"Public" Photography

I just read an article by Marc Fisher in the Washington Post dated June 21, 2007 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062002354.html). The story was about an amateur photographer who tried to take some photos on Ellsworth St in downtown Silver Spring, MD. He was quickly confronted by security guards who told him that photography was not allowed along that section of Ellsworth. For those of you not familiar with Silver Spring, there is a stretch of Ellsworth that has been turned into an outdoor mall - this is the new downtown for Silver Spring. The county hired a company to maintain this shopping area. This company has a policy that no one can take any pictures of the area without their permission. Their argument is that the street is no longer public land and therefore they can enforce policies related to the pedestrians that walk through the area.

As I said, this article is two years old so I don't know if these policies are still in place. But it seems to me that if I am walking along a city street that was developed using county money I should not be liable for a private company's arbitrary regulations regarding the use of photography. This is not limited to Silver Spring. There are many movies currently being filmed in Washington DC. I have been near the set of two of these movies in the last week. Both movies were being filmed in public - one at the Mall and one on a city street. On both occasions I was told very clearly that I was not allowed to photograph the scene (To be clear, I am not part of the paparazzi. I was more interested in photographing the crew behind the scenes than in photographing Reese Witherspoon for US Weekly). I am very disappointed that individuals feel the right to restrict photography in public when this is a perfectly legal act.

Since when has taking photos in public turned in to such a heinous crime?