France bans "non-professional journalists" from "recording acts of violence"

[KBCraig]

It's odd that Macworld is reporting this, although Mac-driven technology definitely plays a role in multimedia gathering and reporting.

Anyhoo... read the link for the full article, and be sure to read the comments.

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.

More:
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/03/06/franceban/index.php

[error]

Anybody with a gram of sense left France years ago. The country is descending into chaos and should be watched from a safe distance of thousands of miles.

[Russell Kanning]

this makes a lot of sense. The government has to certify who is "press" and has certain "rights". They mostly have control of those people.

[David]

'police personel protection act'

[lildog]

Anybody with a gram of sense left France years ago. The country is descending into chaos and should be watched from a safe distance of thousands of miles.

The problem is that there are people in THIS country who look at countries like France as examples of what to do here.