- New Laws Threaten To Restrict Filming of Police Actions Worldwide Social upheaval is surging through the world--protests against economic protests rock Europe, protests against politics boil in the Middle East. Governments are responding with new laws to suppress citizens' right to film police. Will they succeed?
- Whose Media Is It?: How Police Requests for Unreleased Footage Blur the Line Between News and Evidence A near 6-month battle between British news broadcasters and the police has recently concluded: last December’s court decision that ordered television companies including BBC, ITN, and Sky News to surrender to police hours of unaired footage from the violent October 19th Dale Farm eviction, was thrown out. Journalists are now hailing the decision as a landmark victory in the fight for news neutrality and confidentiality.
- Video Advocacy Example: In Syria, Exposing Official Lies Through YouTube Last week, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that over 2600 people have died as a consequence of repression of protests in Syria. The Syrian government claims that far fewer have died, and that the balance is split between government forces and armed protestors.
- Crowd-Sourcing Surveillance: When Does Little Brother Get Too Big? On June 16, riots swept downtown Vancouver after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Final of the NHL’s Stanley Cup. The online response to the riots—a public campaign to name and shame rioters followed by a heated discussion regarding whether naming and shaming constitutes vigilantism or community policing—still rages.
- Video leads to NYPD indictment Last summer’s video of NYPD officer Patrick Pogan attacking a cyclist has resulted in Pogan’s indictment. The video, viewed over 1.6 million times on YouTube, clearly showed Pogan attacking the cyclist, brutally and without provocation. I-Witness Video has more on their blog.
- I-Witness Video, archives & advocacy Saturday’s Times had an update on the continuing efforts of the city of NY to force I-Witness Video to turn over hundreds of hours of videotapes shot during the 2004 protests at the Republican National Convention. For those unfamiliar with this story, this small group of activists mobilized hundreds of citizens with video cameras with […]
- Egypt videos back up at the Hub As I mentioned in my last post, a number of the Egypt police brutality videos at the Hub had been embedded from Wael Abbas’ YouTube account. When his account was suspended, these videos on the Hub (and everywhere else they were embedded) stopped playing. We’ve now managed to restore some of the key videos, and […]
- Wael Abbas’ YouTube channel suspended [UPDATED – 29 Nov 07] News just in from Hossam El-Hamalawy…: I’ve just received the following message from blogger and friend Wael Abbas… disaster: youtube disables my account claiming there were complaints about my police torture videos!!! This is un-bloody-believable. YouTube has just disabled probably the most important channel for the Egyptian blogosphere. Wael’s videos have been central in the […]
