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January 18, 2010Proposed Web video restrictions cause outrage in Italy
January 18, 2010
From the article:
New rules to be introduced by government decree will require people who upload videos onto the Internet to obtain authorization from the Communications Ministry similar to that required by television broadcasters, drastically reducing freedom to communicate over the Web, opposition lawmakers have warned.
The decree is ostensibly an enactment of a European Union (EU) directive on product placement and is due to go into effect at the end of January after being subjected to a nonbinding appraisal by parliament.
On Thursday opposition lawmakers held a press conference in parliament to denounce the new rules — which require government authorization for the uploading of videos, give individuals who claim to have been defamed a right of reply and prevent the replay of copyright material — as a threat to freedom of expression.
“The decree subjects the transmission of images on the Web to rules typical of television and requires prior ministerial authorization, with an incredible limitation on the way the Internet currently functions,” opposition Democratic Party lawmaker Paolo Gentiloni told the press conference.
Article 4 of the decree specifies that the dissemination over the Internet “of moving pictures, whether or not accompanied by sound,” requires ministerial authorization. Critics say it will therefore apply to the Web sites of newspapers, to IPTV and to mobile TV, obliging them to take on the same status as television broadcasters.
“Italy joins the club of the censors, together with China, Iran and North Korea,” said Gentiloni’s party colleague Vincenzo Vita.
The decree was also condemned by Articolo 21, an organization dedicated to the defense of freedom of speech as enshrined in article 21 of the Italian constitution. The group said the measures resembled an earlier government attempt to crack down on bloggers by imposing on them the same obligations and responsibilities as newspapers.
The group launched an appeal Friday entitled “Hands Off the Net,” saying the restrictive measures would mark “the end of freedom of expression on the Web.” The restrictions would prevent the recounting of the life of the Italians in moving pictures on the Internet, it said.
The decree was also criticized by Nicola D’Angelo, a commissioner in the Communications Authority, which would be likely to play a role in policing copyright violations under the new rules. The decree ran contrary to the spirit of the EU directive by extending the rules of television to online video material, D’Angelo said in a radio interview.
He also expressed concern at the requirement for government authorization for the uploading of videos to Internet. “Italy will be the only Western country in which it is necessary to have prior government permission to operate this kind of service,” he said. “This aspect reveals a democratic risk, regardless of who happens to be in power.”
Wow, I’m shocked.
I feel bad for everyone in Italy right now since your loosing your democracy at a crazy fast pace.
This is why all country’s need a pirate party that has some balls and can put a stop to idiots that are trying to steal your freedoms away from you.
You might think this doesn’t concern you but it does since your country might be next, the corpoliticals does not want democracy they want corporate rule and a workforce that are basically slaves under them.
And for the record Silvio Berlusconi is a fucking fascist and shouldn’t be anywhere near a position of power.
WOG out.
Fisherman fixes his plane with duck tape after bear attacked it
January 18, 2010
From the article:
A fisherman chartered a small plane to fly into the Alaskan backcountry for some fishing. The fisherman unwisely left fresh bait in the plane, which attracted a bear–this being bear country and all–and the animal then tore the airplane apart. The image you see above is the trashed plane.
But the charter pilot supposedly was a bad-ass. And like a bad-ass he wouldn’t just let a bear get away with tearing up his airplane. No, this bad-ass–who must be a geek–called another pilot to ferry in new tires, sheet plastic, and three cases of duct tape.
The pilot applied the materials, flew the thing home, and arrived safely.
This just shows why you should always have a roll of duck tape (550 paracord should also be a given) with you, were ever you go.
You might just need them.
Duck tapped plane at the end.
WOG out.
FBI seeks public’s help via Times Square billboard
January 18, 2010
From the article:
Tawan Hines has his name in lights on Broadway. Instead of bringing him fame, it could get him arrested.
The drug-trafficking suspect is among the first fugitives to have their names and mug shots on a digital billboard in the heart of Times Square. The FBI unveiled the equivalent of giant, flashing wanted posters there for the first time Friday, hoping to generate tips from tourists and others who flood the “crossroads of the world” each day.
“We hope we’ll get a few calls about him,” Belle Chen, head of the criminal division of the FBI’s New York office, said as Hines’ face filled the screen.
Clear Channel Outdoors offered the space to the FBI following a pilot program in Philadelphia that led to two arrests. The billboard sits above the entrance to the W Hotel, surrounded by lower-tech billboards advertising Broadway musicals.
Under the agreement with Clear Channel, the FBI has access to 430 other digital billboards in 33 cities. It can use them to publicize fugitives and missing children it believes might still might be in the area, and to make public safety announcements.
If this isn’t a cyberpunk news story I don’t know what is and a pretty scary one at that.
It might be used for good but it could also turn into a witch-hunt on the suspect and he might be innocent of his/her crime.
Worth thinking about.
WOG out.
Police fight cellphone recordings
January 18, 2010
From the article:
Simon Glik, a lawyer, was walking down Tremont Street in Boston when he saw three police officers struggling to extract a plastic bag from a teenager’s mouth. Thinking their force seemed excessive for a drug arrest, Glik pulled out his cellphone and began recording.
Within minutes, Glik said, he was in handcuffs.
“One of the officers asked me whether my phone had audio recording capabilities,’’ Glik, 33, said recently of the incident, which took place in October 2007. Glik acknowledged that it did, and then, he said, “my phone was seized, and I was arrested.’’
The charge? Illegal electronic surveillance.
Jon Surmacz, 34, experienced a similar situation. Thinking that Boston police officers were unnecessarily rough while breaking up a holiday party in Brighton he was attending in December 2008, he took out his cellphone and began recording.
Police confronted Surmacz, a webmaster at Boston University. He was arrested and, like Glik, charged with illegal surveillance.
There are no hard statistics for video recording arrests. But the experiences of Surmacz and Glik highlight what civil libertarians call a troubling misuse of the state’s wiretapping law to stifle the kind of street-level oversight that cellphone and video technology make possible.
“The police apparently do not want witnesses to what they do in public,’’ said Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, who helped to get the criminal charges against Surmacz dismissed.
Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll rejected the notion that police are abusing the law to block citizen oversight, saying the department trains officers about the wiretap law. “If an individual is inappropriately interfering with an arrest that could cause harm to an officer or another individual, an officer’s primary responsibility is to ensure the safety of the situation,’’ she said.
This is why I want the police to have open cameras on them, then there wouldn’t be any police brutality or questions about who started it.
So much would be solved with this method.
WOG out.
