Media Activism: Protect The Box From Fox

There has been a lot of activism against Fox News lately. Color of Change is the most recent but there has also been some great work by Robert Greenwald and Hip Hop Artist: Nas among many others. There has even been a recent revelation by former White House Press secretary, Scott McLellan that the administration was giving Fox commentators Republican talking points to make sure they were on the same page as the Administration in their broadcasts. We here at Media Crashers also feel that Fox News is the poster child for what is wrong with the news media today and we would like to contribute to this effort.

Today we are pleased to suggest the Protect The Box From Fox netroots uprising.

Today, we call upon all cable remote savvy netroots media activists to participate in, perhaps, the greatest political prank of our generation. A little bit of "friendly fun" for us to have with our friends and family. Did you ever turn everything on and blast the radio in someone's car so that they are surprised when they start it up? It's a little like that. This prank, however, also has the added bonus of shutting down, in a small way, an invasive intellectual heist of a TV network right at it's source, the cable box.

The concept is simple:

We believe that Fox is political pornography. Our politicians have given us a tool to fight pornography on the cable box. It is called "lockout controls." Go to your cable boxes right now and figure out how to use those controls to lock out Fox News. Once you feel comfortable with how this is done, go to your parents house and lock it out there. Go to your brothers house, your sister, your children, anyone you can think of and protect that box from Fox when they're not looking! If you really want to have fun, create a new password.

The audience for Fox news is very often either not too bright, very casual, or the 50+ crowd who barely know what a computer is. Many of them might not even know what lockout controls are, let alone how to change them back. If we are lucky, they might just figure Fox got canceled on their cable service. We're sure there are some that will know how to unlock it. Others may even go to the trouble of calling the cable company and getting talked through the process of unlocking it. There are bound to be several, however, who don't know enough or don't care enough and just move on to other TV offerings.


What about free speech you say? Aren't we stepping on this poor "person's" first amendment rights?

The first amendment protects citizens and the press from being shut down by the government. It doesn't protect a giant, private, for profit, media conglomerate from being shut down by citizens who feel it is a fraud masquerading as new standard of "news." That phenomenon is what we call the free market taking action to correct itself. Some might also call it it's own form of free speech.

Video Activism: Students: A Challenge For You

Davis Fleetwood is the start of an MTV show called "The Hermet" that never aired. He now does commentary in YouTube videos which have become very successful. I have done some work in this technique myself and I am glad to see that it is showing more and more potential. It is currently the most viewed video on YouTube. With 1.9 million views. I can't think of a more important kind of video activism than this.

Politics: Adam Kokesh, Tina Richards arrested for defying a poster ban

Updated below

The story here is that an Iraq veteran and the mother of a marine who did 2 tours of duty in Iraq were part of an activist organization,[ The ANSWER coalition, ] posting signs to announce a Washington protest on September 15. There was a dispute with the city over the posting of signs which they are fighting:

ANSWER Coalition Press Conference in Washington DC
to Announce Free Speech Lawsuit Against DC Government

Statement by Sarah Sloan
National Staff Coordinator, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition

August 20, 2007

The Department of Public Works is not telling the truth when they say we have improperly posted signs promoting the September 15 March to Stop the War. The fact is that we have posted these signs in accordance with District of Columbia Municipal Regulations.

Specifically, the 65 Notices of Violation sent to us last week from the Department of Public Works claim that we violated Title 24 Section 108.9 of the DCMR which states that “Signs, advertisements, and posters shall not be affixed by adhesives that prevent their complete removal from the fixture, or that do damage to the fixture.”

Therefore, an adhesive can be used to affix posters as long as it does not “prevent their complete removal” or “do damage.” All posters in question have been affixed with a water-based and water-soluble paste. Volunteers have in the past removed these posters following events and found that they are removed easily and quickly.

When politicians campaign for office they plaster their posters everywhere and frequently in a manner that is not in accordance with the law. They are provided 30 days following the election to remove the signs. Frequently they do not remove them. The ANSWER Coalition will remove the Sept. 15 posters following the demonstration…. read on

And so they held this press conference demonstrating that they were using the correct paste and that hanging signs was legal. A young cop, with way too much authority for his age, showed up and told them they needed a permit and they were defacing public property. Things went down hill rapidly from there, the press conference continued, the cops got all hot and bothered and the two were arrested.


This reminds me of the time a few years back when an old girlfriend and I were standing on a NYC sidewalk holding signs to protest a business that was ripping us off. We were not blocking anything or anyone. Just standing there, on a public sidewalk, holding the signs and talking to anyone who talked to us. The business called the cops who showed up and told us we needed to leave or be arrested because we didn’t have a permit. Baffled, we left the scene and went about trying to get this "free speech permit." When we got to the appropriate offices, we were told there was no such thing as a permit for 2 people holding signs.

That fact is that this is unconstitutional behavior but freedom is kind of an illusion at the individual level isn't it? The police were wrong in my case, they are in the wrong in this case and they were wrong when they arrested those two people with anti Bush T-shirts at a Bush event, but the people giving the orders don’t care. Those people won an $80,000 judgement against the government but they still got removed from the event. Mission accomplished for the price of a toilet seat in Iraq.

Nobody can challenge the police at the time, they are the authorities and they can taser you or beat you with clubs or even shoot you if necessary. They count on people lacking resources or being too intimidated to challenge them after the fact and, if they do, the government just says “oops” and uses taxpayer money to pay whatever penalty there is. I don’t know of any restrictions on a government from unlawfully arresting people and then paying court judgments against them as often as they want. The worst they will have is a pissed off comptroller. It’s a perfect workaround when you think about it. They basically just buy as many unconstitutional events as they want, and it’s not even their money.

Not to be cynical or anything.

____________________________________

Update:

It has been suggested that putting up this poster is a violation of the park rules but I would point out that they are not in the park. They are on the sidewalk of a street that boarders the park posting on a utility box. Cars are whizzing by. The mounted cop almost chases them into the street. This makes pretty clear to me that they are on city property not park property (as if that would really matter) and the law is very clear about the use of lamp posts, traffic signals and the supporting fixtures, such as junction boxes:

24 DCMR 108.4 Any sign, advertisement, or poster that does not relate to the sale of goods or services may be affixed on public lampposts or appurtenances of a lamppost subject to the restrictions set forth in this section.

The restrictions include details of how long the poster can stay up, the type of glue, the number of posters per block, the need to tell the city within 24 hours etc. If you follow the above link you can see the details. It is also interesting to note that The Partnership for Civil Justice has filed a lawsuit against the city claiming that many of the restrictions are unconstitutional because they do not provide equal protection under the law. Political campaigns can post for longer than 60 days. Community crime related posters can be posted forever. Grass roots organizations can only leave them up for 60 days. Forcing people to register also violates the right to anonymous speech which is also protected. Would you want to register who you were voting for with the state before an election? The same protection applies here.

So, I will say it again: This cop was a punk who didn't know the law and got uppity with a citizen because he felt like his little tin badge ego was being challenged. It has been reported that he is 35 so I will accept that it is poor professionalism and maturity rather than youthful inexperience.

Journalism: Kevin Epps & Njeri Sims - US Vs Josh Wolf

Josh Wolf was a freelance videographer who often posted his work on blogs. In July of 2005 he captured footage of a protest in San Fransisco. There was some disorder at the protest and the federal government tried to subpoena his equipment and his footage as part of the investigation. Josh believed that his footage didn't show anything significant and that the disorder did not warrant a federal investigation. He believed that the government simply wanted his tape so that they could use it to identify the people at the protest for their homeland security database. He offered to let the judge see the footage but refused to give over the tapes to the government, citing the first amendment and freedom of the press. They said, among other things, that he didn't count as the press and threw him in federal prison on April 1, 2006. He has since been released after posting his footage on the internet.

In all honesty, when I watch his footage, I have a hard time not concluding that some of the anarchy demonstrators were indeed out of line but I think this story still says something important about the state of our country today with it's hysterical fear of terrorists and "subversives". They put a guy in jail to get his camera footage of a protest.

Regardless of which side of this issue people fall on, I think this really opens up some important legal questions: who exactly counts as the press these days now that pretty much anyone can publish on the internet? How far does the first amendment go? Should journalists be able to refuse grand jury subpoenas? Does raw footage of a public event, with no participation from the observer, constitute the creation of some property that can then be protected by the first amendment?

This video was created by two allies of Josh as part of the movement to get him out of jail.

Producers to Watch: Ava Lowery - WWJD

As far as I know, this is the video that started it all for 16 year old Alabama web video activist Ava Lowery. She founded the website Peace Takes Courage and this was one of the early videos she posted as a very simple flash based slide show. The video began to be a viral hit after she submitted it to The Huffington Post as part of a monthly contest. It drew the wrath of angry Bush supporters, some of whom sent death threats. Word got out about this through the net-roots and it brought defenders in the form of Cindy Sheehan, Air America Radio and the liberal blogs who all saw her as both an inspiration and a sympathetic character who shared their beliefs. She has been one of the few web video producers I know of that have been embraced by the netroots in this way.

She has since had major media appearances where she talks about her work and, at times, seems to completely baffle them. She has been amazingly prolific. Her website lists at least a hundred more videos, many of which now incorporate combat camera video footage and are immediately promoted by various netroots outlets. There is a good Buzzflash interview with here HERE.

Video Activism: Whose Streets?

This video, from dunnlap31 on YouTube is pretty disturbing. He or she points to The Portland Media Center for more information. I have a friend in Portland who has shown me similar photographs he and others have taken at demonstrations. Somehow the police always seem to takeout fire extinguisher sized canisters of mace and start shooting large groups of people who don't look that threatening. . . other than. . you know. . protesting.

I have been worried that since "The War On Terror" has begun that authorities have suddenly been taking more latitude when it comes to getting people to "comply" or pushing around protesters. This video was used as evidence in a complaint against the Portland Police department. I think it is a good example of how the pen may be mightier than the sword but video is mightier than the pen.