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Subject: french law criminalizes filming acts of violence by people other than professional journalists
sofa    3/7/2007 11:16:06 AM
Can't have the truth get out.... from:"http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/03/06/franceban/index.php" http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/03/06/franceban/index.php ------ France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence By Peter Sayer, IDG News Service The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday. The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991. The officers’ acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles. If Holliday were to film a similar scene of violence in France today, he could end up in prison as a result of the new law, said Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi. And anyone publishing such images could face up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (US$98,537), potentially a harsher sentence than that for committing the violent act. Senators and members of the National Assembly had asked the council to rule on the constitutionality of six articles of the Law relating to the prevention of delinquency. The articles dealt with information sharing by social workers, and reduced sentences for minors. The council recommended one minor change, to reconcile conflicting amendments voted in parliament. The law, proposed by Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, is intended to clamp down on a wide range of public order offenses. During parliamentary debate of the law, government representatives said the offense of filming or distributing films of acts of violence targets the practice of “happy slapping,” in which a violent attack is filmed by an accomplice, typically with a camera phone, for the amusement of the attacker’s friends. 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. The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules. The journalists’ organization Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories.
 
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reefdiver       3/7/2007 11:26:46 AM
They can probably obtain consulting services from the Chinese....
 
Or...maybe they need another French Revolution...
 
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scuttlebut steve    the road to hell is paved with good intentions   3/7/2007 5:36:08 PM
way to go france, nothing like NOT learning from other governments writing broad, all encompassing laws to deal with a specific type of act.  Those types of laws are so easy to abuse.  Take a look at failed sentancing laws and gun control laws that were passsed or almost passed in the US to see what I mean.  (example: law meant to ban "saturday night specials" instead would have inadvertantly banned nearly all pistols and revolvers...."3 strikes" laws meant to be used against violent felons instead being used to put petty criminals away for life, ect )
 
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jean    hummm....   3/10/2007 12:41:03 PM
what i yet answered on a another thread for the same article:

"Never heard about this, i don't know. Anyway we are not "anglo-saxons" , so we don't have at all the same perception of the freedom of speech. For example we have forbidden the muslim veil in public schools only, unthinkable position in the "anglo saxon" countries.
That doesn't mean , we don't have any liberties.It only could be a preventive law, not for amateur and serious reporters, but only to avoid malevolent people to film, for example ,a car torching, ,people thrashing, ( like happy slapping), etc...it's more in that direction."


and now Sofa and others specialized in antifrench garbage, what do you reply to:

1) patriot act : certainly a improvement of the basic liberties.
2) constitution amendment allowing using and possessing weapons : what about innoncent killed by any chance, by scoolmates, colleagues, neighbours, ....a right to keep at all costs , even lives.
3) death penalty in certain north american states: like china, iran, saudi arabia, ...some democratic countries.
4) guantanamo: the top of the justice....
and where does it take place ?? in the most righteous country .
Sofa, the next time you look for garbage about france, think about this: not necessary to look for odours when that stinks where you know.



 
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swhitebull       3/10/2007 1:20:35 PM

what i yet answered on a another thread for the same article:

"Never heard about this, i
don't know. Anyway we are not "anglo-saxons" , so we don't have at all
the same perception of the freedom of speech. For example we have
forbidden the muslim veil in public schools only, unthinkable position
in the "anglo saxon" countries.
That doesn't mean , we don't have
any liberties.It only could be a preventive law, not for amateur and
serious reporters, but only to avoid malevolent people to film, for
example ,a car torching, ,people thrashing, ( like happy slapping),
etc...it's more in that direction."


and now Sofa and others specialized in antifrench garbage, what do you reply to:

1) patriot act : certainly a improvement of the basic liberties.
2) constitution amendment allowing using and possessing weapons : what about innoncent killed by any chance, by scoolmates, colleagues, neighbours, ....a right to keep at all costs , even lives.
3) death penalty in certain north american states: like china, iran, saudi arabia, ...some democratic countries.
4) guantanamo: the top of the justice....
and where does it take place ?? in the most righteous country .
Sofa, the next time you look for garbage about france, think about this: not necessary to look for odours when that stinks where you know.





Let's take these one at a time:
 
2) 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, as part of the original Bill of Rights, as WRITTEN and discussed by the Founding fathers of the COnstitution. The Right to Bear Arms amendment was incorporated as a BASIC right, for fear of a centralized government repressing the citizenry who would have no ability to defend themselves otherwise. WISE choice, indeed.
 
3) Death penalty - this is a personal philosophical choice - either you feel that hardened criminals have a right to exist after they commit their heinous crimes to the end of their natural days, or you take their existence away from them, just like like they did to the people the murdered in cold blood. Economically, its a LOT cheaper to the state to terminate such scum's existence, than to keep him incarcerated to the end of his natural days. Psychologically, many, if not most of these scumbags are beyond rehabilitation, especially in the case of pedophile-murderers, whose rate of recidivism is astronomical.
 
4) Gitmo? Legal - non-uniformed unlawful enemy combattants HAVE no rights, but if you want, we can have them take a walk at 20,000 feet, without a parachute. And if you really want them free, we can have these guys living next door to you, we will gladly ship them there, with no visa problems. Inhumane conditions? Not proven, in fact, the inmates get treated far better than they do under prison conditions in their countries of origin.  
 
1) Patriot Act - Lincoln did FAR worse to basic civil rights during our Civil War, with the suspension of the writ of Habeus Corpus, or Roosevelt during WW2 with the internment of Japanese-Americans. have you read the act, Jean?  I have - several times, and many analyses of it, pro and con.
 
Applied judiciously, the average american sees no intrusion of the Act upon his or her daily life. Many of the alleged violations of basic rights that people complain about are actually privileges that we have grown accustomed to having, but in no way are guaranteed by the Constitution. There is NO inherent right to have a drivers license, for example, but a privilege. As a Privilege, the government can put any conditions to the obtaining of a license it chooses. The same goes to cell phone use- again, its a privilege. and so forth and so forth.
 
Have there been abuses? Of course, as revealed yesterday by the FBI overreaching in monitoring calls and records. But these abuses are corrected, as found out.
 
 
swhitebull - only those would do harm to the United States and its citizens need fear. 
 
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AdvanceAustralia    Frightening   3/10/2007 3:16:04 PM
If I was a Frenchman I would find this terrifying.

In response to a continuation of the Islamic rioting in the suburbs of Paris the French government, far from giving the police the powers and support they need to rectify the situation, shift their collective heads from the sand and stick them in concrete (with a fast-curing additive), taking with them Liberty, Equalite and Fraternite.

In its rush to (desire at least) sell hi-tech military equipment to the PRC, France has imported a most frightening form of censorship.

Never again will I look to France for its contribution to Western freedoms. France is lost.

 
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sofa       3/10/2007 3:24:11 PM
"It only could be a preventive law, not for amateur and serious reporters, but only to avoid malevolent people to film, for example ,a car torching, ,people thrashing, ( like happy slapping), etc...it's more in that direction."-j
 
Is posting videos on you tube such a problem that laws need to be passed to prevent people from doing that?  Videos in bad taste require broad laws to prevent them?
 
Or is it that the press can be controlled. And that the french government wants to 'control and adjust the truth' from time to time to suit the needs of the bureauweenies.
 
It seems that the french government really fears individual liberty.
 
(not people posting on you tube, as you suggested)
 
 
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BadNews       3/10/2007 4:01:40 PM

what i yet answered on a another thread for the same article:

"Never heard about this, i
don't know. Anyway we are not "anglo-saxons" , so we don't have at all
the same perception of the freedom of speech. For example we have
forbidden the muslim veil in public schools only, unthinkable position
in the "anglo saxon" countries.
That doesn't mean , we don't have
any liberties.It only could be a preventive law, not for amateur and
serious reporters, but only to avoid malevolent people to film, for
example ,a car torching, ,people thrashing, ( like happy slapping),
etc...it's more in that direction."


and now Sofa and others specialized in antifrench garbage, what do you reply to:

1) patriot act : certainly a improvement of the basic liberties.

You have no idea what the patriot act even says I would be safe to guess

2) constitution amendment allowing using and possessing weapons : what about innoncent killed by any chance, by scoolmates, colleagues, neighbours, ....a right to keep at all costs , even lives.

The right to bear arms to prevent tyranny, but beyond that since when has France been free of murder and murderers, if paris is crime free then why are your policemen armed?

3) death penalty in certain north american states: like china, iran, saudi arabia, ...some democratic countries.

The death penalty is again in debate, but the death penalty as applied here is for those convicted of pre meditate murder,

4) guantanamo: the top of the justice....

Guantanimo? The conditions that prisoners at Guantonimo live under are in most cases better then the conditions that they live under in their home country when free.


and where does it take place ?? in the most righteous country .
Sofa, the next time you look for garbage about france, think about this: not necessary to look for odours when that stinks where you know.




Jean, before you pontificate to Sofa about stinks and such, perhaps you should know a bit more about what you speak rather than some erroneous liberal media diatribe.

 
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BadNews       3/10/2007 4:09:39 PM

what i yet answered on a another thread for the same article:

"Never heard about this, i
don't know. Anyway we are not "anglo-saxons" , so we don't have at all
the same perception of the freedom of speech. For example we have
forbidden the muslim veil in public schools only, unthinkable position
in the "anglo saxon" countries.
That doesn't mean , we don't have
any liberties.It only could be a preventive law, not for amateur and
serious reporters, but only to avoid malevolent people to film, for
example ,a car torching, ,people thrashing, ( like happy slapping),
etc...it's more in that direction."


and now Sofa and others specialized in antifrench garbage, what do you reply to:

1) patriot act : certainly a improvement of the basic liberties.
2) constitution amendment allowing using and possessing weapons : what about innoncent killed by any chance, by scoolmates, colleagues, neighbours, ....a right to keep at all costs , even lives.
3) death penalty in certain north american states: like china, iran, saudi arabia, ...some democratic countries.
4) guantanamo: the top of the justice....
and where does it take place ?? in the most righteous country .
Sofa, the next time you look for garbage about france, think about this: not necessary to look for odours when that stinks where you know.




And we are not Anglo Saxons either, we are Americans people from Polish, Czech, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Irish, Scotish, English, German, Lithuanian, Spanish, Indian, Pakastani, Egyptian, Greek, Polonisian and yes even some smug French dissent.
 
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jean       3/10/2007 8:09:00 PM

If I was a Frenchman I would find this terrifying.

In response to a continuation of the Islamic rioting in the suburbs of Paris the French government, far from giving the police the powers and support they need to rectify the situation, shift their collective heads from the sand and stick them in concrete (with a fast-curing additive), taking with them Liberty, Equalite and Fraternite.

In its rush to (desire at least) sell hi-tech military equipment to the PRC, France has imported a most frightening form of censorship.

Never again will I look to France for its contribution to Western freedoms. France is lost.

you're not a frenchman, you probably never met one, never been in france................
what's the relation with PRC , except that Australia is a competitor for selling weapons ?
france is lost ? i am afraid tonight .......

 
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jean       3/10/2007 8:16:34 PM



what i yet answered on a another thread for the same article:

"Never heard about this, i
don't know. Anyway we are not "anglo-saxons" , so we don't have at all
the same perception of the freedom of speech. For example we have
forbidden the muslim veil in public schools only, unthinkable position
in the "anglo saxon" countries.
That doesn't mean , we don't have
any liberties.It only could be a preventive law, not for amateur and
serious reporters, but only to avoid malevolent people to film, for
example ,a car torching, ,people thrashing, ( like happy slapping),
etc...it's more in that direction."


and now Sofa and others specialized in antifrench garbage, what do you reply to:

1) patriot act : certainly a improvement of the basic liberties.

You have no idea what the patriot act even says I would be safe to guess

2) constitution amendment allowing using and possessing weapons : what about innoncent killed by any chance, by scoolmates, colleagues, neighbours, ....a right to keep at all costs , even lives.

The right to bear arms to prevent tyranny, but beyond that since when has France been free of murder and murderers, if paris is crime free then why are your policemen armed?

3) death penalty in certain north american states: like china, iran, saudi arabia, ...some democratic countries.

The death penalty is again in debate, but the death penalty as applied here is for those convicted of pre meditate murder,

4) guantanamo: the top of the justice....

Guantanimo? The conditions that prisoners at Guantonimo live under are in most cases better then the conditions that they live under in their home country when free.


and where does it take place ?? in the most righteous country .
Sofa, the next time you look for garbage about france, think about this: not necessary to look for odours when that stinks where you know.





Jean, before you pontificate to Sofa about stinks and such, perhaps you should know a bit more about what you speak rather than some erroneous liberal media diatribe.


yes for sure i am total ignorant about your country, except that i went once , and i met tens of your countrymen.
this story about filming the violence in france is a piece of cake regarding the 4 points above that came to my mind .


 
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