Of course Rob is correct that this is fiction, But what troubles me is that this petition has made its way on to quiet a lot of forums and the rumour and myth has spread, This itself i feel is dangerous as people will start believing it.

There are already laws and guidelines for photography that if you follow you should have no problems, Basically its about being sensible and if in doubt find out more before you carry out your hobby, Best advice i can give is avoid taking photo’s of anything security sensitive and do not take any photo’s on the Railway system(unless given permission to) and obviously do not put yourself at risk to get a photo.

The Railway Magazine has been running a campaign against this for a while now, under the heading of ‘Iron Curtain Britain’. There is NO official ban on taking photographs on or next to railway property, written permission is not required if the pictures are for private use. There are guidelines for this on the British Transport Police’s own website, but I gather that many officials are either ignorant of it, or choose to ignore it.
It is advised that at a manned station that you inform an official of your presence and intentions and make sure that you know your rights.
The stupid thing is that, if there are suspicious types lurking with intent, its probably the experienced railway enthusiast that would spot this, the station staff being too busy with their duties.
It’s not a new thing, when I was a kid I was jumped on by the ‘SS’ at Langar for taking a picture of a Shackleton that was parked next to a public road, must have been a highly secret piece of kit to warrant such a public parking place.
The most laughable was being caught taking pictures of withdrawn trolleybuses at Derby Bus Depot in the mid 60’s, ‘Herr’ inspector insisted that he confiscate our cameras in order to remove the film, we may have been only 15 at the time, but threatened to shove the cameras up his backside, in no uncertain terms, at which point he went off to fetch the police and we tested the accelaration of our racing bikes.