In France, Only Journalists Can Film Violence 531
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."
Similar to good samaritan laws? (Score:3, Insightful)
See no evil. Hear no Evil. (Score:2, Insightful)
Right?
Hey! NO CARRIER
liberty (Score:2, Insightful)
The US government has made a lot of mistakes recently, but at least Americans can be proud that we are still protecting our most fundamental human right.
Re:liberty (Score:2, Insightful)
the right for large corporations to profit?
*ducks*
Intentionally broad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:liberty (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, most of western europe denies its citizens free speech rights
Most? There are a few big ones like Germany and France, yes, but I very much doubt most. Do you actually have anything to back this claim up?
Americans can be proud that we are still protecting our most fundamental human right.
Aww, come off it. You have "free speech zones", you've classified some forms of speech as "munitions" subject to export regulation, your corporations have used the law to remove results from Google, to stop hacker magazines from publishing hyperlinks, you're dropping down the press freedom index, the White House censored the New York Times even when the CIA said that there was nothing classified in it... even Slashdot has been censored.
I really should make a list, whenever somebody like you posts a comment like that, I always miss loads out because I'm just listing things off the top of my head. There are many, many instances of freedom of speech being curtailed in the USA. If you think the USA has free speech, then you are (dare I say wilfully) wearing blinkers.
Re:liberty (Score:5, Insightful)
It's freedom after speech that's not guaranteed...
Re:What We're Doing (Score:5, Insightful)
They do indeed have something akin to the constitution which guarantees human rights as well as freedom of speech.
As someone that loves france (I lived there for a few years) I'm so deeply saddened by this horrible choice they've made. I suspect it won't stand but that remains to be seen. France has been a forward thinker in human rights for so many years(they're one of the only nations in Europe to accept refugees and grant asylum) which just adds the the craziness of this law.
France's motto, Liberté, égalité, fraternité or (Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood) doesn't seem very well upheld by this new law which does not grant liberty, removes equality and is very unlikely to foster any brotherhood.
Re:liberty (Score:1, Insightful)
Then there are very few convictions in europe I don't agree with.
If you say "kill all heretics in the US" you might be abducted to Guantanamo and will be left with no free speech, basicly no rights at all.
In Europe you would face a fair trail (or unfortunally letting be abducted by the CIA).
Tell us more about rights...
Re:What We're Doing (Score:1, Insightful)
That's the exact reason why they're running into so many problems these days. The French have been gracious and kind enough to give so many people a chance to better their lives. And the vast majority of those immigrants and refugees have. They get jobs, they start businesses, and they try to become self-reliant, productive members of French society.
The problem is usually the children of these refugees and immigrants. Their parents came to France with little to their name, and thus had to work long and hard to make ends meet. The result of this is that those parents weren't able to properly discipline their kids. As such, many of these kids neglected their school work, dropped out of school without an education, and found themselves unable to perform any useful task in life. So they form gangs, and since they have nothing productive to do, they happy slap for shits and giggles.
These children are ruining the image and reputation of all immigrants and refugees. And that's unfortunate. Many of those people can and have contributed much to France and the French society. But all of the good they have done is being demolished day in and day out by their children.
Re:Security Footage (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What We're Doing (Score:3, Insightful)
You might want to google for droit de regard [google.com], the long French controversy over rights to public photography. And if you speak French, you should explain it to these French lawmakers. But first you should probably read about the French Declaration of the Rights of Man [wikipedia.org] on which the French based their revolution, inspired by ours. If their government is defining arbitrarily, not functionally, who is a journalist with privileges, they need to read it, too.
Re:Someone noticed (Score:2, Insightful)
What you describe sounds more like an issue of defamation, just like slander and libel laws - I'm not sure how such laws apply to fabricated images/videos, but I find it hard to believe that such things would be legal, when conveying the same false and damaging message in text is illegal?
Also I'd say that the TV stations share much of the blame here.
And I'd question why, if the video is the only evidence, the case gets to a jury in the first place.
yes, please be real... (Score:1, Insightful)
The only people who sympathize with the Vichy regime in modern France are the tiny far-right parties and they are completely marginalized.
Re:"Happy slapping"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:liberty (Score:3, Insightful)
Today, in the US you will find plenty of people that will say you should not have the right to insult people based on their race, religion or ethnic background. That to do so is a "hate crime".
Just the concept of a "hate crime" is extremely dangerous. We now have criminal prosecutions that are based on violating someone's civil rights when they couldn't be convicted of the original crime of killing them. This allows people to be tried twice for the same crime... well, not really the same crime but the same incident.
Allowing something to exist as a "hate crime" means you can't say or do certain things because it might hurt someone's feelings. And that would be wrong, wouldn't it?
True freedom of speech involves being able to shout out "Stop Nigger!" in Harlem. Today you might get arrested for a hate crime before you were killed by a gang. Fifty years ago, you would just have been killed by the gang. Freedom of speech isn't necessarily safe.
Treat the symptom instead of curing the disease (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like beating someone up in the first place is legal, and the punishment for doing this outweighs by magnitudes the taping. Still, people do it. Does ANYONE think outlawing taping it would change anything? Does anyone think the 'happy slappers' are gonna think now "Hey, beating up is fun but noooooo, we can't tape it anymore so it ain't fun no more"? Does anyone really think this is changing anything AT ALL?
Instead, it's now illegal to tape someone beating up someone and thus creating evidence against the thug. Nice work, France. Protect your criminals.
Re:What We're Doing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Be real... (Score:3, Insightful)
The most pathetic thing is the USA has never learned from WW2, the Viet Cong, Saddam Hussain, Osama Bin Laden, Augusto Pinochet and many more, all one time allies and then enemies of the US, and there's twice as many tyrants that are still loyal to the US, all financially backed by the USA, trained and armed without thought to their politics, because they served to fight some real or imagined enemy when it was convenient to the US. The USA's short sighted enemy of my enemy is my friend foreign policy still causes war and suffering across the world, and still the USA stabs it's closest allies in the back in favour of whatever tin pot dictator it thinks will give it an advantage against whoever their boggy man of choice is or will help snatch some economic resource.
Left-Right is not purely economic (Score:4, Insightful)
The left-right spectrum is not a purely economic one. In its original sense, the Left were those in favor of individual liberty (of both the economic and civil variety), what we today would call Libertarians in America, or Liberals in Europe; while the Right were those in favor of maintaining elitist control of both person and property. After that original Left pretty much won in most of the world, a new Left emerged advocating socialist/communist economic policies; and for a while, the Left-Right divide was almost a purely economic one, with everyone generally in favor of civil liberty, and the Right now those opposed to the socialist reforms, as opposed to the new Left. Some of those on the "new left" even went so far as to completely reverse most of the benefits gained by the old Left, like those totalitarians you named.
But there are still vestiges of the older Right around, though they now ostensibly support capitalism (though what they really support is themselves being rich and powerful), and in recent years they've been gaining power again (ironically under the banner of the "new Right"). Trying to fit all four of these positions (the old Left; the new Left; the new Right; and the totalitarians you mentioned, who are not too different from the old Right) onto a linear spectrum is futile; the new Left and Right aren't further along the same axis as their old counterparts, they're along a different axis entirely. The old Left-Right was a pure battle between authority and liberty. The new Left-Right is, quite literally, orthogonal to that (on a Nolan chart at least). The modern Right sides with the old Left on economic issues, and the modern Left sides more with the old Right on economic issues; and more perplexingly, those with authoritarian positions most similar to the old Right are now most often considered Leftist (like those you mentioned), while those with libertarian positions most similar to the old Left are now considered Rightist!
But it's all a big bag of hooey anyway. The only consistent meaning to "Left" and "Right" are "progressive", generally support by the underdogs, who want a change for their own betterment; and "conservative", generally supported by the big dogs on top who don't want their comfy spot in life disturbed. These notions map well to the origins of the terms (the commoners on the Left of parliament and the lords on the Right), but they don't evaluate consistently into any particular position on either civil or economic matters, because what's new today will be old in a few generations, and what's old today will become new again.
Re:It's a serious problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
I highly doubt a rural farmer could afford an infrared camera. The bottom line should be:
If you break into someone's house, you forfeit your personal safety.
What would you do if you and your wife heard a crash in the middle of the night, and men rummaging around your house? There is no time for the overworked police to arrive, and you might get shot, stabbed, beaten, you stuff stolen, and your wife raped in the meantime.
It is a basic human right to strike back at someone who threatens you and/or your property. According to US police surveys, the number-one fear of a criminal is that the victim might have a gun [citation needed]. And it has been statistically proven, many times, that the more trained citizens carry guns, the lower the crime rate in the area is. With a gun, suddenly the littlest old lady can fend off the biggest thug, and you usually don't have to shoot it.
Re:yes, please be real... (Score:5, Insightful)
And I find it amazing that someone could think that because France attempted to dissuade the USA from an ill-advised war, it somehow makes them an 'enemy'. Someone who tries to talk you out of doing something stupid is doing you a favour.
Another thing I find amazing is the implicit idea that the USA single-handedly baled anyone out of either world war. The Americans entered WWI too late to have a major impact on the outcome (though they probably hastened the end), and the UK has at least as good a claim to resisting fascism when it counted in WWII. Which isn't to say that the USA didn't make a profound contribution to these struggles, but there were British and Canadian troops storming the beaches at Normandy too, you know.
How about someone actually read the law...? (Score:2, Insightful)
" Section 4 bis
Dispositions générales
Art. 222-43-2. - Est constitutif d'un acte de complicité des atteintes volontaires à l'intégrité de la personne prévues par les articles 222-1 à 222-14-1 et 222-23 à 222-31 et est puni des peines prévues par ces articles le fait d'enregistrer sciemment par quelque moyen que ce soit, sur tout support que ce soit, des images relatives à la commission de ces infractions.
Le fait de diffuser l'enregistrement de telles images est puni de cinq ans d'emprisonnement et 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. ""
This translates to (there are no doubt a few approximations in the terms, I'm no lawyer, but the translation is otherwise valid):
" Is considered an accomplice act to voluntary assault of a person's integrity as specified in articles 222-1 to 222-14-1 and 222-23 to 222-31, and is punished with the sentences specified in these articles, the act of knowingly recording, using any means, under any format, images relating to comitting these offenses.
The act of publishing recordings of such images is punished by five years imprisonment and a 75,000 fine.
The present article does not apply when the recording or publishing is a result of the normal activity of a profession which invovles informing the public or is done to serve as proof in court."
So filming your local police officers beating people up remains legal, as it can be used as proof in court. Filming any scene of violence where you're not an accomplice remains legal, as it can always be used in court... I'm not saying this law is good. It's just far from what the english web seems to be making it out to be.
Oh, and for all the WWII comments before... Why don't you find a real reason for hating the french? Even better yet, why don't you make your OWN opinion on the french? Generally, if you have a bad time with the french, you probably only have yourself to blame (or a run of bad luck, like any nation, the french have morons too...). French bashing just for the sake of it is *so* last season
Re:It's a serious problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a serious problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:yes, please be real... (Score:5, Insightful)
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. France did fight from the beginning. They just weren't prepared for Germany's new strategies and overwhelming force.
Excuse me? Do you know who America's biggest allies in Afghanistan are? France is in the top 3 of countries that provide the most troops in Afghanistan. The US is attacked, its allies are there to help them out. What France criticised was the US's attack on a country that didn't attack the US, and wasn't in any way a threat to US souvereignty.
I personally find it amazing that France was the first to support the US in its war of independence and has continued to be America's ally throughout its existence, and yet some Americans continue to be a tacit enemy of France.
They did. France and Germany have fought plenty of wars over the last couple of centuries. Now what are you gonna do about that anti-French sentiment in the US? How come US politicians were talking about "punishing" its oldest ally? Do Americans have any sense of history at all?
Re:It's a serious problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
And you have supporting statistics for this assertion? I doubt it very much. What a statement. Please provide evidence for this or withdraw the assertion. I suspect but have no fact that it is the opposite. I suspect but cannot prove that you might have some racist leanings
Re:yes, please be real... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have any idea what you are talking about? The war was already going on for a couple of years before the US finally joined in. Yes, France lost "hardly any" lives compared to Germany or Russia, but it lost more lives than the US. And it lost a lot more lives than the US lost in Europe.
Re:yes, please be real... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not quite true. France has had a pretty valuable ally in the US. And vice versa. The problem is that France refuses to become a lackey, and wants to be an ally on equal footing, while the US in recent years has mostly been looking for lackeys.
Re:yes, please be real... (Score:2, Insightful)
I find it amazing you think France was against the war because they are a friend to the United States. The United States and France have entirely different policies towards the Middle East that have little to do with altruism or friendship and everything to do with controlling and exploiting resources. France simply uses different tools to pursue a different agenda.
Actually, I mostly agree with you on this point. I wasn't talking about their motivation, I was talking about their actions. I would argue though, that at least some of the reason for the French government's position came from the very vocal opposition to the war from the French people. Like a majority of people in almost every country in the world, most French people opposed the invasion.
I'm asking nothing of the sort. I'm simply saying that in actual history, the US didn't save France from the Germans; the Allies did. For example, if the Soviet Union hadn't been keeping most of the German military busy on the Eastern Front, would the Western Allies have been able to liberate France the way they did? Does this mean France now owes unquestioning allegiance to the USSR's successor states too?
True. But if later, that same friend decides to dig himself into a new hole, you are far from obligated to pitch in. Advising a rethink is better.
I would say right. Events have vindicated their stance. If they had convinced the US not to invade, America would be better off than it is. I think that the viciousness (like the OP's calling France an 'enemy' of the US) with which some sections of the American political establishment turned on France is rather more telling than French opposition to a spectacularly bad piece of US policy.
Re:Workaround (Score:3, Insightful)
You're kidding, right? that's like saying that paying council workers to fix the road before a terrible car accident is 'protection money'. I'd instead call it investment in society for the benefit of everyone.
What a specious arguement...
Re:It's a serious problem. (Score:3, Insightful)