Citizen journalism is supposed to be a healthy thing right? Real people, real events and realtime reporting. Yet police in Philadelphia briefly arrested Neftaly Creuz for photographing the arrest of an alledged drug dealer with his cellphone calling it "obstruction of justice." According to family members, the 21 year old college student never left his property or was ever within arms reach of the "boys in blue." 

Cruz said police told him that he broke a new law that prohibits people from taking pictures of police with cell phones."They threatened to charge me with conspiracy, impeding an investigation, obstruction of an investigation. … They said, 'You were impeding this investigation.' (I asked,) "By doing what?' (The officer said,) 'By taking a picture of the police officers with a camera phone,'" Cruz said.Cruz's parents, who got him out of jail, said police told them the same thing.

Although he was released shortly, some see the arrest as a warning sign of increasing friction between law authorities and individual rights particularly given the spread of digital technologies and easily accessible information. Now, I've read a few blogs on this and opinions span everything from the tradiitonal "1984" scenarious to highcry's of "police brutality and flaunting on public rights" but as in most cases, I feel the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Simply said, people should exercise caution when dealing with anything related to law enforcement even if the ACLU insists there is no law preventing someone from taking a photograph. For a worst case scenario of where this could lead, see Atomictumor's blog. In the meantime, let's be glad that Neffy was released with only a brief warning and that this didn't turn into a PR nightmare for the local police. Citizen journalists - be warned that your hobby carries risks but otherwise keep operating as usual. Keep checking Photopermit.org for more stories like this.

Story NBC10.com

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