From Vancouver: "Missing your bus stop? Meet 'the annunciator,' " by Catherine Rolfsen

A year ago, Rob Sleath was riding a bus heading down Granville Street. The visually impaired man asked the driver to call out his stop, Granville Street and Fifth Avenue.

"By the time the driver realized he had forgotten, we had passed Granville Station [in downtown Vancouver]," Sleath says.

Sleath stayed on the bus until it completed its entire route, just to get to his stop. He says this is something that he -- and other visually impaired transit users -- experience on a regular basis. (Read more here.)

From Chicago: "U Illinois student claims his First Amendment rights were violated," by Paolo Cisneros

University of Illinois senior David Fullarton

This story originally appeared in The Daily Illini and was republished at this address: http://www.uwire.com/Article.aspx?id=3114150#. This link no longer exists; the story can no longer be searched out at either website. A copy of the original story appears below.


University of Illinois senior David Fullarton never thought taking pictures could land him behind bars.

But for a few scary minutes on Aug. 31, he said that's exactly what happened.

Fullarton said he was photographing the Chicago Transit Authority's O'Hare Airport station at around 2:15 p.m. when he was approached by two Chicago police officers and asked to explain himself.

When he told the officers that the photographs were for a class project at the university, he was asked to provide some form of identification and subsequently placed in a chain-link holding cell for several minutes while they ran a background check, he said.

When his record came up clean, the officers let him go but not before demanding he immediately delete all the photographs he had taken. He was also told that photography on the CTA property was forbidden unless the photographer has a permit.

A press release on the CTA's Web site, however, says that amateur photography is allowed. The policy was later confirmed by a CTA spokesperson.

"It's excessive," Fullarton said. "I think questioning people in that manner is a tremendous waste of resources."

Steven Beckett, director of trial advocacy in the U Illinois College of Law, agreed.

"I can't imagine that it breaks the law to take photos in a public place," he said. "It just makes no sense."

The Legal Affairs office of the Chicago Police Department declined to comment. Calls to the department's media office were not returned. Fullarton said that while some members of the police department are to blame, the officers themselves were not entirely at fault.

"They were on the phone with their supervisor on and off, and I'm assuming that he said 'This is what you have to do,'" he said. "I don't think the agencies themselves are to blame, but rather the ignorance of a few people in management."

'Terrorist times'

Fullarton said the officers he dealt with were extremely professional in their interactions with him, but their handling of the situation denied him of some of his basic legal rights.

"I don't mind getting asked questions," he said. "But you don't put somebody in a cell and tell them to delete their pictures and tell them what they're doing is wrong when it's not."

Beckett said Fullarton's account of his detainment struck him as an unlawful seizure, and the police had no right to do what they did.

He added that once Fullarton took the photos, they became his property, making any police order to destroy them illegal.

"I suppose in these terrorist times people are making excuses for police doing all sorts of things, but the more they do it, the more they erode our liberties and the less freedom we have," he said. "It's a sad story."

Other legal issues aside, the incident has Fullarton worried that he now has some sort of criminal record. The officers insinuated such an action might be taken, he said, but he was given no citation or case number.

"Whatever that red mark is next to my name, they need to get that off because it shouldn't be there," he said.

Steven Helle, professor of journalism at the university, agreed that Fullarton did not commit a crime.

"It sounds like a First Amendment offense to me," he said. "Since 9-11 there has been much concern with photographing public transit of all sorts, but such concerns should never trump the First Amendment."

Looking ahead

After reflecting on the situation for almost three weeks, Fullarton holds no grudge against the Chicago Police Department. The problem, he believes, boils down to individuals within the agency.

Since the incident occurred, he has sent letters explaining his situation to agencies like the American Civil Liberties Union and the CTA as well as U.S. senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama. He has also filed a complaint with the Chicago Police Department.

So far he has only been contacted by the ACLU. Fullarton's case was entered into their database and he was told he would be contacted by an attorney at a later date.

On a national level, Fullarton said he believes the federal government has a responsibility to re-evaluate many of its post-Sept. 11 policies, such as the color-coded terror warning system.

Doing so, he believes, would help spare innocent people from undeserved and illegal searches and interrogations.

"Things like that just induce paranoia, and they don't effectively address any problems," he said.

Either way, Fullarton said he hopes something will be done to correct the problem at O'Hare.

"Particular people are just doing things their way rather than by the rules," he said. "Those are the people that I have a problem with."

From San Leandro, California: "Bus of future rolled out for first test drive," by Denis Cuff

California's dream of using self-steering buses to fight traffic congestion made headway in San Leandro on Friday when UC Berkeley researchers conducted their first test on a public street of a bus guided by magnets.

A driver removed his hands from the wheel of the moving bus on East 14th Street to signal that a computer had taken over, steering in response to cues from the tiny magnets, which were embedded in the pavement. (Read more here.)