Videos show police brutality at Occupy Wall Street protests

from Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin

Protesters at the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations in and around New York City's Financial District are being met with increasingly harsh police response. A growing number of videos show clashes between NYPD and activists, with police using tasers and mace on demonstrators.

Here are several of the videos making the rounds today: one, two, three.

If I'm reading the sequence of events in the video above correctly, two peaceful female protesters were first penned in by police, then at least one of the young women is sprayed directly in the face at close range with pressurized mace. She then falls to her knees, and repeatedly screams in pain.

There's an ABC News report about this video here. And Evan Fleischer has been gathering news, videos, and relevant links here. Below, from the Occupy Wall Street website: "This is a photo of a white-collar police officer reaching over a barricade and ripping a young woman's hair out."

(thanks, @kaepora)

• Occupy Wall Street: 80 arrested in NYC
• Tim O’Reilly checks out “Occupy Wall Street” protest
• On fourth day of #OccupyWallStreet, protesters arrested
  

80 Arrested as Financial District Protest Moves North

By COLIN MOYNIHAN NEW YORK TIMES

Andrew HinderakerPolice officers arrested protesters who had marched from Zuccotti Park to Union Square.

The police made scores of arrests on Saturday as hundreds of people, many of whom had been encamped in the financial district as part of a lengthy protest, marched north to Union Square. As darkness fell, large numbers of officers were deployed on streets near the encampment in Zuccotti Park, at Broadway and Liberty Street, where hundreds more people had gathered.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said in a statement, “There were approximately 80 arrests, mainly for disorderly conduct by individuals who blocked vehicular and pedestrian traffic, but also for resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and, in one instance, for assault on a police officer.”

Protest organizers estimated that about 85 people were arrested and that about five were struck with pepper spray. Among those was Chelsea Elliott, 25, who said that she was sprayed after shouting “Why are you doing that?” as an officer arrested a protester at East 12th Street.

“I was on the ground sobbing and couldn’t breathe,” she said. The continuing protests, against a financial system that participants say favors the rich and powerful over ordinary citizens, started last Saturday and were coordinated by a New York group called the General Assembly.

Many of those taking part have slept in Zuccotti Park, which is private, using it as a base. In the early afternoon hundreds of people left the park and moved north toward Union Square. Witnesses said that for much of the route, protesters spilled from sidewalks onto streets and added that the police used long orange nets at Fifth Avenue and 14th Street in an apparent attempt to block the march from proceeding.

Many marchers, however, detoured and entered Union Square before eventually turning south again. Video showed a confusing scene as protesters went south on University Place, where motor vehicles run north.

At 12th Street the orange nets again were used, this time to box in protesters between University Place and Fifth Avenue. About 3 p.m., more than two dozen people sat, handcuffed, on the sidewalk.

Nearby, two other protesters standing handcuffed on Fifth Avenue told a reporter that they had both been arrested on sidewalks and were not aware of having broken any law.

“They put up orange nets and tried to kettle us and we started running and they started tackling random people and handcuffing them,” said Kelly Brannon, 27, of Ridgewood, Queens. “They were herding us like cattle.”

Next to her, David Smith, from Maine, said that he had been chanting “Let them go” as people were handcuffed, and was then arrested by a senior officer who told him that he was being charged with obstructing governmental administration.

After his arrest, one protester posted a Twitter message about his experiences from a bus taking him downtown.

@DustinSlaughter there’s 50+ of us arrested in a caravan, netted & maced by police after standing on sidewalk where they told us toSat Sep 24 20:12:15 via Twitter for iPhoneJRL | NONVIOLENCE
PulseOfProtest

Many demonstrators made their way back down to Zuccotti Park, where they were joined by new arrivals. “Right now we are more determined than ever that what we are doing is necessary and correct,” said Patrick Bruner, a spokesman for the protesters.

New rules posted in the park on Saturday seemed aimed at the protesters. In addition to bicycle riding, camping gear and sleeping bags were now also banned.

Elizabeth A. Harris, Rob Harris and Meredith Hoffman contributed reporting.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesProtesters who marched up from Wall Street area were arrested on Fifth Avenue at 12th Street.

Hacking: Met use Official Secrets Act to demand Guardian reveals sources

By David Leigh guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 September 2011 15.40 BST 
Unprecedented move sees Scotland Yard use the Official Secrets Act to demand the paper hands over information

The Met are demanding the handover of documents relating to the source of information used in the Guardian's Milly Dowler phone-hacking story. Photograph: Surrey Police/PA The Metropolitan police are seeking a court order under the Official Secrets Act to make Guardian reporters disclose their confidential sources about the phone-hacking scandal. In an unprecedented legal attack on journalists' sources, Scotland Yard officers claim the act, which has special powers usually aimed at espionage, could have been breached in July when reporters Amelia Hill and Nick Davies revealed the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.

They are demanding source information be handed over. The Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, said on Friday: "We shall resist this extraordinary demand to the utmost". Tom Watson, the former Labour minister who has been prominent in exposing hacking by the News of the World, said: "It is an outrageous abuse and completely unacceptable that, having failed to investigate serious wrongdoing at the News of the World for more than a decade, the police should now be trying to move against the Guardian. It was the Guardian who first exposed this scandal." The NUJ general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, said: "This is a very serious threat to journalists and the NUJ will fight off this vicious attempt to use the Official Secrets Act … Journalists have investigated the hacking story and told the truth to the public. They should be congratulated rather than being hounded and criminalised by the state. "The protection of sources is an essential principle which has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the European court of human rights as the cornerstone of press freedom. The NUJ shall defend it. In 2007 a judge made it clear that journalists and their sources are protected under article 10 of the Human Rights Act and it applies to leaked material. The use of the Official Secrets Act is a disgraceful attempt to get round this existing judgment."

The paper's revelation in July that police had never properly pursued the News of the World for hacking the phone of the missing murdered girl caused a wave of public revulsion worldwide. The ensuing uproar over police inadequacy and alleged collusion with the Murdoch media empire swept away the top officers at Scotland Yard. It also brought about the closure of the News of the World itself, the withdrawal of the Murdoch takeover bid for Sky, and the launch of a major judicial inquiry into the entire scandal. Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and assistant commissioner John Yates both resigned. David Cameron's former PR chief Andy Coulson is among those who have subsequently been arrested for questioning, along with former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.

Police now intend to go before a judge at the Old Bailey in London on 23 September, in an attempt to force the handover of documents relating to the source of information for a number of articles, including the article published by Hill and Davies on 4 July disclosing "the interception of the telephone of Milly Dowler". Documents written by both reporters about the Milly Dowler story are covered by the terms of the production order police are now demanding. The application, authorised by Detective-Superintendent Mark Mitchell of Scotland Yard's professional standards unit, claims that the published article could have disclosed information in breach of the 1989 Official Secrets Act. It is claimed Hill could have incited police working on the then Operation Weeting hacking inquiry into leaking information, both about Milly Dowler and about the identity of Coulson, Rebekah Brooks and other arrested newspaper executives. A police officer is also being investigated, Scotland Yard say, for breaching the Official Secrets Act, as well as alleged misconduct in public office, for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment. An obscure clause – section 5 – of the 1989 Official Secrets Act, highly controversial at the time of its passing, allows individuals to be prosecuted for passing on "damaging" information leaked to them by government officials in breach of section 4 of the same act. This includes police information "likely to impede … the prosecution of suspected offenders". The clause is aimed at those who deliberately derail investigations by, for example, tipping off a suspect about an impending police raid. But it is being used in this case in an unprecedented way, against individual journalists for publishing a news article.

The Guardian's reporters did not pay any police officers. Police claim their work might be undermined by the alleged leaks. The head of Operation Weeting, deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers, is on record deploring that some details of inquiries have apparently leaked to the Guardian. Some of the arrestees are reported to be already claiming that media publicity will prevent them getting a fair trial. Scotland Yard says it has not officially released any of the arrestees' names, none of whom has as yet been charged with any offence. But they do not assert that anyone was "tipped off" by the arrest disclosures in the Guardian or other papers. Most of those questioned were arrested by appointment. The only previous attempt to use the 1989 Official Secrets Act against a journalist collapsed 11 years ago after a public outcry. Lieutenant Colonel Wylde, a former military intelligence officer, and author Tony Geraghty were arrested in December 1998 by defence ministry police after early morning raids at their homes. Both had computers and documents seized. This followed the publication of Geraghty's book The Irish War, which describes two British army computer databases in Northern Ireland used to identify vehicles and suspects. Expert reports were produced by the defence showing the information was not damaging. After consultations with Labour attorney general Lord Williams of Mostyn, both cases were finally dropped in November 2000. Wylde's lawyer, John Wadham, then of Liberty, said: "This case should never have got off the ground … This case is another nail in the coffin of the Official Secrets Act. The act is fundamentally flawed and needs to be reformed." In the same year, police failed in a similar attempt to get a production order for journalistic material from the Guardian and the Observer, over correspondence with renegade MI5 officer David Shayler. The appeal court, led by Lord Justice Judge, ruled: "Unless there are compelling reasons of national security, the public is entitled to know the facts, and as the eyes and ears of the public, journalists are entitled to investigate and report the facts … Inconvenient or embarrassing revelations, whether for the security services, or for public authorities, should not be suppressed. "Legal proceedings directed towards the seizure of the working papers of an individual journalist, or the premises of the newspaper … tend to inhibit discussion … Compelling evidence would normally be needed to demonstrate that the public interest would be served by such proceedings. "Otherwise, to the public disadvantage, legitimate inquiry and discussion, and 'the safety valve of effective investigative journalism' … would be discouraged, perhaps stifled." In 2009 the police threatened to prosecute Conservative MP Damian Green for "aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office". The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, intervened in that case, saying he did not consider that the damage caused by the leaked information outweighed the importance of the freedom of the press. Only last week the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, told MPs: "There is an important difference between off-the-record briefing and the payment of money by or to the police in return for information. "Journalists must operate within the law, but … we must be careful not to overreact in a way that would undermine the foundations of a free society."

At a speech at the Royal Television Society this week, Hunt praised the Guardian's coverage of the hacking scandal, describing it as "investigative journalism of the highest quality". The former Met commissioner Stephenson admitted to MPs that he had tried to talk the Guardian out of its phone-hacking campaign in December 2009. He added that "we should be grateful" to the Guardian for ignoring his advice and continuing its campaign.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/16/phone-hacking-met-court-order

Freedom Not Fear: Ending A Decade Long Legacy of International Privacy Erosion

Commentary by Katitza Rodriguez

This Saturday, September 17th, concerned European citizens with the Freedom not Fearmovement have decided to take their protest to the capital of the European Union, Brussels. Their slogan: Stop the surveillance mania! For five years in a row, Freedom Not Fear has taken to the streets in several cities in Europe and beyond to demand an end to suspicion-less surveillance measures. These include mandatory data retention laws and other reactionary surveillance measures that have been justified by the rhetoric of fear. Their protest efforts have been among the most meaningful demonstrations for this cause. Previously, Freedom not Fear protests were spread out across various European towns. For the first time, protesters from throughout Europe are descending on Brussels to directly confront the European Union’s policies at its headquarters.
Last week, protests were also organized in Dresden, Vienna, and Berlin. With mottoes such as: “Privacy is not a crime”, “mass surveillance threatens an open society”, and “mountains of data compromise our security”, thousands of people took the streets of Berlin to protest the surveillance of air travelers and to stop any attempt to re-introduce a German mandatory data retention law. A coalition of German activists is also urging fellow citizens to sign a petition against data retention. Its ultimate goal is to persuade the German government to fight for the repeal of the overall European Data Retention Directive.
As the world reflects on the decade following September 11th, Freedom not Fear protesters are attempting to reverse the unfortunate post-911 legacy of online anti-privacy measures. In the wake of 9/11, international government responses had significant impact on Internet privacy. The “war on terror” rhetoric enabled one of the most effective international policy launderingcampaigns to quickly enact unpopular and often covert policies with minimal fanfare. Within 45 days of 9/11, then-president George W. Bush already sent his much-wanted surveillance wish list to the European Union. In a letter to the European Commission President in Brussels, the United States sets out a blueprint for privacy erosions the EU could undertake that have sacrificed privacy for little gain in the struggle against terrorism.
The letter called on the EU to eliminate existing privacy protections so that online companies would be free to retain their customers’ online activities: “[r]evise draft privacy directives that call for mandatory destruction to permit the retention of critical data for a reasonable period.” What did this proposed revision mean? One of the key European privacy protections is the data minimization principle. This provision compels companies to limit their collection of personal information to a specific purpose [e.g., billing], and keep their data for only a specific period of time before destroying or irreversibly anonymizing it. This helps prevent online companies from developing sweeping databases on their customers’ activities, while the U.S. Government wished to encourage retention of everyone’s data, whether innocent or not, so investigators will have access to it. The impact of 9/11 on deliberations at the EU was evident at the time:

"We think this new version of the directive sends a powerful signal and it responds to the events of Sept. 11," said a European Union diplomat involved in the Wednesday meeting who insisted on anonymity. "Since that date there has been a reappraisal of the issue of data retention."

These initial U.S. efforts to facilitate a permissive data retention regime evolved to something worse: a mandatory Data Retention Directive adopted by the EU in 2006. Mandatory data retention is an extreme measure that the U.S. government has perennially tried--and failed--to pass through Congress. It was reintroduced by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee once again this year, in a bill that will require any commercial providers of Internet access to keep, for at least 12 months, a record of which users were assigned to particular network addresses at particular times.
As we commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we should reflect on the way in which a climate of fear has been exploited to advance Bush’s controversial proposals into international policies and practices. The fear of 'imminent threats' has made rational assessments aimed at achieving actual security and privacy difficult. Ten years later, the rhetoric of threats continues to pervade the dialogue.
As James Bamford said, in his recent op-ed, Post-9/11, NSA 'enemies' include us “somewhere between Sept. 11 and today, the enemy morphed from a handful of terrorists to the American population at large, leaving us nowhere to run and no place to hide.” Bamford is right, but the problem isn't limited to the U.S. In many countries around the world ordinary people morphed into potential criminals and governments took free reign to invade their privacy. If we allow the tragic attacks of 9/11 to create a cloud of fear, confusion and paranoia, we give in to the terrorists, and threaten the very freedoms that make open societies great. Freedom not Fear’s bold march into Brussels and across the European Union brings hope that the political climate is shifting and that we can re-establish our privacy rights and the principle of data minimization in the face of a decade’s worth of massive civil liberties breaches.

Some new film/cinema links

The Art of the Title SequenceA compendium and leading web resource of film and television title design from around the world. Honouring the artists who design excellent title sequences. The site discusses and displays their work with a desire to foster more of it, via stills and video links, interviews, creator notes, and user comments.

News Corp board shocked at evidence of payments to police, says former DPP

By Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent, via guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 July 2011

Lord Macdonald tells committee it took him 'three to five minutes' to decide NoW emails had to be passed to police. Lord Macdonald was in charge of the CPS when the phone-hacking prosecution of the NoW’s royal correspondent took place.

"Blindingly obvious" evidence of corrupt payments to police officers was found by the former director of public prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, when he inspected News of the World emails, the home affairs select committee was told. Explaining how he had been called in by solicitors acting for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation board, Lord Macdonald said that when he inspected the messages it took him between "three to five minutes" to decide that the material had to be passed to police. "The material I saw was so blindingly obvious that trying to argue that it should not be given to the police would have been a hard task. It was evidence of serious criminal offences."

He first showed it to the News Corp board in June this year. "There was no dissent," he recalled. "They were stunned. They were shocked. I said it was my unequivocal advice that it should be handed to the police. They accepted that." That board meeting, the former DPP said, was chaired by Rupert Murdoch. Lord Macdonald shortly afterwards gave the material to Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick at the Metropolitan police. The nine or 10 emails passed over led to the launch of Operation Elveden, the police investigation into corrupt payments to officers for information. Lord Macdonald, who had been in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service when the phone-hacking prosecution of the NoW's royal correspondent took place, said he had only been alerted to the case due to the convention that the DPP is always notified of crimes involving the royal family.

Members of the committee were highly critical of the CPS's narrow definition of what constituted phone hacking, claiming that it was at odds with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Mark Reckless, the Conservative MP for Rochester, said that the original police investigation was hindered by the advice from the CPS that phone hacking was only an offence if messages had been intercepted before they were listened to by the intended recipient. However, Reckless said, a clause in the RIPA makes it an offence to hack in to messages even if they have already been heard. Keir Starmer, the current DPP, said that the police had been told that "the RIPA legislation was untested". Listening to messages before they had been heard by the intended recipient was illegal, the police were told, but the question of whether intercepting them afterwards constituted a crime was "untested", he said.

Mark Lewis, the solicitor who has followed the scandal since its start, said he was the first person to lose his job over the affair when the firm in which he was a partner said it no longer wished him to pursue other victims' claims. Lewis also told MPs that he had been threatened by lawyers acting for John Yates, the former assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police, because of comments he had made about phone hacking. "I have copies of a letter from Carter Ruck [solicitors] threatening to sue me on behalf of John Yates," Lewis told the home affairs select committee. He said the Guardian and the Labour MP Chris Bryant had also received threats of being sued. "The costs of the action were paid for by the Metropolitan Police, by the taxpayer," he added. Lewis said the reason for the investigation taking so long was not due solely to the police. "The DPP seems to have got it wrong and needs to be helped out," he said.

[via]

Rupert Murdoch attacked at phone-hacking hearing
by John Plunkett and Jane Martinson via guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 July 2011 17.24 BST

Select committee brought to halt as activist attempts to hit News Corp chief in face with paper plate covered in shaving foam

The Murdochs' appearance before MPs for a grilling about the phone-hacking scandal was brought to a dramatic halt after an activist attempted to hit Rupert Murdoch in the face with a paper plate covered in shaving foam. Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng, who was sitting behind her husband at the culture, media and sport committee hearing, leapt up to defend her husband and appeared to hit out at the attacker as security guards and police rushed across the room to apprehend him. The attack happened just before 5pm on Tuesday and the News Corp chairman and chief executive was back answering MPs' questions within 20 minutes, having removed his foam-spattered suit jacket.

Murdoch's assailant, who was sitting four rows back in the committee meeting room at Portcullis House near the Houses of Parliament, apparently identified himself on Twitter shortly before the attack as a standup comic and UK Uncut activist called Jonnie Marbles. Marbles appears to have tweeted moments before he invaded the hearing. "It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat," he wrote on the social media network.

Moments after the committee chairman, John Whittingdale MP, suspended the meeting, a man wearing a checked shirt was seen outside the meeting room at the House of Commons in handcuffs. Cries of "no, no," could be heard as the man ran towards Rupert Murdoch, who was sitting in front of MPs on the committee alongside his son James. "He was sitting four rows back," said Guardian journalist Jane Martinson, who was among the reporters in the room when the attack took place. "He walked calmly to the front and smacked it in Rupert's face." Marbles had earlier tweeted: "I'm actually in this committee and can confirm: Murdoch is Mr Burns." He added: "Rupert Murdoch appears to be going senile." He also tweeted: "It might be quicker if Baby Murdoch simply listed all of the things that he does know. "One gets the sense that they haven't really done the required reading ahead of their presentation. Think they may fail this module."

Marbles describes himself on his Twitter page as an "activist, comedian, father figure and all-round nonsense. Tweeting in an impersonal capacity." But UK Uncut moved swiftly to distance itself from the invader. "The pie in Murdoch's face was NOT a UK Uncut action, everyone!" it tweeted soon after. Martinson added: "The man lobbed a plate of shaving foam into Murdoch's face at point-blank range. There was an astonishing reaction from Wendi, who, sitting behind her husband, immediately returned fire. "James looked stunned, several members of room gasped, but Wendi then sat on the desk calmly wiping foam from her husband's face. There was foam all over her blue-painted toes as well as two police officers who immediately grabbed him. There was shock that he got the foam in given the tight security. Another man with a long beard was also questioned. "She added: "All the press were kept in an overspill room as the committee resumed. I'm not sure how the foam man hid the paper plate. He was wearing black combat trousers and walked straight past me from the back row where the public was sitting to within inches of Murdoch. "Wendi was on her feet lobbing the plate back at her husband's assailant before James got up. Another woman – small and dark-haired – was the one who accosted the assailant first."

Labour MP Tom Watson, one of the members of the select committee, told Murdoch: "Your wife has a very good left hook." Louise Mensch, a Conservative MP and fellow select committee member, said Murdoch had shown "huge guts" in being willing to carry on. Another Labour MP, Chris Bryant, described the attack as "just despicable". He said witnesses should not be treated in such a manner and described it as contempt of parliament. Associates of Marbles said he "lives and breathes politics" and had been involved in previous UK Uncut protests.

Australia to investigate media after UK phone-hacking scandal

Inquiry could cover protections for privacy and the role of the print media's self-regulatory watchdog

• Associated Press
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 September 2011 09.28 BST
• Article history

Australia's prime minister, Julia Gillard, threatened to sue the Australian newspaper last month.
Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters
The Australian government has promised an inquiry into the country's media as politicians complain that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns too many newspapers.
Calls have been growing for an Australian inquiry into News Corp since the New York-based company closed the News of the World in July over phone-hacking allegations. News Corp owns 70% of Australia's newspapers.
The communications minister, Stephen Conroy, told colleagues in his ruling centre-left Labor party on Tuesday that there would be an inquiry into the Australian media. He said the terms of reference were under discussion with the Greens party that supports Labor's minority government. But Conroy said the inquiry would not be "an attack on News Ltd", the Australian subsidiary of News Corp. He said the inquiry could cover areas including protections for privacy and the role of the print media's self-regulatory watchdog, Australian Press Council. Conroy said the government disagreed with a motion to be proposed by the Greens leader, Bob Brown, in the Senate on Thursday. That motion would call on Conroy to "investigate the direct or indirect ramifications for Australia of the criminal matters affecting" News Corp's British subsidiary, News International. There have been no allegations made in Australia of the type of phone hacking that has led to at least 16 arrests in Britain.
Labor politicians have long complained that News Ltd publications are biased towards Liberal party conservatives and that the company has too much control over Australian newspapers. They blame the media for their party plumbing record lows in opinion polls four years after Labor first came to government. The Liberal leader, Tony Abbott, dismissed the need for a media inquiry, saying there was no evidence of any new problems in the industry. "This looks like a naked attempt to intimidate the media," Abbott said.
The prime minister, Julia Gillard, has had an increasingly testy relationship with News Ltd publications and its executives. The Australian newspaper withdrew an opinion piece from its website and published an apology last month after Gillard threatened to sue over an incorrect claim that she had once shared a house with a corrupt union official that had been paid for with embezzled union money. Gillard attacked the News Ltd broadsheet, saying no one had contacted her for comment before publishing "a false report in breach of all known standards of journalism". "This is a question of ethics and standards for the Australian," she said. John Hartigan, chairman and chief executive of News Ltd, described Gillard's comments as "pedantic" and "disappointing", and said it was accepted practice not to seek comment for opinion pieces.


UPDATE:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/media-groups-warn-on-government-regulation/story-e6frf7jx-1226137264538

Media groups warn on government regulation
• From:AAP 
• September 14, 2011 9:34PM
MAJOR news groups have warned against government regulation of print and online media, as Labor launched the first big inquiry into the sector in two decades and flagged the possibility of a single body to deal with complaints.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy today announced the independent inquiry, which was sparked by government and Greens MP concerns about the blurring of news and opinion in Australian political coverage, and privacy issues raised by the News of the World phone hacking scandal in the UK. But the minister said the aim of the inquiry - which won't have the power to compel witnesses - was not to provide a forum for politicians to attack the media. "The government is not interested in attacking any one media organisation or in seeking to reduce the necessary scrutiny of the political process that is at the heart of a functioning democratic media," he said.
John Hartigan, the chairman and chief executive of News Limited, which controls 70 per cent of Australia's print media and whose newspapers have been accused of bias by some MPs including Senator Conroy, said the way the inquiry had been set up was "regrettable".
Related Coverage
• Technology no excuse to restrict free pressThe Australian, 5 hours ago
• Independent inquiry to look at printThe Daily Telegraph, 5 hours ago
• Media under spotlightCourier Mail, 5 hours ago
• PARTY GAMES: Wrong turns prevailCourier Mail, 5 hours ago
• Press Council happy, but wants fundsThe Australian, 5 hours ago
"This inquiry started life as a witch-hunt by the Greens and has morphed into a fairly narrow look at a mixed bag of issues ostensibly focussed on print journalism," he said in a statement. "Any substantive inquiry into the media should cover all media and all media equally, particularly if it intends to investigate the need for a new overarching regulatory system."
Currently, the electronic media is regulated by a statutory body, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and the print media is covered by an independent industry-funded body, the Australian Press Council (APC). Senator Conroy said the APC was widely seen as a "toothless tiger" in a world of 24-hour news cycles and converging media platforms. "I don't think any editor and any of you quake in your boots about a complaint to the Press Council," Senator Conroy told reporters in Canberra.
He said the idea of a single regulator - overseeing complaints about all media from print to television and the internet - was "a legitimate question in the converged world".
APC chairman Professor Julian Disney, who took over the role 18 months ago, told AAP that council's staffing needed to be bolstered if it was going to have more bite. "It's not toothless, but it doesn't have enough teeth and it's also been too timid in using the powers that we have." At the moment, the council has four staff members. Prof Disney told AAP that he wants at least eight, so they could undertake systemic monitoring on issues such as the use of fair and accurate headlines. "That kind of system monitoring is something we really want to strengthen but that's not easy and it's actually impossible unless you have better resources that we have now," he said. "Our concern is not so much for the future of the press council, it's for the future of a strong effective model."
Greens leader Bob Brown said while he did not think media firms should be forced to divest their interests, he hoped the inquiry would find other ways to improve the number of voices in the Australian media and flagged his support for a single regulator. "Surely that seems to be one good option that inquiry might assess," he said. Fairfax Media and Australian Associated Press (AAP) cautiously welcomed the inquiry and pledged their participation, but warned against government regulation of the press. "Fairfax Media will be an active participant in the inquiry, championing the importance of independent journalism the likes of which are best able to flourish in a less regulated environment," CEO Greg Hywood said in a statement.
AAP CEO Bruce Davidson said it was vital the print media remained independent and free from any regulation that would impede its role in a democratic society. "I trust that this inquiry would rightly reject such a notion, and AAP certainly will be pressing that point in any submission to the inquiry," he said. Opposition communications spokesman and former journalist Malcolm Turnbull dismissed the inquiry, to be headed by former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein and assisted by journalism academic Dr Matthew Ricketson. "This is just a political stunt by a government that is bitter about being criticised by the media, in particular by News Limited," Mr Turnbull said. The inquiry will also look at the effectiveness of media codes of practice and the impact of technological change on the media business model. But Mr Turnbull said its four terms of reference could easily be covered by the government's ongoing convergence review. Australians should be suspicious of more regulation placed on the media, he said.
The inquiry will report to the government by February 28, 2012.

Guy Accused Of Being Part Of Anonymous Banned By Court From Using His Real Name Online

from the say-what-now? dept

 by Mike Masnick, TechDirt, Mon, Sep 12th 2011 1:00pm

Ah, the bizarre legal results of confused courts and confused laws. Four of the people arrested in the UK and accused of being a part of the not-actually-a-group Anonymous last week won a small part of a court battle. Prosecutors apparently had asked the court to bar the four from using Twitter or other social networking and chat services, such as TinyChat, arguing that "Anonymous as a group continues to be active." The court decided that it would not issue such a complete ban, though it had already blocked them from using IRC. Instead, it said that they could continue to use social networking and chat programs... but not use their existing online personas. It is, therefore, somewhat ironic that one of the people in question used his real first name as his online persona previously:

Peter David-Gibson, aged 20 from Hartlepool, who went by the online nickname “Peter”

Yes, you read that right. A guy accused of being Anonymous, but who used his real name online, can now no longer use his real name... because he may have been a part of Anonymous. That makes sense.

 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/10255815907/guy-accused-being-part-anonymous-banned-court-using-his-real-name-online.shtmlhttp://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/10255815907/guy-accused-being-part-anonymous-banned-court-using-his-real-name-online.shtml