Innocence of Muslims Filmmaker Arrested, Jailed 747
sycodon writes "Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the man behind the film Innocence of Muslims, has been arrested and jailed in Los Angeles for probation violations. The situation is a win-win for the Obama administration, who can now appear to be punishing the man whose film sparked protests and riots around the world, but at the same time simply enforcing the law, as all evidence indeed suggests Nakoula violated the terms of his probation."
Re:How is it understood as anything but punishment (Score:5, Interesting)
At the court hearing about his parole violation he told the Judge that the original name he used during his criminal prosecution and incarceration wasn't his real name.
Think about that for a minute, he's jailed for fraud and ordered as a condition of probation not to use aliases, only his legal name and he tells the judge evaluating his compliance that the name he used in the previous trial was a fake. It's highly unusual in situations like this for a judge to incarcerate a parolee before the hearing, she threw him in jail because she said the court has no confidence he's not a liar and flight risk.
And might I add, just because you haven't bothered to follow the case that it makes your assertion that no one believes this isn't political asinine. Obama and the state department has almost zero influence over department of federal paroles (it's mostly courts administered). His parole conditions were public nearly a day after the whole thing went public, including links to all the PDFs on popehat.
Re:How is it understood as anything but punishment (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not comfortable equating the Muslim world to a crowded theater. They have moral agency and the ability to control themselves.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why I submitted this.
It's clear that Nakoula has been in violation of his parole conditions for quite a while if you consider the amount of time it takes to make a movie (even a crappy, amateurish one), edit, etc. One has to wonder that if he had made a movie about butterflies, would he be in jail right now? I bet not.
But the Administration saw an opportunity to make it appear to the savages that he's "doing something" about the blasphemer but at the same time be technically absolved of that charge.
We all know how easy it is to gen up some kind of violation that can put someone in jail over night or even longer. Will this be done more often in the future just to placate the batshit crazy Arabs?
Re:Umm, I don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)
...made stronger by the fact that the producer hid the true content of the film from the cast and crew until it was released; by then, it was too late to revoke their appearances or exercise their legal rights.
A typical movie release covers stuff like this:
"I hereby waive all rights and release and discharge Production Company from, and shall neither sue nor bring any proceeding against any such parties for, any claim, demand or cause of action whether now known or unknown, for defamation, invasion of right to privacy, publicity or personality or any similar matter, or based upon or relating to the use and exploitation of the Pictures."
I understand that...other parties may reveal, information about me that is of a personal, private, embarrassing or unfavorable nature, which information may be factual and/or fictional. I further understand that my appearance, depiction and/or portrayal in the Program may be disparaging, defamatory, embarrassing or of an otherwise unfavorable nature which may expose me to public ridicule, humiliation or condemnation.
"...the perpetual right to use or to put the finished pictures, negatives, reproductions and copies or the original prints and negatives of him/her and any sound track recordings, and recordings which may be made of him/her voice, including the right to substitute the voice of other persons for his/her voice, his/her name, or likeness, in or in connection with the exhibition, advertising, exploitation, or any other use of such motion picture or recording of his/her voice, to any legitimate use that may deem proper."
Most include even more stuff about; digitally altering your appearance, using body doubles (so they can make it look like you were naked, or having sex,) etc.
It's very unlikely they didn't sign one of these, especially if the producer knew he was going to be doing with this footage.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
That is them controlling themselves.
You are assuming that 'control themselves' means 'do not kill people for stupid reasons'. Stop projecting your Western morality on them. That is bad, and wrong.
This little movie wasn't a flash point that made them so raging mad they lost control of themselves and went into a psychotic rage. They don't regret having acting badly, because the ones who acted badly do not see what they did as acting badly. They consider their actions to be righteous and not only justified, but MANDATORY.
Yes, not all Muslims feel that way. Some are sane. Many are not, and do wonderful things like stone rape VICTIMS to death.
If you want to begin to understand the Muslim world, first understand the Salem witch trials. That sort of thing goes on across the Muslim world -- people being executed based on unverified hearsay from a single person. Salem was an aberration. It's institutionalized in the Muslim world, it's just How Things Work.
Your concept of being in control would be being able to stop yourself from acting badly. Their concept of being in control would be the same, but their concept of acting badly would be to NOT murder people.
That's really the problem. And I feel real bad for the sane Muslims living in those countries, the ones who actually have respect for human life and freedoms, because those people DO still exist. They can't speak up. They can't speak out. Imagine, if you will, if the Westboro Baptists and the KKK were predominant across the US, maybe not a majority but certainly numerous. Imagine if the government was complicit. Imagine if both groups were not just hateful, but violently hateful (KKK today doesn't tend to commit violence, but they sure used to). Imagine if the government purported to agree and support actions against minorities and homosexuals because of some Divine Mandate -- and in reality the government was using these hateful crowds as a form of easy control over the population, an easy way to wield power over dissenting opinions.
That's really why this continues to happen. If someone were to say "Hey, maybe we shouldn't kill these people..", suddenly they are the blasphemer, suddenly it's their head on the block. If someone were to say "Hey, maybe the government shouldn't let this happen..", suddenly they are the blasphemer. If the government were to say "Hey, maybe you shouldn't do that guys, c'mon now", same deal. Ride the tiger.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The US Administration decided it was politically expedient to have this man in jail for his "political crime". The technical method of achieving this goal, as they are only allowed to wield their power according to the "letter of the law", they hired a detective to dig up the dirt on him and "find a law" which which to charge him.
I'd like to see your proof for that claim.
He was interviewed by probation officers shortly after it became public that he was behind the movie. He was interviewed by probation officers, not the FBI. They evidently determined that he had in fact violated his probation, which is actually publicly demonstrable since he used an alias on the casting call for the movie that you can find online. That's a violation itself. Posting the casting call online is another violation. Uploading the video to Youtube is another violation. Posting comments on Youtube is another. As soon as I found information about this guy in the days after the riots started and saw that his probation terms included not using a computer I immediately wondered why he wasn't in jail already. I'm glad they eventually got to it.
Had his film not caused the diplomatic incident, he probably would have flown under the radar and not been noticed by the authorities, and thus still be a free man.
That's correct. It doesn't need to be a diplomatic incident though, he could have posted a comedy video that got viewed by 100 million people and he still would have popped up on someone's radar. Like his probation officer's.
Personally, I don't think the government actually wanted to jail this guy. They have to though, or risk other people asking why they have to stand up before the man for a probation violation when this idiot got off free. This would be equal justice under the law.