Citizen Journalism in France
There is a bit of internet concern popping up on a certain new regulation that could see itself implemented in France.
Please take the time to check out this column over at Parisist.
Also Seth Weintraub's article at The Paris Times.
And finally, this article by a fellow I don't know from Adam: Peter Sayer.
In essence: Private citizens could be faced with a heavy fine (75.000 Euros) and up to 5 years in jail for filming any kind of violent act.
You there! With your corderoy slacks and banana carry all belt: You (Mr. Toulemonde) are not allowed to be a journalist.
I find this all especially troubling.
In some ways I can understand France wanting to crack down on Snapping Shots with cell phones and then circulating images between friends. Or enemies you potentially want to bend to your will:
Don't want to give me your lunch money?... Check this little film of me beating this other fellow up. Feelin' tough now, punk?
And especially after that article I read in the news about a week ago... (I can't find an internet source... did anyone else read about it?...) About the elderly couple with no family that seemed to disappear, like, a year ago... their house being broken into by teenagers because it was thought that it was abandoned, those teenagers finding the couple quietly decomposing in their bed, taking pictures on cell phones and then taking off.
WITHOUT TELLING THE POLICE. A friend of a friend (you know how it goes) ended up reporting the dead people to the police because someone had forwarded him the images....
But in other respects? Hello? Citizen journalism is often how we know what really happened.
Take the Concorde crash as an example....
Live footage of the crash was taken by people driving by on the nearby motorway...... and... if I'm not terribly mistaken, I think that the footage helped the investigators to figure out what went so horribly wrong...
How about the initial hit of the World Trade Centers?
It wasn't a journalist that got that image.
And let's not forget that civilian journalists also get coverage of things that some people might prefer to keep quiet but for which, many people might consider important to know... kind of like that Rodney King thing... all those years ago...
Could polititians be uneasy that such a thing could happen in France?... A country that is so neatly divided between Catholics, Jews and followers of Islam?...
With laws like these that are, ostensibly, meant to "protect" the citizenry but which are so broad in scope as to bind even the most responsible among us's hands ... where are we headed?
How many liberties is it "okay to lose" in the name of security?
5 Elucidation(s):
Here is an extract from the text (in french sorry ):
« Le fait de diffuser l’enregistrement de telles images est puni de cinq ans d’emprisonnement et de 75 000 € d’amende.
« Le présent article n’est pas applicable lorsque l’enregistrement ou la diffusion résulte de l’exercice normal d’une profession ayant pour objet d’informer le public ou est réalisé afin de servir de preuve en justice. »
That last part means that if the video is to be used as proof in court there will be no penality.
It's not filming the scene that will give you any problem, but put it up on the internet as a wankfest and you might have some problems.
Sorry if I made a lot of mistakes, I'm french and we're not famous for our immaculate english :(
it's such a difficult moment, I think, given the trillion technical gadgets, and the potential (seemingly unlimited) for those gadgets to take us along the gamut of good/bad (perceived? maybe); I would argue that it's going to take a lot of upheaval and dissent before we can find any logical path. it reminds me a lot of the french revolution, in fact, even though I may come off as a total ninny to someone who dwells in France and probably possesses a much greater sense of how that moment in history impacted the country/the world. my feelers just get so tingly when I think of how citizen journalism (or blogs, youtube videos, etc) are so similar to pamphleteers. and how there was such a cacophony of events swirling during the lead-up to the revolution.
um. anyway. fascinating post.
Is this in response to terrorists posting executions and such on the internet?
If so, it seems that it's one of those laws that won't stop the real bad guys, just affect the average Joes out there. Or average Jacques as the case may be.
hyldess: To me, your English seems quite good and thank you for joining the French text.
I particularily like this phrase:
"Le présent article n’est pas applicable lorsque l’enregistrement ou la diffusion résulte de l’exercice normal d’une profession ayant pour objet d’informer le public ou est réalisé afin de servir de preuve en justice."
[The present article is not applicable when the recording or the diffusion of said recording results from the "normal" exercising of a profession having the object of informing the public or is realised with the express intention of being used as judicial evidence.]
Sounds like a can of worms to me...
That is a question that many Americans are struggling with in the wake of 9/11. My husband deals with it every week at the airport when he flies for his job.
Our president can now go through our mail, legally. There are phone tapping options available to him that weren't before, in the name of stopping terrorism.
Someone said something in the last few days on another blog that struck me. It was something like this: Those who sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither and will lose both.
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