hevans:My take on the issue is that the journalists have been registered into the system, hence they will likely pop up in searches for extremists/activist, when in fact they're not.
I can understand their concern, as a photojournalist is likely to attend numerous rallies for his work, then because he's a frequent attender is likely to be labelled as a trouble maker. When his reasons for attending were not in support/against the rally, but more just to report on it.
H.
To be fair Hugh, registering the Journo's could also be a good way of excluding them from any such searches as a known Journalist. From what I understand it is no more than taking a picture and giving it a reference number. I think calling it harassment is a bit rich when the NUJ don't really know what is going on.
With the number of times anyone in town appears on CCTV footage, and the current craze for numberplate recognition camera's to track peoples movements, record gathering, phone call recording - especially mobiles, I would have thought that being catalogued on the street would be well down their list of concerns, perhaps it might make them think a little more about the harassment the Journo's normally dish out to others when they are not photographing protests, but I doubt it.
Cheers, Peter.
Oh Lord, please help me to be the person that my dog thinks I am.