In France, Only Journalists Can Film Violence

BostonBTS sends word that the French Constitutional Council has just made it illegal to film violence unless you are a professional journalist (or to distribute a video containing violence). The law was approved exactly 16 years after amateur videographer George Holliday filmed Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King. The Council was tidying up a body of law about offenses against the public order, and wanted to ban "happy slapping." A charitable reading would be that the lawmakers stumbled into unintended consequences. Not according to Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi: "The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said [Cohet]. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet."

Comments

Workaround

[lawpoop]

So, what do you have to do in order to be considered a journalist in France?

Re:Workaround

[jmorris42]

> Not all leftists believe in civil liberties...

No true leftist/progressive/socialist believes in -individual- civil liberties. They pay lip service to group rights but don't believe in that either. In the end all left theory boils down to the individual is a meaningless cog in the system who has no inalienable rights, existing only to serve the state.

You really can't have civil liberties as we commonly understand them without the economic and property rights that make them real. You can't really have the right to free speech for example if you aren't allowed to own a printing press or purchase access to other mass communication media. See the US McCain/Feingold bill for example.

This new French law is for one purpose only, to suppress knowledge of the ongoing riots by the Religiojn of Peace(tm) in the slums around Paris.

Inadmissible?

[bigeeTea]

I wonder if this new law makes video of crimes inadmissible in court, if it was filmed by a non-journalist.

Re:Inadmissible?

[Noryungi]

This is an entirely different question. A video of a violent act that is broadcast over the Internet, by someone who witnessed a crime but did not act, would be considered as a "crime" (misdemeanor?) in France.

On the other hand, evidence from video cameras, whether operated by a professional journalist or not, are considred as admissible in a court of law. If I remember well (my Law School years are far behind me...), a video is not considered as a "full" proof, since the video could have been tampered or altered. On the other hand, a video is definitely admissible, as long as the person filming had no time to react or was not an accomplice in the violence.

The problem is, of course, that with this new decision, the Constitutional Council opens a way to prosecute people who witnessed police violence and/or abuses and then decide to broadcast/upload the video over the Internet, without going to a court or to the police first. This is clearly designed to stifle dissent and the flow of information over the Internet.

What We're Doing

[Doc Ruby]

To be a journalist, you should have to publish what you record. What other business does the government have in defining a journalist, except the essential operation that defines them.

And if you don't publish, then how is it illegal to have a record of what your own senses experienced?

Why should media corporations that officials prefer have all the privileges? Already many amateur bloggers are better than practically all the pro journalists working today.

There goes sports.

[Deathlizard]

So under this definition, wouldn't filming the Zidane Headbutt in the World Cup be considered criminal to the cameraman that filmed it?

I guess sports cameramen better start practicing their journalism skills.

Re:liberty

[Anonymous Coward]

If France doesn't value freedom of speech as much as America, then tell my why the Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index for 2006 rated America behind France in terms of freedom of the press?

America has fallen sharply as Bush has stayed in office, and ranks 53rd equal in the world for freedom of the press. France is currently 35th equal. There appears to be less censorship in France than in America for media reporting. Kinda the opposite of your statement, right? But don't let that get in the way of your blind jingoism.
Source: http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=639

Unintended consequences

[StikyPad]

Guess they've just outlawed any surveillance camera that films violence, including their own. Oops!

Someone noticed

[cdrguru]

There is a huge potential problem brewing. And almost nobody in the "online community" understands it.

Let's say there is an altercation between a cop and a young minority person. When the dust clears, said minority person is dead. Two hours later a video shows up on YouTube showing the cop beating the person with a large club. This is picked up, played on the nightly news. Everyone in the town sees it.

Cop is convicted because "everone knows" he did it.

The video is later shown to be an utter fabrication by two college students looking for fame.

Under today's law in the US, the college students can't be charged with anything. The video would never be admitted into court as evidence, but it would be fresh in the minds of all the jurors and couldn't possibly be excluded from their minds.

We have skated pretty close to some TV stations doing this kind of thing in the past, but most know better now. They don't accept just anything. Photoshopping pictures is being done, and some people are getting caught. In the US most news organizations are aware of the problem and are somewhat sensitive about it. It probably would take a case like this to really bring it home to the "profressionals", but we are already seeing a lot of amateur content making it out that cannot be verified and is subject to all kinds of fraud.

But "everyone" knows "seeing is believing" and so they are going to take anything that even looks real as the absolute truth.

Perhaps France is trying to slide away from this, just a little bit? We're ripe for some real juicy stuff in the US and until it happens there isn't going to be any restriction on so-called citizen journalists putting video out that purports to show crimnal activity. And it will be impossible to keep it away from a jury, leading to instant convictions.

Re:It's a serious problem.

[bendodge]

Exactly! The USA should quit funding the UN and bulldoze their New York office, because they are the main proponents of laws and regulations that make people helpless. The UN is constantly pushing "civil-rights" laws and gun bans that render people defenseless against aggressors.

In most of America, I can shoot anybody who threatens me or my property, and be pretty safe from lawsuits (the major exception is the Anti-Christian Lawsuit Union - er - the American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuits). It's really a shame that liberties have gotten so restricted in Europe that a burglar can sue the farmer who sat up in the night with a shotgun and shot him, after being robbed multiple times in a row. The criminal won, and that farmer is now in an English prison.

It's just too bad Europe doesn't have a powerful organization like the NRA to protect the right of self-defense.

"Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" anyone?

[Kadin2048]

Was it around also before they decided not to support Bush's little adventure in Iraq?

Oh, heavens yes. I suspect it was around from the moment the War ended, although I think it got its biggest boost during the De Gaulle years, when many Americans felt that they were basically being snubbed by a people they had just spent a whole lot of blood and treasure to first liberate, and then subsequently rebuild. (Nonwithstanding that the Russians did also spend a lot of blood and treasure, I think most Americans felt that there was some kinship between France and the U.S., and so when De Gaulle basically spurned the West in favor of playing each side against the other, it was taken a lot worse than had, say, Turkey done the same thing.)

I don't know what the general zeitgeist was in the U.S. regarding France, prior to WWII (I think it was rather favorable, though), but it definitely turned sour during the Cold War.

The recent political situation has certainly exacerbated the situation, but it didn't just start yesterday, or with Bush. (In fact, the Simpsons quote in my Subject, you'll find, predates Bush -- it was from 1995.)