In terms of photography there's no expectation of privacy in a public place. Maybe in some countries that's different but that's how it is here. If you take a picture in public you don't need the consent of everyone in the background. So the police aren't doing anything that joe bloggs couldn't do. Personally, I feel the police keep me safe. 99 times out of 100 when there's some kind of shitty headline about police there turns out to be a lot of missing information from the story. I've been pulled over plenty when I was younger and had other interactions and have always been dealt with reasonably. My only complaint about the police is that there isn't more of them. So I guess we're going to disagree on this issue.