Consider this:
You are walking home from work carrying flowers to bring home to your wife. You run into an old fling sitting on a porch stoop. You talk for a while and inadvertently leave the flowers on the stoop and go home. Before you get there, your wife goes online and sees a picture of you talking to this woman with flowers in your hand. She recognizes the woman as someone you used to date.... You get the picture.
Far-fetched, perhaps, but it is not hard to imagine a situation where an image, that to an "outsider" is perfectly innocuous, can cause severe damage. Weighing the benefit of capturing "life in Hackensack" vs. the harm of what I describe above, I strongly feel that the permission policy is warranted.
Legalities and "rights" aside for a minute, the question you should all ask yourselves is: How would you feel if you were looking at a picture of youself online where:
1. You don't know who took it.
2. You don't know why they took it.
3. You don't know if anyone is making money from it.
4. You don't know how long it will be there.
5. You don't remember anyone asking you if it was ok.
6. You are not necessarily shown in a flattering light.
Would you all be pefectly ok with that? I would not be. A simple permission form covers all of that.
This is a Community website. I am not after a Pulitzer for journalism. I want the public to be comfortable with what we are doing. If they are not, none of this makes any sense.