We are extremely proud of the continuous efforts Carlos makes to both protect his and all our rights to take pictures and video in public. Carlos does a great job of testing those individuals that are suppose to know the law and constitution of their respective country which they swore to uphold and defend.
ZAPRAG started as an idea 3 years ago after I had yet another run in with a police officer that had no idea of my rights as a journalist, let alone a citizen to take pictures of him in public performing his duties. Like Carlos and many of you, I knew more about my rights than the officer did when it came to taking pictures.
It does seem that the issues with police and over-zealous security guards in the USA is a great deal more of an issue than it is here in Canada, but it does still happen here as well, just not as much.
The main point to ZAPRAG products is defend our rights to take pictures/video in public and then to educate those individuals confronting us. I’ve used the Photographers Rights Lens Cloths and Cards with success when being confronted. The response has been one of mostly puzzlement by the person I’m trying to make understand my rights to shoot in public. Usually they take the cloth/card, depending on which one I show them, read it then hand it back. On occasion it has been thrown to the ground, or back at me and a couple of individuals still want to argue that they don’t want their picture taken but eventually they stopped.
There have been a couple of occasions when a police officer told me it was illegal to take their picture on duty and had to be handed the cloth/card and after reading it apologized then asked politely if would mind not taking their picture. So far I haven’t had any more issues with people grabbing my camera gear, trying to make me delete images, or harassing me once they have been educated, which is way better than having my gear damaged, grabbed or taken by the police because they didn’t understand the law.
I have not had the opportunity to see how these cloths would effect a case in a court room. If would be interesting to see what would happen if someone presented one of our products to a police officer and he/she still violated the rights of the photographer and arrested them for no reason and the case saw the light of a court room.
I am an avid fan and follower of Carlos, and hope that with our help we can help raise enough money to pay his court costs. A significant percentage of the profits from each product sold in this campaign go directly to helping Carlos. So please visit our site www.zaprag.com and read about our products.
We would also love to hear your input and stories of you using these products in public and the results of each encounter. Submit your stories to our zaprag facebook page or write up the incident and we’ll publish it on our blog.
Thanks for the support.
Keith Robertson
Founder – ZAPRAG
Watch Carlos Millers Video on our Fund Raising Effort
