaces with CCTV at the same time as challenging anyone who wants to use their own camera for a private or professional purpose.

It is another manifestation of the state's sense of entitlement. That's why it is very important that section 44 is no longer routinely used to stop photographers: this is our space, our freedom.