Thanks to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the 20,000 people who signed the online petition at www.pictureny.org, and everyone who sent negative feedback to the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting, the City of New York has decided to withdraw its proposed rules governing permits for photographers and film-makers working in public places in New York City. They now plan to redraft a new set of rules based on the public feedback they have received, and to have a new 30-day public comment period to allow people to comment on the new set of proposals.

According to the New York Times's "City Room" blog:

After an outcry from videographers, filmmakers and still
photographers — including a satirical rap video and an online
protest petition that has gathered more than 20,000 signatures —
the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting announced
this afternoon that it would “redraft” proposed rules that would
have restricted how images can be recorded in New York City, one
of the most filmed and photographed places on the planet.
....
The city appears to be modifying its position — if not backing
down entirely — as a result of a settlement from a recent
lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union. The civil
liberties group had threatened to a file a new suit over the
proposed rules. (See the text of the proposal as a PDF.)

I really do think there need to be rules to apply to large commercial film shoots and television broadcasts, because my own neighborhood in New York City (Morningside Heights, near Columbia University) is a fairly frequent film location, and when the film crews come, they do tend to take over. They stop pedestrians from crossing the street or walking down the sidewalk, park in places where there should be no vehicles, and do various obnoxious things such as produce fake rain (this happened right in front of my building and it was real water and a lot of it!), fake violence, and unpleasant flashing lights. I remember one film shoot that involve wolves which scared me as a six-year-old, even though the wolves were being put through their paces behind a chainlink fence. This kind of activity should require a permit. But independent artists making video art or still photography, bird watchers, and citizen journalists should not be restricted at all so long as they do not break any existing laws about obstructing sidewalks or disturbing the peace.

Please forward this to appropriate people:

Saturday July 28th, 2007

New York City is about to act on a proposal to require photographers, videographers, and sound artists to obtain permits from the City in order to film, take still photos, or record audio in the City. You will only be eligible for a permit if you have 1 million dollars liability insurance coverage. Therefore no independent artists will be able to get permits. Moreover, permits will be issued for specific times and places, so it will become illegal to make media art spontaneously in New York City.

I am planning to write to the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting (public comment period ends next Friday, August 3rd, 2007):
Julianne Cho, Assistant Commissioner, Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting, 1697 Broadway, New York NY 10019

or electronically to Ms. Cho at jcho@film.nyc.gov.

I also plan to contact WNYC (New York Public Radio) and the New York Times.

I hope others will join me in protesting this proposed restriction on art-making. Please write to your favorite media outlets to alert them to this issue. Artworks protesting the proposed rules are being solicited by a newly formed group Picture New York (http://www.pictureny.org/).
Here are the specific proposed rules, according to today's New York Times:

One need not have any sympathy for the leader of "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to think that there is something unseemly about the triumphalism in which the killing of this man has been universally greeted. In war (if one believes that war is ever justified, which the majority of Americans and Britons do), our side's job is to kill the enemy. It has been traditional (if tasteless) for our governments to brag about how many enemy soldiers have been killed each day or each month. One assumes that by talking of aggregate numbers of enemy soldiers, governments usually try to avoid engaging the public's imagination, try to distance themselves from the fact that they are in the business of killing people.

Here instead they seem to be deliberately appealing to our collective bloodthirstiness. We are told "we dropped two 500-pound bombs on his safe house." We hear glee in the voice of a marine seargant explaining that the photographs of "the result of the operation" were too gory to show on TV before being cleaned up, with just enough allusions to oozing body fluids and bone fragments to tittilate us. We are told that Zarqawi's corpse was identified by his face, his fingerprints, and his "known scars." We are treated to descriptions of "detail teams" whose job it is to empty the dead man's pockets (to collect intelligence and pocket lint, one presumes) and to confiscate his cell-phone.

Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a White man in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. In so doing, she detonated the Civil Rights Movement, which had been building up for many years but which had not reached the prominence and strength that it gained after Mrs. Parks's protest and the subsequent Montgomery Bus Boycott. As someone who was born after many of the triumphs of Civil Rights, it is hard to imagine living in the United States without the protection of minority rights that is now part of U.S. law and culture. Other groups, such as gays and lesbians, a large variety of ethnic and cultural groups, women, and the disabled have benefited tremendously from what Rosa Parks started. There is still a large amount of prejudice against many groups of Americans, but the Civil Rights Movement has driven prejudice underground. People can no longer get away with loudly and proudly excluding people they don't like as a matter of official policy. For this, I am grateful to Rosa Parks and the millions of others who fought for Civil Rights for African Americans in the 1950's, 1960's, and today.

Like many people, perhaps the majority of people in the world, I belong to several oppressed groups. In some places and situations, women are an oppressed group, and therefore one could say that half the world's people are potential victims of discrimination and oppression. I, myself, have experienced very little discrimination because I am female, even though I studied mathematics and have worked in computers, both fields which are male-dominated or were male-dominated at the time I was involved with them. But I do experience persistent, frequent, and severe discrimination because I am mentally ill. In particular, each time I try to get medical care I am treated very badly, and I have a large number of health problems besides the psychiatric disorder so I am frequently attempting to access healthcare. I also can expect to be mistreated if I try to get a job, but long experience has taught me not to even make the attempt, because there is no way anyone will hire someone with a diagnosis of mental illness no matter how good their skills or past work has been. (People frequently claim that the Americans with Disabilities Act protects mentally ill people and other disabled people against employment discrimination, but this is simply not true, because the ADA has no enforcement provisions so cannot protect anyone from getting mistreated. After the discrimination has occurred, one has the right to sue for damages, but this is only practically possible for poor disabled people if they can convince a lawyer to take their case on contingency, which is not likely for anyone and is almost unheard of in the case of a psychiatric disability because these cases are hard to prove.) Worse than the discrimination I can predict are situations when someone discovers that I am "crazy" and excludes me or mistreats me unexpectedly.

Being vulnerable to arbitrary and severe discrimination at any time has made me better understand why Black people and other racial minorities are constantly "complaining" about racism. Many White, middle class, healthy people (I was once such a person), while they are aware of terrible racist events in the past (e.g. lynchings, Jim Crow laws or Apartheid in South Africa), do not understand why many Black people say that racism is everywhere, even now, and say that they, personally are a victim. My situation has made me realize that if one belongs to a despised minority, there is always the potential for discrimination and mistreatment, so that even if a person is financially secure and appreciated in their home and work community (and this is true for the minority of Blacks in the United States, who are significantly poorer than the national average), they must always worry in every new situation and whenever they meet a new person, that they will be the victim of prejudice and discrimination.