Letter: Picture this

Editor, Daily News:

It has come to a point in America that freedom of the press, innocent until proven guilty and always tell the truth have lost their true meaning.

I took my video camera down to the beach last Sunday. With camera and tripod in hand I carefully set up and composed each shot.

I shot sailboats, windsurfers, sea shells and a couple of men masterfully bouncing a soccer ball back and forth using their heads. The Naples Police stopped me.

Some woman had complained and assumed I was photographing her kids. I was told I needed a permit to shoot video on the beach, they wrote up what an officer called a "rap sheet" on me to put in their files.

They basically called me a liar and said I was guilty of everything someone had assumed I was doing.

Were the police harassing every person with a pair of binoculars or a camera phone?

Were they going through every cooler on the beach for alcohol?

Taking pictures in public is covered under the First Amendment but only if you have a permit from the city or nobody knows you're doing it and local code supercedes the Constitution.

Taking clandestine pictures with a camera phone, I would assume, warrants a permit from the city like any other camera.

The line between professional and amateur photography is crossed when you use the end result for profit in commercial use. I say if you don't want to be in the picture, get out of the shot.

— David Neesley / Naples