Airlines limit photography, videotaping

‘They’re within their rights to throw you off the aircraft’

DALLAS, May 24, (AP): Without the shocking video, it’s unlikely that the world would have learned or cared about the violent manhandling of a 69-year-old man on a plane last month.

The outrage on social media, the mea culpa by an airline CEO, the promise to treat customers better — none of it would have happened.

The passengers who shot those videos on a United Express plane in Chicago violated United’s policy on photography. By the letter of the airline’s law, they too could have been ordered off the plane.

Under United’s policy, customers can take pictures or videos with small cameras or cellphones “provided that the purpose is capturing personal events.” Filming or photographing other customers or airline employees without their consent is prohibited. American, Delta and Southwest have similar policies.

Passengers are accustomed to using their cellphones to take photos and videos that they can upload to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Airline rules on photography are sporadically enforced, but passengers should read them in the in-flight magazines because there can be consequences.

Apologized

This month, a United ticket agent ordered a passenger’s reservation canceled as he filmed her while disputing a $300 baggage fee in the New Orleans airport. After Navang Oza posted his video online, United apologized, saying that the video “does not reflect the positive customer experience we strive to offer.”

In April, a JetBlue Airways crew called airport police to meet a man who they said continued to record a selfie video during a security-sensitive time in flight, while the cockpit door was opened. Michael Nissensohn insists that he wasn’t recording the procedure.

“I told them there is no rule against talking a selfie on a plane,” Nissensohn says. He says he was ordered off the plane and held up at LaGuardia airport in New York for more than an hour before being let go without charges. JetBlue declined to comment on the incident. A

the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which controls the export of certain goods and technology from the United States. (RTRS)

Hemingway house still off limits:

Ownership of the Idaho house where Ernest Hemingway wrote some of his last works before killing himself in the main entryway in 1961 has changed hands but will stay off limits to the public.

The Nature Conservancy transferred the two-story, 2,500-square-foot house in the Idaho resort town of Ketchum earlier this month as a gift to the Community Library, a privately funded public library.

Library officials say an apartment in the house will be renovated for a residency program for visiting writers, scholars and artists starting next year.

“What having the Hemingway house does for the Community Library is situate our Idaho community in this global network,” executive director Jenny Emery Davidson said Tuesday.

Hemingway aficionados frequently take to what’s called the Hemingway trail, which includes stops tied to the globetrotting author’s many adventures. The area in Idaho is packed with such areas, including Hemingway’s grave in the Ketchum cemetery. (AP) LOS ANGELES, May 24, (AP): A man acted strangely long before he caused a disturbance on a plane that prompted fighter jets to accompany it to Hawaii, but a lack of communication and an airline’s hesitancy to be caught on video booting a passenger could have played a role in allowing him to fly, experts say.

Anil Uskanli, 25, of Turkey, had purchased a ticket at an airline counter in the middle of the night with no luggage and had been arrested after opening a door to a restricted airfield at Los Angeles International Airport. Airport police did not notify the airline, but they said it isn’t common practice. After bizarre behavior on board Friday, including trying to get to the front of the jet, he was arrested by FBI agents and charged with interfering with a flight crew.

A federal judge on Monday ordered him to undergo a mental competency evaluation, which Uskanli’s attorney said he requested based on conversations with his client that he would not detail.

The first alarm should have been Uskanli buying his ticket around midnight with no bags other than a laptop, a phone and items in his pocket, said Doren Pely, a director at TAL Global,

spokesman says the airline doesn’t publish its photography policy for security reasons.

With airline customer service in decline, videotaping is the only way that passengers can make sure they are treated fairly, says Gary Leff, a travel blogger who has criticized the airlines over the issue.

“The TSA allows more photography at the checkpoint than the airlines allow on board their planes,” he says.

The Transportation Security Administration says that photography at checkpoints is fine if people don’t take images of monitors or interfere with screeners. Travel bloggers say, however, that peo- an international security consulting firm focusing on aviation security.

“Right there, that’s enough red flags to really look into this guy with curiosity,” Pely said. “He had trouble written all over him.” But Uskanli went through a security screening without raising suspicion and only drew the attention when he opened a door leading to an airfield ramp around 2:45 am.

Airport police said he smelled of alcohol but was not intoxicated enough to be charged with public drunkenness, so he was given a summons to appear in court and released.

Police said officers confiscated his boarding pass and walked him to a public area of the airport. He got another boarding pass and went through security again.

It isn’t uncommon for people to open doors to restricted areas, airport police spokesman Rob Pedregon said, and Uskanli said he was looking for food when he was stopped by officers. “Had it not been serious, it would have been comical,” Pely said. “How many times do passengers go back to the checkin counter and say, ‘Police confiscated my boarding pass. Can you please reissue a boarding pass for me?’”

ple have had run-ins with TSA officers, and you should expect to be questioned if you snap more than a casual photo of a companion.

Lawyers who specialize in First Amendment or travel law say airlines generally cannot limit photography or video recording in an airport because it is a public space. But airlines have more power on planes because as private parties they are not bound by the First Amendment.

“They are within their rights to establish these rules, they are within their rights to throw you off the aircraft if you continue filming,” says Joseph Larsen, a media-law attorney in Houston.