citizen journalism

For the several months I have followed an unfolding scandal ocuring within the walls of the Louisiana State Police Troop D Headquarters in Lake Charles.
The scandal, involving the upper ranks of Troop D, alleges the padding of payroll hours by troopers which were then approved by their supervisors.
The story has been extensively covered by Tom Aswell, a retired investigative reporter who formerly ran Capitol News Service and reported extensively on Louisiana Politics.

A Port Authority police officer tried to intimidate a man from recording officers trying to pull a man off a bus in New York City Saturday.
But the cop backed off as soon as Nick Hentoff mentioned he was an attorney.
His video shows Port Authority officers’ attempting to remove a passenger from the bus. The passenger appeared dazed. The passenger also fell down as he tried to stand up.
It was then that a officer on scene got off the bus and confronted Hentoff for video recording saying:

Dennis Ortiz was pulled over by New Jersey state police last year for driving 110 mph on the interstate as he was driving back from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
He readily admitted to the speeding and agreed to step out of the vehicle, where he followed the officer’s instructions in performing a roadside sobriety test, which he passed.
Once he was allowed back inside his car, his girlfriend was recording and asked him to recap the scenario.
Ortiz spoke into the camera, saying the cops gave him an “unlawful sobriety test with no probable cause in the vehicle.”

After repeatedly ordering a man to drop the knife, tasering him several times in the process, Indianapolis police shot and killed the man after he charged at them Saturday morning.
And while we’ve seen many videos that contradict police claims that a man with a knife came charging towards them leaving them no choice but to shoot, a witness video from this incident appears to support those claims.

Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies were caught on video shooting a man as he walked away from them, firing upon him repeatedly as he tried to crawl away on his stomach.
Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies confirmed the killing but have released no other  information at this time.
The video was recorded by a witness who is remaining anonymous but sent the video to KTLA, which describes the scene as follows:

Brevard County sheriff’s deputies never did like PINAC’s Jeff Gray, so even though they told him Photography is Not a Crime, they still wanted to know why he was taking photos of a power plant.

‘Citizen journalism’ is a term often associated with misinformation and bias, but as Robin Yapp discovers, new digital technology is enabling volunteer journalists around the world to uncover significant stories of political injustice and corruption

[audio mp3="http://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/2015-12-03%20James%20Evan%20Pilato.mp3"][/audio]This week on the New World Next Week: new tech aims to authenticate citizen journalist footage; the NSA pretends to shut down its metadata collection program; and a group proposes a third amendment challenge to the NSA.

Massachusetts has some of the weakest government transparency laws in the country, so state lawmakers decided to make them even worse.

As I dive deeper and deeper into the legal complexities of the right to photograph and record in public (I can quote Glik v Cuniffe so fast I will make your head spin), I have noticed a disturbing trend:
The reasons and excuses offered by police officers, firefighters, security officers, even teachers and principals, to keep you from taking a photograph are just plain pathetic.