Miller hopes others will go out and assert their rights to record. “Be professional,” he says “but be firm. Say no sir, the law is this, and I am completely within my rights to record you.” If asked to turn the camera off, “keep it rolling for your own self defense,” says Miller. “If they try to take your camera or delete your footage, then they are breaking the law.”
For his site’s fifth anniversary, Miller told readers he was planning to roll out a PINAC citizen-journalism press pass, so that his readers would be prepared when they’re asked to show press credentials. He plans to print and laminate the passes himself, and to outsource the process if they’re in high demand. He’ll be selling the passes through a new site he hopes will help him bring in money, called PINAC Nation, where he will sell merchandise related to his blog. The goal is to eventually hire a staff of two reporters to help him cover more stories. “In the beginning I had to search for these stories, and now they come to me,” says Miller. “I can’t cover all of them. A lot of stories go untold.”
Information Officer Perez would make Joseph Goebbels proud.
#1 Posted by williambanzai7, CJR on Sat 19 May 2012 at 01:59 AM
Keeping the cameras on the cops is a good thing.
So is keeping the cameras focused on those who dole out tax money illegally.
Like ACORN, for example....
Recording is also a great way to keep tabs on taxpayer-funded boondoggles like NPR and to track down election fraud.
It is really, really good at finding Gubmint workers sleeping on the job or otherwise wasting our money. Or union workers smoking weed on their lunch hour, right?
Oh wait... There seems to be a selective tolerance for recording hit jobs on the left side of the political aisle.
I tell all of my employees to presume that anytime they interact with anyone, there's a camera rolling. And if I find myself in a problematic interaction with a client or adversary, I flip on the voice recorder (with notice, of course).
Such is the way of the Brave New World.
#2 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 21 May 2012 at 11:21 PM
John Kurtz, an Orlando activist, videotaped a violent police arrest during the first hours of 2011 and wound up being arrested and serving 30 days in jail. This investigative story I did recently may leave you questioning if justice was served. http://www.questionablethings.com/civil-liberties-2/kurtz-stood-for-liberty-received-no-justice/
#3 Posted by Larry Blucher, CJR on Wed 23 May 2012 at 12:06 AM