"MacWorld noted that the law came exactly 16 years after an amateur videographer filmed the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers. Under the new law French police should be protected from such an invasion of privacy. ®"

Hi John,

Good point in doing a parallel betwen this shamefull

incident in LA, years ago, and the new law proposed

by Sarko (alias "Joe Dalton", or "Little Big Man" as we call

this 8-bits version of Napoleon), since this is the only motivation behind it.

Indeed, almost all incidents involving police violence over

the last 3 years in France, have been backed up by

amateur films, which have proved to be the only way to

get the cases proved, since witnesses are usually locked

up as well, thus "guilty by default" and not reliable. And it

needs dozens of them in front of a court ...

Surely, the lawyer Sarkozy doesn't ignore that.

Herve (french)

Had it not been for that video, the cops of LA would still be greatly respected in South Central and the area would still be the prosperous part of LA it once was. What a disruptive criminal.

Now back to my crack pipe.

Or you could be in big trouble if there is a fight within its field of view!

OK, so it's illegal to film and post acts of violence in France.

Aside from all the worthwhile social aspects of having "citizen reporters" around let's consider the specific offense of happy slapping.

1. These juveniles are dumb enough to provide and distribute evidence of them committing assaults. So why stop them from doing so?

2. You have gangs doing this, and you require a new law on filming violence to bust them? Can't you arrest the guy behind the camera for being an accessory to aggravated assault, and possibly robbery, racketeering, disturbing the peace and who knows what other crimes related to their actions?

3. These juveniles are anti-social enough that they get their jollies by wandering around in packs beating people up, filming the action and posting it on the internet. In part, this is their rebellion against French society. Do you really think that they will stop any of these activities because that society now tells them that it is illegal to post these films? If anything, they will increase this activity to get more "street cred" and to further "stick it to the man" (the man in question being Sarkozy or the Gendarmerie--take your pick).