UPDATE: LISTEN TO NICK SPEAK WITH TECH WIRED AUSTRALIA
In a world where the watchers can not be watched, can good turn into evil? This is what happened last Friday to Potts Point apartment resident Nick Holmes à Court, who was threatened with arrest under the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 for videotaping Police performing a search in public.
It happened around 10:00 PM AEDST when Nick decided he would go outside his Sydney apartment for a cigarette. Whilst smoking his cigarette a group of Police officers armed with video cameras stormed past him. Nick thought that if they were filming in public, why not film them. He put his Blackberry into video mode, and started to film. As soon as a member of the New South Wales Police force saw him taking footage they stormed over, confiscated his mobile phone, and threatened him with arrest under the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act.
“They told me to move along, so I did, but I was already 100 metres away from my own apartment building, so I told them that”, Nick told Tech Wired Australia
“They also interrogated me, and told me that they would be deleting the video I had taken. They also went through all my contacts, photos and emails before returning the Blackberry to me. They even had to ask one of my business partners how to delete files on the Blackberry as they wouldn’t let me do it”
“I told the two Police women repeatedly that I did not consent to them going through my mobile. They embarrassed me, I had two of my business partners with me”
“The world we are living in is becoming too restrictive, I was just being a citizen journalist capturing video in a public place, the public need to know their rights, and so do the Police”
New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties got in contact with Nick soon after the event, and have asked him to help them out with their lobbying.
Not too long ago something similar occurred in London under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, of which UK Police allowed a camera to film them performing a search:
What do you think of Australia’s Anti-Terrorism laws?
EVERY so often a product or service comes along that makes me say “Man, I wish I’d thought of that”. BuzzNumbers, which launched today, is a prime example of such a service. BuzzNumbers basically scans social media platforms and provides monitoring and reports on conversations that’s happening in the social web. Read more
EGO boosting aside, Nick Hac @ Shifted Pixels has done up a table of those in Australia of whom are most influential on the micro-blogging platform Twitter.
“As we couldn’t find an equivalent list for twitter – we put together a list of Australia’s most influential Twitterers. This is a draft version for now and im sure we will release a more accurate version soon.”
