The Law In Other Countries

[+Haggis Hunter]

As this is an international past time, when making waymarks we should take time to think how particular categories will have effect in other countries.

 

Take Military Installations for example, it is obvioulsy OK to take pictures of bases in America, but in Greece you can be arrested for espionage for taking a photograph of an aeroplane or more importantly an airport. This did happen as you can read here.

 

These people done nothing different to what a geocacher would do whilst recording a waymark.

 

You must remember that there is more than the American Laws for the people of this site to abide by, some common sense must be implemented by Groundspeak before allowing categories that may cause trouble for people in other countries. As visitors to foreign places don't know all the laws!!

[+jeff35080]

but in Greece you can be arrested for espionage for taking a photograph of an aeroplane or more importantly an airport

 

Uh.... nobody ever complained when my AV8R locationless cache was active on gc.com and I don't really see how it will be a problem now that it's a waymark category.

 

Just to be on the safe side, if you are in Greece, please don't take any pictures of airports and log my waymark category

 

There, I feel better having offered a disclaimer

[+Team Neos]

I understand what you are asking, but there is no practical way to do this. Laws vary so much from country to country, there is no way that anyone could ever make themselves aware of all of the intricacies of each nation. Add to that the smaller political units (where I live that would include state, county, city, and even civic group restrictions such as the bylaws enforced on homeowners by some condominium and neighborhood associations) as well as cultural mores --and you could make a career out of checking the legality of the waymark.

 

I am afraid that the people who hunt for the waymarks will just have to make themselves aware of the local legalities of a particular category.

[+Haggis Hunter]

Just to be on the safe side, if you are in Greece, please don't take any pictures of airports and log my waymark category

Greece was just a truelife example of how things could go badly wrong for people carrying out an innocent past time.

 

I am afraid that the people who hunt for the waymarks will just have to make themselves aware of the local legalities of a particular category.

 

That does appear to be a fair enough comment, and one that I can agree with.

However, most countries don't like people taking pictures of their military establishments, despite what Groundspeak say, that includes the US Military, I have been on enough US bases in my career to know that in certain places, (without signs displayed) they get extremely upset when a camera gets pulled out.

Yet again as in Greece, the US is used as an example.

[+Glenn]

As this is an international past time, when making waymarks we should take time to think how particular categories will have effect in other countries.

 

Take Military Installations for example, it is obvioulsy OK to take pictures of bases in America, but in Greece you can be arrested for espionage for taking a photograph of an aeroplane or more importantly an airport. This did happen as you can read here.

 

These people done nothing different to what a geocacher would do whilst recording a waymark.

 

You must remember that there is more than the American Laws for the people of this site to abide by, some common sense must be implemented by Groundspeak before allowing categories that may cause trouble for people in other countries. As visitors to foreign places don't know all the laws!!

You make a valid point but your solution is wrong. The correct thing to do, when traveling, is to know the laws and norms of the country that you are in. If you neglect to do that you may very well get in to trouble.

 

The internet is an international digital melting pot. Because of this fact, some things that are legal in one place can very well be legal in another. It isn't practical to go around imposing your laws on everyone else. Just ask anyone at United Nations. All you can do is make people aware and hope they understand.

[+Glenn]

Just to be on the safe side, if you are in Greece, please don't take any pictures of airports and log my waymark category

Greece was just a truelife example of how things could go badly wrong for people carrying out an innocent past time.

There is a multitude of the things that can go wrong. You can't protect everyone from everything.

[+Haggis Hunter]

Yep, fair enough, I can see that I won't be able to change peoples minds on that particular category.

I will admit that I was using the heading the Law in other Countries to try and bring the military category yet again to the attention of Groundspeak.

 

Being a person that has served in various theatres around the world, with a vast multitude of different nations, I have yet to come across a nation that doesn't mind it's military establishments having it's pictures taken Willly Nilly.

 

But hey!! What do I or anyone else actually know? I think I will just 'Watch This Space' as they say here in the UK!!

 

Just to note that this locationless was archived after someone that was apparently official asking it to be.

The UK cachers couldn't understand why. It turned out that it may have been serving as a data base for the locations of all of these type of postboxes, so that they could be stolen. They're worth a bit of money that particular type.

 

So BEING Ex-Military and having a good head for security procedures, I know that it is not good news for there to be an easily accessible data base with pictures and the locations of bases.

 

But like I said what do I know??

[+Glenn]

Go get 'um!

[+Haggis Hunter]

Go get 'um!

Fair enough, I'll shut the 'F' up and close this topic