[spectre] Open Letter from Jem Cohen (on art in the New America)

[Andreas Broeckmann]

(x-posted from RHIZOME_RARE)


>  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.


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