Mickey H. Osterreicher is the general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association and edits the organization’s Advocacy Committee blog. He spoke with James Estrin. Their conversation has been edited.

Q.

It seems like photographing in public is becoming a crime.

A.

Literally every day, someone is being arrested for doing nothing more than taking a photograph in a public place. It makes no sense to me. Photography is an expression of free speech.

Since 9/11, there’s been an incredible number of incidents where photographers are being interfered with and arrested for doing nothing other than taking pictures or recording video in public places.

It’s not just news photographers who should be concerned with this. I think every citizen should be concerned. Tourists taking pictures are being told by police, security guards and sometimes other citizens, “Sorry, you can’t take a picture here.” When asked why, they say, “Well, don’t you remember 9/11?”

I remember it quite well, but what does that have do to with taking a picture in public? It seems like the war on terrorism has somehow morphed into an assault on photography.

Q.

What’s caused this?

A.

It’s been a perfect storm. There’s 9/11, and now photojournalists who traditionally worked for newspapers are losing their jobs and becoming freelancers who may not have the backing of their news organizations. You have Occupy Wall Street, where police didn’t want some of their actions to be photographed. And now everybody with a cellphone is capable of recording very high-quality images. And everyone has the ability to upload and share them almost instantly. There is no news cycle — it’s 24/7 with unlimited bandwidth.

Q.

When did you start doing this work?

A.

Well, I was originally a still newspaper photographer for 10 years at the Buffalo Courier-Express, and they went out of business in 1982. I made the transition to television and worked for the ABC affiliate in Buffalo, N.Y., for 22 years. While I was there, in the ’90s, the reporter I worked with got in the car one day and said, “I think I’m going to law school,” and I said, “You know, I always thought about law school.” And so we went together. We worked from 2:30 to 11, and we went to law school during the day and raced to get to work. In 1998, I graduated from law school, and in ’99, I got admitted to the bar.

I’d been in the N.P.P.A. ever since 1973. I was asked in 2005 to work as an attorney for the N.P.P.A., which I was thrilled to do. Photography was a profession that I loved. This was my way of paying back.

In 1946, N.P.P.A. was formed to give a voice to photographers, and I think now more than ever we need that — not just press photographers but anybody who takes a picture anywhere.

Q.

What does a professional photographer need to know about their right to photograph?

A.

If you’re out in public, you can take pictures. And you can report to your heart’s content. The problem is whether they know their rights or don’t know their rights and are willing to assert their rights.

Now, when I say that, that doesn’t mean that you can get up within two inches of a working police officer and stick your camera in their face. One of the things I prided myself on when I was a photojournalist was not affecting the situation. You want to be invisible. You get in, you get out, nobody gets hurt. You do your job, and that’s what your main responsibility is. It’s not to become the news story. Be respectful, be polite, act professional.

But even in certain cases when photographers have carried around the law and shown it to police officers and law enforcement, it hasn’t mattered.

Dennis Floss, courtesy of Mickey H. Osterreicher

Unfortunately, a lot of officers will say “because I said so.” It works for your mother, but it doesn’t really work for police. They have to be enforcing a certain law, and they can’t just make it up.

If you’re stopped on the street, stay calm. Be reasonable, be cooperative — as cooperative as you can. By cooperative, I don’t mean you have to show them your pictures when they ask. If you’re not getting anywhere ask to speak to a supervisor.

When all else fails, unless you’re willing to be arrested, you have to consider trying a different approach. Walk away, and see if you can get another angle. As news photographers, you’re there to break a new story, the last thing you want to do is stand around arguing with somebody while the images you want to take disappear.

For the general public, just be aware that this may happen to you. Tell them, “I’m on a public street, this is America, I can take pictures.”

We look at the images that come out of Syria and Libya where people risk their lives in order to get images out. Most of those images that we’ve seen are coming from citizens with their cellphones. They risk their lives, and we consider those efforts heroic. And yet in this country, somebody doing the very same thing is considered suspect. I have a real problem with that.

Q.

So the law is supposed to be, anywhere the public can go, the press can go, at least?

A.

The press may not have any greater right than the public, but they certainly have no less right than the public. And unfortunately we’re finding that that is not the case anymore. When you’re identified as being a member of the press, you are often restricted from doing your job.

What we’re seeing is photographers being charged with disorderly conduct, trespass and obstruction of governmental administration for doing their job. I call it the catch and release program. Almost always the D.A. will drop the charges immediately. But in the meantime, the police have managed to stop the person from photographing.

Q.

Most people don’t know that it’s legal to take a photo on the street without asking people. People often say to me while I’m shooting “you have to ask my permission.” What exactly is the law on that?

A.

If you’re in public, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. That’s the difference between what is public and what is private. It’s the reason that all those security cameras that are on every city street are allowed to photograph us, because when we’re out in public we have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

“…It led to an exchange where the sheriff said, ‘We’ll get to determine the aesthetic value of the photographs.’ Police determining what is and what isn’t a picture? I don’t think so — I don’t think that’s their job.”

There’s a big difference of taking a picture and the use of a picture. If I take a picture of someone on the street they don’t really have a right to tell me that I can’t take their picture. They can ask nicely, “Hey, would you mind not taking my picture?” But they can’t enforce it, because there isn’t a law.

Now, if I use your picture in an advertisement or use your picture with story about obese people or smoking in America? That’s different. But that’s a whole other issue then the taking of the picture.

Q.

A lot of nonprofessionals have walked by federal buildings and been stepped for taking a snapshot.

A.

Absolutely. If it’s in public view and you’re on public property, then you’re allowed to take a picture of it.

There are permutations. I tell photographers, if you’re standing on a public sidewalk and you’re taking a picture with a 50-millimeter lens, and it’s a wide shot of the city street, that’s fine. If you now put on an 800-millimeter lens and take a picture through somebody’s window, you’ve now invaded their privacy and that could be a civil tort.

Q.

After photographers were stopped from photographing the police clearing Occupy Wall Street protestors from Zuccotti Park, you and representatives of a media coalition including The Times, met with the police commissioner Ray Kelly. What happened at that meeting?

A.

It was on Nov. 23. I asked the commissioner if he would reissue the “finest message” from 1999 that dealt with the police cooperating with the press. He did that. It was read at 10 consecutive roll calls in every single station house and precinct.

Q.

What did the message say?

A.

It said that the police shall cooperate with the press to the greatest extent possible.

Q.

So that’s good.

A.

It was a wonderful thing — but that was last November, and now it’s August.

Unfortunately, the very next day on Thanksgiving day, we had two more incidents. One was a Daily News photographer, covering a fatal fire in Brooklyn, who was interfered with by police and had his press credentials pulled, and another one with another Daily News photographer who was told — by a deputy inspector no less — that the only place he could shoot pictures of the Thanksgiving Day parade was from a press pen. While tens of thousands of other people with cameras were taking pictures from wherever they wanted.

So we’ve been trying to work with the New York City Police Department in implementing it. Issuing that “finest message” was a good start, but as we all know a piece of paper is just a piece of paper unless there’s proper training and — where appropriate — discipline. I was very disappointed to see what happened with Robert Stolarik the other day when, again, he was interfered with and arrested for doing nothing more than taking pictures on a city street which is his right.

[Mr. Osterreicher reported on the N.P.P.A. Advocacy Committee blog that Mr. Stolarik’s camera equipment was returned to him by the police on Monday.]

One of the other things that came out of the meeting was that they said, anytime there’s a problem, you send us an e-mail or give us a call and let us know what’s going on. And I’ve been doing that. And some of them I have had responses to, and other times I have had no responses.

Q.

And so you sent a letter to the deputy commissioner for public information after the Stolarik incident?

A.

Yes, I sent the letter specifically to Paul Browne of D.C.P.I., which was a lengthy letter, but I also wrote a letter to the editor to The New York Times that was printed on Friday. I said that this incident with Stolarik is a step back in police press relations and that we urged them to work with us.

Q.

How many other incidents have you been involved in since since the “finest message” was read at the police precincts?

A.

I think there’s been probably a half a dozen, but you know we are not just talking about New York. I deal with similar incidents around the country.

“Unfortunately, nowadays wearing a press credential is almost like wearing a scarlet ‘A.’ “

We have the same problem in Los Angeles. A photographer in Los Angeles was taking pictures at an oil refinery and got stopped. Fortunately, this officer just let him go after questioning him for awhile, but it led to an exchange where the sheriff said, “We’ll get to determine the aesthetic value of the photographs.” Police determining what is and what isn’t a picture? I don’t think so — I don’t think that’s their job.

Q.

You’ve been doing training?

A.

Yes. I’ve been a reserve deputy in Erie county sheriff’s department since 1976, so I understand this issue from both sides.

For the Republican and Democratic conventions I recently did training sessions in Tampa and Charlotte with the local police departments on how to interact with photographers and what the laws are. I’ll be at the conventions with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and available to help photographers with any issues. We certainly don’t want a repeat of Denver and St. Paul.

I was in Chicago during the NATO summit, and was watching the interactions between the police and the press and pretty much anyone with a camera. I think, they showed an incredible amount of restraint in allowing everyone to take pictures, both still and video, whether you were credentialed or not.

Q.

There are a couple photographers who might disagree.

A.

Yes there were a few unfortunate incidents where Scott Olson with Getty was hit over the head with a riot baton and I spoke to him, and Joshua Lott, a Getty photographer, was also arrested. But at least the system we had set up with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the hotline worked well, because we got a call right after he was arrested, and I contacted the Chicago police along with one of the lawyers working with the Reporters Committee.

Even though Joshua Lott was initially charged with mob action, which is a fairly serious charge, when the police took a closer look at it — which they did — they reduced it down to reckless conduct, which was a misdemeanor.

Q.

Why is this happening everywhere?

A.

In New York, it’s not because they don’t have good guidelines. Clearly if the officers followed the finest message, we wouldn’t be having any problems. Other cities don’t have those guidelines, but certainly in New York, it appears that officers need more training than they’re getting. They also need to have some teeth, so when officers violate those guidelines, disciplinary action is taken. It is very rare to have that happen.

It did, happen in a previous incident with your photographer Robert Stolarik who was covering Occupy Wall Street, and somebody else fortunately was videotaping this. An officer stood in front of him and continued to get in his way. Everywhere Stolarik went, the officer would block him. It’s our understanding that the officer eventually got some form of discipline for that.

I believe that the problem is it’s ingrained in the police culture. The idea of serve and protect has somehow changed, for some officers, to include protecting the public from being photographed.

Many times officers are pushing and shoving, and our photographers are told, “If that was your mother, would you want to see her picture in the paper?”

That’s not the officer’s job. The officer’s job is to protect and serve, to make sure the public is safe, secure the scene, collect evidence. It’s not to decide what pictures should and shouldn’t be taken on the street.

There are officers who think it’s their job to protect other officers from being photographed. They’re absolutely wrong. That not what their function is.

Just as a news photographer’s job isn’t to direct traffic, or collect evidence at a scene, or do any of the things that law enforcement does.

Q.

Can you explain to me how this is changed from 20 years ago?

A.

I think it was very different 20 years ago. I think press photographers had more access, I think credentials were respected. Unfortunately, nowadays wearing a press credential is almost like wearing a scarlet “A.”