Freedom photo finish: snapshots of government.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Citings - Brief article

THE FEDERAL government admits it: Taking pictures of government buildings isn't a crime.

The confession came in October, when the feds settled a lawsuit fried by the software developer and Libertarian Party activist Antonio Musumeci with the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU). Musumeci, who had been videotaping the November 2009 arrest of an activist distributing leaflets outside a federal courthouse in New York, was approached by agents of the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service (FPS), who arrested him and confiscated his camera. The charges were dropped, but Musumeci filed a civil suit to win an official admission that the harassment was illegitimate.

In the settlement, the FPS grants that the law it relied on in arresting Musumeci does not in fact "prohibit individuals from photographing (including motion photography) the exterior of federal courthouses from publicly accessible spaces." While the FPS does not explicitly mention other federal buildings, where official...