NEW YORK -- A civil liberties group sued the New York Police Department Thursday to stop its officers from detaining and questioning photographers and filmmakers who take pictures of city landmarks. The federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of Arun Wiita, a 26-year-old Columbia University graduate student who the New York Civil Liberties Union said was handcuffed after an officer spotted him photographing a Manhattan subway station in July. The police let Wiita go after about a half-hour and he was never charged with a crime, but he said he was humiliated by the encounter. "Cops do have a responsibility to act on suspicions they might have, but any reasonable person should see that you shouldn't get handcuffed for holding a camera on a street corner," Wiita said. A number of First Amendment groups and camera buffs have complained in recent years about being stopped, questioned and ordered around by suspicious police officers, and the NYCLU said it has become common for officers to ask to see images, or even demand that they be erased. The NYCLU said the primary goal of the lawsuit is to push the department to train its officers not to bother law-abiding photographers. Police spokesman Paul Browne said officers do, on "rare occasions," question people photographing the city's rail infrastructure, and he defended it as a necessary exercise in preventing terrorism. Earlier this year the city settled a lawsuit the NYCLU brought on behalf of award-winning documentarian Rakesh Sharma, who was detained for filming with a handheld camera on a Manhattan sidewalk. As a result, the mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting twice revamped its rules regarding the use of cameras on streets, parks or public property, tailoring them to apply only to potentially disruptive movie and television productions. Wiita said he believes he was singled out because of his ethnicity. He was born in the U.S. and his family lives in New Jersey, but his mother is from India. Wiita is seeking compensatory damages, but says he doesn't expect a big payout. "I would much rather see the NYPD change its procedures," he said. He also wants the court to order the department to expunge information related to the incident from a database the NYCLU claims is maintained by the NYPD's intelligence division.
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