Watch this footage taken by Guardian journalist Paul Lewis during his standoff with City of London police outside a famous London landmark.
Assistant Commissioner John Yates, the senior Metropolitan police officer leading Britain's fight against terrorism, has warned that police risk losing public support by abusing anti-terrorism stop-and-search powers when dealing with people taking photographs outside public buildings.
Urging officers to use common sense, he said photographers should not be stopped and searched unless there was a "very good reason".
His formal message to officers follows an increasing number of complaints from amateur and professional photographers, who stated they were being stopped and questioned without reason by police and security guards under anti-terrorism laws, on suspicion of being terrorists on a "hosile reconnaissance mission".
Yates said that while police should remain vigilant there was no restriction on people taking photographs of public buildings other than in "very exceptional circumstances".
He also added that there was no ban on photographing front-line uniform staff and the act of taking a photograph in itself was "not usually sufficient to carry out a stop". He added: "These are important yet intrusive powers. We risk losing public support when they are used in circumstances most reasonable people would consider inappropriate."
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Thomas L. Blair is a sociologist and political blogger on the Chronicleworld 'for creative renewal in Black Britain and Afro-Europe'. His work is honoured in the British Library's archive of "social, historic and culturally significant web-based material from the UK domain". He won top prize in the blogging competition on The-Latest.
Sumantra Maitra is a freelance journalist from Mumbai, India. He is a correspondent for All Sports magazine, and a foreign affairs blogger for the Washington Examiner. He has written articles for news website Merinews.com and other regional publications. Sumantra runs a blog at DailyWorldWatch.wordpress.com. He provided exclusive eyewitness reports for The-Latest on the Mumbai bombings of 2008.
Brian Usher is photography consultant for The-Latest.Com. He is a highly experienced editorial and commercial photographer whose work has been published throughout the world, appearing in many well known magazines and newspapers. Brian has featured in several books and has been a writer for the Royal Photographic Society magazine.
Heidi Kingstone has spent time in Afghanistan reporting for a number of publications. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Sunday Times and other international journals. She has also reported from places like Iraq, Rwanda, Lebanon, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya. Heidi is The-Latest's Editor at large.
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