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?
Image Source: flipflopflyin.com
ACCORDING to BBC News’ interview with Feargal Sharkey, a former musician in popular 80s band The Undertones, educating people about music rights is essential.
Sharkey notes that Music piracy is not a new problem and that people have been copying music since the day cassette tapes were introduced.
“Someone said to me the other day, ‘when I was young I’d pop the odd cassette over the garden fence to my next door neighbour’.” he told the BBC’s Digital Planet program.
“The reality is because of the modern world we live in, the next door neighbour’s garden is now global in size and populated by billions of people”
