Open Letter from Jem Cohen

Begin forwarded message:

> Hello. I'm attaching an open letter regarding an incident that took
> place in
> January. I was stopped from filming out of a train window and had my
> film
> confiscated and turned over to the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the
> FBI.
>
> I went to the ACLU, and have been assisted by a lawyer at the NYCLU
> (New
> York Civil Liberties Union). I wrote a piece about it and included the
> attached letter in the last issue of Filmmaker Magazine.
>
> Recently, the lawyer called to say that the FBI was returning the
> film, as
> it had been cleared by the authorities. When I went to pick it up, I
> found
> that the original box and reel had been sent back, but the reel was
> empty,
> save for a few inches of film. The matter remains unresolved, and for
> me,
> deeply disturbing.
>
> Most of us are inundated with email, and I had mixed feelings about
> sending
> yet another mass missive. Please forgive the intrusion.
> I'm not asking for you to do anything, and that includes write me back.
> I'm sending this simply because I feel that people should know about
> such
> incidents. You are welcome to pass along the attached letter, although
> I
> would prefer that my email address not be made entirely public.
> I would be glad to talk to the press about it, although an editor I
> spoke to
> at the New York Times suggested that it might not be of interest to the
> media because such incidents are becoming too commonplace.
>
> Thank you for having a look.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jem Cohen
>
>
>
> —————-
>
> An open letter to the film and arts community:
>
> On January 7th, 2005, I was filming from the window of an Amtrak train
> going
> from New York to Washington D.C., and my film was confiscated by
> police, due
> to supposed national security concerns. At first, I was told by a
> ticket
> taker that I couldn't shoot because I was in the 'quiet car,' but when
> I got
> ready to move, he said I couldn't shoot at all. I explained that I was
> a
> filmmaker who'd done this for years, and politely asked to speak with
> someone else about it. I stopped filming, waited, and asked again, but
> no
> one came. When the train stopped in Philadelphia, at least four
> uniformed
> officers entered the car and demanded that I step off the train with
> the
> camera. They took my personal information and told me to give them the
> film
> from the camera. Not wanting to ruin it, I insisted on rewinding the
> roll,
> which I then gave up. Upon arrival in D.C., I was immediately met and
> questioned by more officials, this time out of uniform. My film has
> apparently been given to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and then to
> the
> F.B.I. As of this writing, I have not been able to get it back. (I
> took my
> case to the American Civil Liberties Union, who are working on it).
>
> I'd been shooting in 16mm, using an old, hand-wound Bolex. I was
> filming the
> passing landscape as I've often done over the past 15 years. As a
> filmmaker
> who does most of my work in a documentary mode and often on the
> street, my
> role is to record the world as it is and as it unfolds. I build
> projects
> from an archive of footage collected in my daily wanderings, and in
> travels
> across this country and overseas. I film buildings and passersby, the
> sky,
> streets, and waterways; the structures that make up our cities, life
> as it
> is lived. I cannot pre-plan and attempt to obtain permits every time
> that I
> shoot; it is an inherently spontaneous act done in response to daily
> life
> and unannounced events.
>
> I believe that it is the work and responsibility of artists to create
> such a
> record so that we can better understand, and future generations can
> know,
> how we lived, what we build, what changes, and what disappears. This
> has
> been the work of documentarians and artists including Mathew Brady,
> Lewis
> Hine, Walker Evans, Helen Levitt, Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank, and so
> on.
> Street shooting is one of the cornerstones of photography itself, and
> it is
> facing serious new threats, some declared, many not. In New York, the
> MTA
> apparently intends to forbid all unpermitted photography of and from
> its
> trains and subways. I have heard about a film location scout in
> upstate New
> York being interrogated for hours, even after presenting clear
> documentation
> that he was working for a legitimate production company; about
> documentary
> crews having their license plates called in and being visited by the
> FBI;
> about photojournalists working for the New York Times being stopped
> from
> doing the work that they have always done.
>
> As a filmmaker, I am concerned about what this kind of clampdown means
> both
> to our livelihood and to the public, historical record. As a citizen,
> I am
> concerned about a climate in which a person can be pulled off of a
> train and
> have their property confiscated without warning or redress.
>
> I am also, frankly, concerned about terrorism, and genuine threats to
> our
> lives and cities. This leads me to ask if these are efficient,
> intelligent
> allotments of limited law enforcement resources and personnel. Does
> stopping
> us from photographing a bridge make us safer when anybody can search
> the
> internet and see countless photographs of the same bridge? Are all of
> those
> photographs to be somehow suppressed? Given that anyone can purchase a
> video
> recorder with a lens the size of a shirtbutton or any number of hidden
> camera devices, are the people openly taking pictures such an actual
> threat?
> What about all of those cell phones with cameras? As Ben Franklin said:
> "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety
> deserve neither liberty nor safety." Are we even gaining any safety?
> Given that intimidation and the curtailing of our freedom are exactly
> what
> terrorists want, I wonder if these infringements of our civil
> liberties are
> not in fact a form of capitulation.
>
> I write this to urge the film and arts communities to keep
> a
> record of such incidents and to notify their representatives in
> Congress and
> such organizations as the ACLU when they occur. This is also a call to
> publications, curators, and programmers: I recommend that you make the
> public aware of what important past work would not exist if these
> restrictions had been in place.
>
> Lastly, I write this to encourage a more general awareness of the ways
> in
> which, under the rubric of an endless "war on terror," we are seeing
> the
> denigration of due process, free speech, and the right to privacy,
> which are
> crucial safeguards of a free and democratic society.
>
>
> As printed in Filmmaker Magazine, Spring 2005
>
>
>
> Postscript:
>
> I was recently informed by my contact lawyer at the New York Civil
> Liberties
> Union office that the FBI was returning my film, as it had been
> cleared by
> the authorities. When I got to the office I was relieved to see the
> original
> film container. Unfortunately, the reel inside it was empty, save for
> a few
> inches of film.
>
> One bit of great news: faced with opposition from the public and the
> NYCLU,
> the MTA has backed down from its proposal to ban photography in and of
> the
> subways.