A few days ago, MTA police in Penn Station (owned by Amtrak) arrested William Stoeckley for using his cell phone to take a photo of police armed with semi-automatic weapons. Charges were later dropped, but not before they deleted the photo (although it might still be recoverable through some computer program). For two photos of Washington DC police training on AR-15s, see here as published in the Washington Post in 2008. Here are photos of a Port Authority of New York and Chapel Hill policemen similarly armed.
My research, although limited, tells me that photography in public places is legal unless there are specific statutes forbidding it. Amtrak is a federal government corporation and there is no such law. If there were such a law, Stoeckley would have been charged and there would probably be signs forbidding photos or some written materials warning to that effect upon entering Penn Station. In fact, in 2009 Amtrak explicitly wrote a letter to the effect that such photography was allowable. Further materials on photo rules are here and here. The laws on photography vary. For some gossip, see here.
My view is that if there is government, then it cannot be controlled or limited unless its subjects know what it is doing. That is a necessary condition. Getting information and communicating it are necessary in order that people know what the government is doing. These may loosely be called “free speech”, but such a term is not really needed; this is a matter of common sense and logic in public matters. Governments do policing, and so photographing them cannot be something generally forbidden, that is, forbidden as a general rule. Police cannot be allowed to use secret weapons or secret methods or be shielded from the public’s right to know what they are up to. If that is allowed, then the public doesn’t and can’t control the police. That’s a component of a police state. Disallowing photographs of armed police is objectionable on these grounds as a facet of police state behavior.
There would have to be some very clear and overriding issue of safety of the police or of travelers in order to have a statute forbidding photography. But the notions that a photo might conceivably be used in a terror plot or be used by potential terrorists or somehow is harming police or policing are not and never can be such issues. If every action that is a conceivable threat to public order is forbidden or subjects members of the public to arrest and questioning, then, again, that is a police state. It is a situation in which people live in constant fear and uncertainty because police can construe any activity as a threat. That is a situation in which the government controls the people and the people no longer control the government, the latter being one possible definition of a police state.
A policeman reportedly said that Stoeckley was being hassled because he was a dick. Actually, the police are the dicks in this case (in more ways than one).
