The Spectre of Hope
The 'Spectre of Hope' is a documentary based on the latest work of photographer Sebastião Salgado.
Salgado spent 6 years travelling to over 40 countries, taking pictures of globalisation and its consequences - most notably, the mass migrations of populations around the world. In the film, Salgado presents his remarkable photographs in conversation with John Berger.
Go and watch LENGTH 52 min :)
"Homeless also have a sex-life" was their message. They put a bed in Sergels square in central of Stockholm and made out.
Just goes to show the power of the flickr comunity, do you think an editor could ever get such a picture via a professional photographer?
 A journalist recovers after the confrontation with police |
Most were held in Karachi and several detained in Hyderabad.
Police baton-charged the Karachi journalists after they tried to stage a protest march. Some of them were hurt.
When President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule on 3 November, radio and TV news was banned, as was criticism of the government.
Country-wide
Heavy contingents of police were deployed on roads to the Karachi Press Club to stop the rally there.
Police stopped the marchers going to a TV station
It was part of a country-wide protest organised by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) against the media curbs.
The journalists were planning to hold a demonstration outside the Karachi offices of the ARY TV channel, one of half a dozen news channels that cable operators stopped airing after the emergency was imposed.
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Karachi says police beat up a number of journalists in front of the press club entrance.
The arrests came shortly after the government said it released some 3,400 people jailed under emergency rule.
The release of political opponents has been a key demand of opposition parties who are threatening to boycott parliamentary elections in January.
A number of leading political figures are still being held. The military has not yet defined the
specific charges against Hussein. Previously, the military has pointed
to a range of suspicions that attempt to link him to insurgent
activity.
The AP rejects all the allegations and contends it
has been blocked by the military from mounting a wide-ranging defense
for Hussein and claims that Hussein was interrogated at Camp Cropper this year without legal counsel.
Hussein was part of the AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo team
in 2005
More information on AP Website
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 Yahoo senior officers were criticised in a congressional hearing |
No details have been given of the settlement but Yahoo will be covering legal costs.
The case alleged that Yahoo had provided information to the Chinese government that had then been used to prosecute the dissidents.
Yahoo said it had to comply with Chinese laws to operate in the country.
A statement released by the World Organization for Human Rights USA, which brought the case, said Yahoo had decided to settle the case following criticism at a US Congressional hearing on 6 November.
'Inexcusably negligent'
A Congressional panel criticised Yahoo for not giving full details to its probe into the jailing of a reporter by Chinese authorities.
Yahoo had been "at best inexcusably negligent" and at worst "deceptive" in evidence given to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last year, the panel said.
One journalist cited in the case, Shi Tao, was tracked down and jailed for 10 years for subversion after Yahoo passed on his e-mail and IP address to officials.
He was convicted in 2004 of divulging state secrets after posting online a Chinese government order forbidding media organisations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Yahoo's original response to the lawsuit acknowledged releasing information to the Chinese government.
But it argued that there was little connection between the information the firm gave and the ensuing arrests and imprisonment of its users.
Michael Callahan, Yahoo's executive vice-president and general counsel, then told a congressional panel in February 2006 that he did not know why the Chinese authorities wanted to trace Shi Tao.
Last week, Mr Callahan wrote to the committee admitting that other Yahoo employees had a document saying it was to do with the "suspected illegal provision of state secrets".
Mr Callahan said the information only came to his attention months after he testified.
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5 November 2007
The Dutch government today admitted officials hacked into a media agency's
computers to find out what stories were being written about them.
The GPD news agency only discovered what was going on when one ministry press
officer rang up to complain about a story that had not even been published.
Marcel van Lingen, editor-in-chief of the agency which serves more than a
dozen newspapers in the Netherlands and Belgium, accused the government of
"spying."
The Social Affairs Ministry "used stolen information to influence (our)
reporting," he said.
The ministry confirmed in a statement some of its employees had accessed
GPD's internal site and apologised.
"It is not our policy and we reject it. The department will investigate the
matter and take steps to prevent it happening again in the future," said a
spokesman.
It invited public prosecutors to investigate whether any criminal acts were
committed. Other news outlets criticised the ministry's action, and The
Netherlands' Union of Journalists' chief Thomas Bruning called it a "kick in the
shins for the independent role that journalism plays."
source :: Press Gazette
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First strike software have just launched the latest version of Plodshop Creative suite CS3
Developed
by Warren Terror Software Plodshop is intended as an image verification
and anti manipulation software for digital images and is to address
major security issues in the industry standard Adobe Photoshop, Picnik,
Tesco Photo ReStyle and Piccasa2
You can see the full product review by EPUK (who are press and editorial Photographers discussion group) here:
http://www.epuk.org/Blogs/739/new-epuk-software-release
Well
at least they see it for what it is
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Richard Branson was in Derby, UK today to open the new Arts, Design and Technology building, built at a cost of £21 million pounds by the University of Derby for its new education centre
Out From Behind a Camera at a Khmer Torture House
When I read this I have very mixed emotions, looking at images of people who were tortured just after they had their photo taken. Most look as if they are posing for the family album, but they dont smile, others look afraid...and others have been tortured! (Lifespy)
NYTimes story here
the photos are here
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, Oct. 25 — He had a job to do, and he did it supremely well, under threat of death, within earshot of screams of torture: methodically photographing Khmer Rouge prisoners and producing a haunting collection of mug shots that has become the visual symbol of Cambodia’s mass killings
Back Story With Seth Mydans and Graham Bowley (mp3) 
Before killing the prisoners, the Khmer Rouge photographed, tortured and extracted written confessions from their victims.
“I’m just a photographer; I don’t know anything,” he said he told the newly arrived prisoners as he removed their blindfolds and adjusted the angles of their heads. But he knew, as they did not, that every one of them would be killed.
“I had my job, and I had to take care of my job,” he said in a recent interview. “Each of us had our own responsibilities. I wasn’t allowed to speak with prisoners.”
That was three decades ago, when the photographer, Nhem En, now 47, was on the staff of Tuol Sleng prison, the most notorious torture house of the Khmer Rouge regime, which caused the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979.
This week he was called to be a witness at a coming trial of Khmer Rouge leaders, including his commandant at the prison, Kaing Geuk Eav, known as Duch, who has been arrested and charged with crimes against humanity.
The trial is still months away, but prosecutors are interviewing witnesses, reviewing tens of thousands of pages of documents and making arrests.
As a lower-ranking cadre at the time, Mr. Nhem En is not in jeopardy of arrest. But he is in a position to offer some of the most personal testimony at the trial about the man he worked under for three years.
In the interview, Mr. Nhem En spoke with pride of living up to the exacting standards of a boss who was a master of negative reinforcement.
“It was really hard, my job,” he said. “I had to clean, develop and dry the pictures on my own and take them to Duch by my own hand. I couldn’t make a mistake. If one of the pictures was lost I would be killed.”
But he said: “Duch liked me because I’m clean and I’m organized. He gave me a Rolex watch.”
Fleeing with other Khmer Rouge cadres when the government was ousted by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979, Mr. Nhem En said he traded that watch for 20 tins of milled rice.
Since then he has adapted and prospered and is now a deputy mayor of the former Khmer Rouge stronghold Anlong Veng. He has switched from an opposition party to the party of Prime Minister Hun Sen, and today he wears a wristwatch that bears twin portraits of the prime minister and his wife, Bun Rany.
Last month an international tribunal arrested and charged a second Khmer Rouge figure, who is now being held with Duch in a detention center. He is Nuon Chea, 82, the movement’s chief ideologue and a right-hand man to the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, who died in 1998.
Three more leaders were expected to be arrested in the coming weeks: the urbane former Khmer Rouge head of state, Khieu Samphan, along with the former foreign minister, Ieng Sary, and his wife and fellow central committee member, Ieng Thirith.
All will benefit from the caprice of Mr. Nuon Chea, who complained that the squat toilet in his cell was hurting his ailing knees and was given a sit-down toilet.
Similar toilets are being installed in the other cells, said a tribunal spokesman, Reach Sambath, “So they will all enjoy high-standard toilets when they come.”
It is not clear whether any of the cases will be combined. But even if the defendants do not see one another, their testimony, harmonious or discordant, will put on display the relationships of some of the people who once ran the country’s killing machine.
In a 1999 interview, Duch implicated his fellow prisoner, Mr. Nuon Chea, in the killings, citing among other things a directive that said, “Kill them all.”
Mr. Nhem En’s career in the Khmer Rouge began in 1970 at age 9 when he was recruited as a village boy to be a drummer in a touring revolutionary band. When he was 16, he said, he was sent to China for a seven-month course in photography.
He became the chief of six photographers at Tuol Sleng, where at least 14,000 people were tortured to death or sent to killing fields. Only a half dozen inmates were known to have survived.
He was a craftsman, and some of his portraits, carefully posed and lighted, have found their way into art galleries in the United States.
Hundreds of them hang in rows on the walls of Tuol Sleng, which is now a museum, their fixed stares tempting a visitor to search for meaning here on the cusp of death. In fact, they are staring at Mr. Nhem En.
The job was a daily grind, he said: up at 6:30 a.m., a quick communal meal of bread or rice and something sweet, and at his post by 7 a.m. to wait for prisoners to arrive. His telephone would ring to announce them: sometimes one, sometimes a group, sometimes truckloads of them, he said.
“They came in blindfolded, and I had to untie the cloth,” he said.
“I was alone in the room, so I am the one they saw. They would say, ‘Why was I brought here? What am I accused of? What did I do wrong?’”
But Mr. Nhem En ignored them.
“‘Look straight ahead. Don’t lean your head to the left or the right.’ That’s all I said,” he recalled. “I had to say that so the picture would turn out well. Then they were taken to the interrogation center. The duty of the photographer was just to take the picture.”
Whistleblower? Journalist? Citizen journalist? Wikileaks writer,
volunteer, supporter or techie? Get advice and talk with other people
like you on the Wikileaks secure chat (also good for safe interviews
with anonymous sources).
Goto https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:Chat
Click "chat" to the right. Click into the box at the bottom of the
chat page and and start typing. For greater reliability and ease of
use, you can install a chat program as described below. Our chat
system is designed to work on almost any browser in any country. It
has minimal bandwidth requirements and will even work over dialups or
mobile phones.
We will create sub-channels (e.g for the Kenyan election) if there is
sufficient demand (let us know!).
CNN) -- Yahoo misled Congress regarding information the Internet company gave to Chinese authorities about the journalist Shi Tao, Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos said Tuesday.
Yahoo officials have been asked to testify before a House committee in November about a Chinese journalist's case.
Lantos, a California representative and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asked Yahoo Inc. officials to testify about the company's role in a case that sent Chinese newspaper writer and editor Shi to prison on a 10-year sentence.
Lantos asked Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang and Senior Vice President and General Counsel Michael Callahan to appear November 6.
"Our committee has established that Yahoo provided false information to Congress in early 2006," Lantos said in a written statement. "We want to clarify how that happened, and to hold the company to account for its actions both before and after its testimony proved untrue. And we want to examine what steps the company has taken since then to protect the privacy rights of its users in China."
The newspaper reporter had posted information under a pseudonym on an overseas Web site called Democracy Forum about a government crackdown on media and democracy activists, Lantos said.
Shi was later arrested in his home in Beijing after Yahoo gave Chinese authorities information about his e-mail account, his computer address, his log-on history and the contents of several weeks of his e-mail, Lantos said.
Lantos said a Yahoo official testified last year that the company knew nothing "about the nature of the investigation" of Shi, a pro-democracy activist now serving time on what Lantos called "trumped-up charges."
Don't Miss
China puts the squeeze on Web controls
"We have now learned there is much more to the story than Yahoo let on, and a Chinese government document that Yahoo had in their possession at the time of the hearing left little doubt of the government's intentions," said Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey.
"U.S. companies must hold the line and not work hand in glove with the secret police."
In a written statement, Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Yahoo representatives have been truthful with Congress. He called the House committee's accusation "grossly unfair" and said it "mischaracterizes the nature and intent of our past testimony."
During a February 2006 subcommittee hearing on limits to freedom on the Internet in China, Lantos and Smith questioned Callahan about Shi.
Callahan testified to the subcommittee that Yahoo handed over the information to Chinese authorities at a time when it knew nothing about the investigation, Lantos said.
But the San Francisco, California-based human-rights group The Dui Hua Foundation released documents in July indicating police in China had written to Yahoo saying they were seeking evidence about Shi for illegally "providing state secrets to foreign entities," a charge frequently levied against political dissidents in China.
"This new documentation suggests that Yahoo's Beijing office was at least aware of the general nature of the crime being investigated in the Shi Tao case," said Joshua Rosenzweig, manager of research and publications for The Dui Hua Foundation.
Even if Yahoo was unaware of the specific circumstances of the Chinese government's inquiry, "One does not have to be an expert in Chinese law to know that 'state secrets' charges have often been used to punish political dissent in China," said Rosenzweig.
Shi has appealed his 10-year sentence for divulging state secrets, saying he did not know the information he shared was classified. He accused the police of using improper procedures in the investigation and arrest.
In addition, he has filed suit in U.S. federal court against Yahoo and its Hong Kong-based subsidiary.
Yahoo's spokeswoman said the company is working with other companies and the human rights community "to develop a global code of conduct for operating in countries around the world, including China."
 The defence said the image was to show identification problems |
The image had been "stretched and sized" to form a
composite image of the Brazilian and Hussain Osman to show the jury,
prosecutors told the Old Bailey.
Mr de Menezes was shot dead after being wrongly identified as one of the men who targeted London's transport system.
The Metropolitan Police denies breaking health and safety laws.
Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head on a
train at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July 2005, after being wrongly
identified as Osman.
The Met Police said the composite picture was created to
illustrate the difficulties officers would have had in differentiating
the two men.
'Serious allegation'
But Clare Montgomery QC, prosecuting, told the court it
had been altered "by either stretching or resizing so the face ceases
to have its correct proportions".
The judge, Mr Justice Henriques, told the jury: "A
serious allegation has been made that a picture has been manipulated so
as to mislead."
Making the image brighter has changed the image
Michael George, forensics consultant
Forensics consultant Michael George told the court that
the police composite appeared to have a "greater definition" than the
two images used to produce it.
He produced an alternative composite, shown to the jury,
in which the two faces have different skin tones and their mouths and
noses are not aligned.
Ronald Thwaites QC, defending, asked Mr George whether there had been any manipulation "of the primary features of the face".
Mr George replied: "I don't believe there has been any... but making the image brighter has changed the image."
The court heard the composite was compiled using a 2001
identity card photograph of Mr de Menezes and a photo of Osman taken by
police in Rome, where he was arrested.
Immigration records
Earlier, Mr Thwaites cross-examined immigration official
Paul Roach over a counterfeit stamp found in the Brazilian's passport,
asking if this meant he had been in the country illegally.
Mr Roach told the court Mr de Menezes first entered the
country on 13 March 2002 and was given six months' leave to remain,
before extending his stay, as a student, to 30 June 2003.
The next record was of him arriving in Ireland from
France on 23 April 2005 but there was no notification of when he
returned to the UK.
The court heard how as a person entering Britain from
Ireland, he would have had an automatic three-month leave to remain
which at the earliest would have run out on 23 July, the day after he
was killed.
A counterfeit stamp found on his passport may only have been added after he entered the UK, Mr Roach said.
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The man appears in about 200 images depicting the abuse
of 12 boys, which police said were taken in Vietnam and Cambodia,
possibly in 2002 and 2003.
The pictures had been digitally altered but police computer specialists have produced identifiable images.
Interpol says the man is a danger to children while he remains at large.
Interpol chief Ronald Noble said: "We have tried all other means to identify and to bring him to justice.
"We are now convinced that without the public's help
this sexual predator could continue to rape and sexually abuse young
children whose ages appear to range from six to early teens."
Image database
The first pictures of the man were found three years ago in Germany, Interpol said.
The pictures had been manipulated to disguise the man's
face with a swirl pattern, but computer specialists at Germany's
federal police agency, the BKA, worked with Interpol's human
trafficking team to produce identifiable images.
They show a man with slightly receding dark hair, aged 35 to 40 years old.
Despite extensive efforts through Interpol's network of 186 member states his identity remains unknown.
Interpol maintains a database of 520,000 images of child sex abuse submitted by 36 member states.
Using sophisticated software, investigators have identified and rescued nearly 600 victims from 31 countries.
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By Ken
Fisher | Published: October 01, 2007 - 10:20PM CT
New laws going into effect today in the United Kingdom make it a crime to
refuse to decrypt almost any encrypted data requested by authorities as part of
a criminal or terror investigation. Individuals who are believed to have the
cryptographic keys necessary for such decryption will face up to 5 years in
prison for failing to comply with police or military orders to hand over either
the cryptographic keys, or the data in a decrypted form.
Part 3, Section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA)
includes provisions for the decryption requirements, which are applied
differently based on the kind of investigation underway. As we reported last year, the
five-year imprisonment penalty is reserved for cases involving anti-terrorism
efforts. All other failures to comply can be met with a maximum two-year
sentence.
The law can only be applied to data residing in the UK, hosted on UK servers,
or stored on devices located within the UK. The law does not authorize the UK
government to intercept encrypted materials in transit on the Internet via the
UK and to attempt to have them decrypted under the auspices of the jail time
penalty.
The law has been criticized for the power its gives investigators, which is
seen as dangerously broad. Authorities tracking the movement of terrorist funds
could demand the encryption keys used by a financial institution, for instance,
thereby laying bare that bank's files on everything from financial transactions
to user data.
Cambridge University security expert Richard Clayton said in May of 2006 that such laws would
only encourage businesses to house their cryptography operations out of the
reach of UK investigators, potentially harming the country's economy. "The
controversy here [lies in] seizing keys, not in forcing people to decrypt. The
power to seize encryption keys is spooking big business," Clayton said.
"The notion that international bankers would be wary of bringing master keys
into UK if they could be seized as part of legitimate police operations, or by a
corrupt chief constable, has quite a lot of traction," he added. "With the
appropriate paperwork, keys can be seized. If you're an international banker
you'll plonk your headquarters in Zurich."
The law also allows authorities to compel individuals targeted in such
investigation to keep silent about their role in decrypting data. Though this
will be handled on a case-by-case basis, it's another worrisome facet of a law
that has been widely criticized for years. While RIPA was originally passed in
2000, the provisions detailing the handover of cryptographic keys and/or the
force decryption of protected content has not been tapped by the UK Home
Office—the division of the British government which oversees national security,
the justice system, immigration, and the police forces of England and Wales. As
we reported last year, the Home Office was slowly building its case to activate
Part 3, Section 49.
The Home Office has steadfastly proclaimed that the law is aimed at catching
terrorists, pedophiles, and hardened criminals—all parties which the UK
government contends are rather adept at using encryption to cover up their
activities.
Yet the law, in a strange way, almost gives criminals an "out," in that those
caught potentially committing serious crimes may opt to refuse to decrypt
incriminating data. A pedophile with a 2GB collection of encrypted kiddie porn
may find it easier to do two years in the slammer than expose what he's been up
to.
Source: ars technica
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ABC News announced today that it would dispatch digital reporters to seven foreign cities, a move meant to give the network a broader global presence without incurring the cost of opening full-fledged bureaus.
The reporters will serve as their own producers, bookers and assistants, filing reports for all ABC News platforms. Two people will be posted in India, and one each in South Korea, Indonesia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates and Kenya.
“We don’t need old-style bureaus with a bricks and mortar office, editing suites, and full-time camera crews,” said Marcus Wilford, the London bureau chief for ABC News. “We can shoot video, edit it and feed it over the Internet now.”
The reporters will be supported by ABC’s five fully-staffed bureaus (in London, Moscow, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Beijing) and by the network’s partnerships with other news organizations.
ABC and other networks have been cutting back on their overseas infrastructures for decades, as have newspapers and other news outlets. Their budgets have benefited, even if viewers and readers probably haven’t.
For the latest generation of journalists, conducting interviews, operating a camera, editing video clips and filing stories have turned into common skills. The old norm — of four-person network news crews — is rapidly growing extinct.
One of the new ABC digital reporters, Dana Hughes, formerly an investigative producer, was in Nairobi, Kenya on Wednesday looking for an apartment, which will also serve as her office.
“I’ve been given the assignment to, more or less, cover the entire continent of Africa,” she said by phone from Nairobi.
Ms. Hughes started gathering news before she even arrived in Kenya. The musician John Legend was on her flight, en route to support a United Nations project and record a music video, and he consented to an interview once the plane landed in Nairobi.
Mr. Wilford of ABC News said he saw this round of foreign posts as the first phase of a broader deployment, adding that he would especially like to add a reporter in Tehran.
Mr. Wilford recalled that when he was hired by ABC News 20 years ago, the news division’s Paris bureau had three camera crews, three producers, two correspondents, drivers, and a chef in a house with a view of the Eiffel Tower. Today the ABC News presence in Paris consists of a lone staff producer.
“It was a palatial establishment,” Mr. Wilford said, “and it wasn’t sustainable.”
Source: New York Times
By Brian Stelter
Data about calls made and received will also be available to 652 public bodies, including the police and councils.
The Home Office said the content of calls and texts
would not be read and insisted the move was vital to tackle serious
crime and terrorism.
But critics said it was another example of Britain's "surveillance society".
The new law, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, was signed off by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in July.
It requires phone companies to log data on every call or text made to and from every phone in Britain.
'Different uses'
Since 2004, companies have voluntarily provided data,
where available, if it was requested, but now they will required by law
to retain it for a year.
Minister for Security and Counter-terrorism Tony McNulty
told BBC Radio 4 that the data could provide three levels of
information, the simplest being about the phone's owner.
"Say some old lady has got difficulties with someone
who's repaired the gas in her house and has a mobile phone for somebody
who's clearly dodgy," Mr McNulty said.
"The local authorities can just get the subscriber information next to that number.
"The second level of data is not simply the subscriber, but also the calls made by that phone.
"And the third level which is purely for the security
forces, police, etc, is not just the subscriber information and the
calls made, but also the calls coming in and location data - where the
calls are made from."
Personal 'profile'
A person's location can be pinpointed to within a few feet by identifying the mobile phone mast used to transmit their call.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights group
Liberty, said people were more concerned than ever about their personal
privacy, especially how many bodies had access to their phone records.
"There are actually a very broad range of purposes for
which this information about who we've been phoning and when can be
revealed," Ms Chakrabarti said.
"It includes, for example, the Gaming Board, the Food Standards Authority and every district and county council in the country."
She said requests for information would not be limited to those concerning serious crime and national security.
"We're talking about a profile that can be built of your
personal relationships on the basis of who you've been speaking to and
when."
Public consulted
Mr McNulty said local councils would only have access to data on "a legitimate and proportional basis".
"(To say) that all of a sudden anyone and everyone's
information is available, that all these authorities somehow have the
right to go fishing and snooping, simply isn't the case," he added.
Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman,
said: "Once again this government has been caught red-handed creating
new surveillance state powers with no meaningful public or
parliamentary debate.
The Home Office said the plans had been through a public
consultation and said a senior police officer would have to approve any
request for phone data.
Councils would only be able to use the powers to
"prevent and detect crime - not for the collection of taxes", the
spokesman added.
The new law brings Britain in line with an EU directive on the retention of phone data.
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Stuart Davidson risked dismissal from his job to write The Policeman's Blog.
He has told BBC One's Panorama that officers were often
stuck doing paperwork and chasing targets, and not out arresting
criminals.
Police and government officials say they accept there is too much bureaucracy involved in the job.
Not even the 36-year-old's closest colleagues knew he
was responsible for the blog, which was written under the pen-name of
PC David Copperfield and has received over one million hits since he
started it.
'Waste of time'
In his blog Mr Davidson outlined the "madness" of his
target-driven duties in a place he called Newtown, which he has now
disclosed was Burton-on-Trent.
Speaking openly for the first time, he told Panorama he was frustrated with bureaucracy and paperwork.
"The public think that we solve burglaries, the public
think that we're actually on patrol accosting thieves and people who
are up to no good," he said.
"But what we actually do is attempt to meet government statistics by solving trivial crime."
Staffordshire police said analysis showed officers spent
62% of their time out of the station, but it accepted they have to deal
with too much bureaucracy and they're working to change it.
Mr Davidson, who received two commendations during his
four years in the force, said about 80% of what he did "was a waste of
time".
"I thought nobody else can be doing things that are so insane," he said.
"But it transpires that there are thousands and
thousands of other police officers out there doing exactly the same
kinds of things
Quitting force
"It depends on the nature of the offence of course, but
you arrest somebody and it'll take you the rest of the shift - say
eight to 10 hours - to deal with that if it's even remotely
complicated."
Mr Davidson said he was sometimes tempted not to make an arrest because processing it would mean so much time off the street.
He is quitting the force in Britain to join the police in Canada.
Panorama filmed with Mr Davidson over six months, including his last days on the force.
It also spoke to other officers up and down the country
who feel their job is being undermined. They said they believed the
very foundation of police work - that of preventing crime - is being
undermined.
And all of them spoke of their frustration at the sheer volume of paperwork.
"We are never there on the streets to provide
reassurance, to provide a deterrent and to prevent people from becoming
a victim of crime," a former officer told the programme.
Many of their concerns were supported by the Chief
Inspectorate of Policing's interim review into policing in England and
Wales, which was published last week.
The views are also echoed in responses to a
questionnaire distributed to 2,000 beat officers across the country by
the Police Federation, which represents 140,000 officers.
The Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Ronnie
Flanagan, said police officers in England and Wales are bogged down in
red tape and "excess bureaucracy" must be cut to free up police time.
Discretion
Mr Davidson's blog was dismissed last year by Tony McNulty, Minister for Security, Counter-terrorism, Crime and Policing.
But Mr McNulty told Panorama that he had shifted his
position and, while he did not concede everything that Copperfield said
was true, things could be improved for officers.
He also said that, while targets are crucial for
accountability and measuring performance, they should not get in the
way of officers doing their job effectively.
"I want there to be accountability, I want there to be a
robust performance framework... but I do not want that getting in the
way of effective policing and crucially restoring some discretion to
the frontline".
Panorama's Wasting Police Time will be broadcast on BBC One on Monday September 17 at 2030 BST.
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I remember sitting in a lecture and being amazed at the beautiful printed landscapes of the Peak District that had been taken by the lecturer. Then being equally amazed at his next statement. I no longer make images of landscapes as they are being trashed and I feel it is wrong ethically (he was referring to the fact that it encourages tourism) I was impressed with his stance to say the least. But it has led me to consider how “Green” my photography is in a digital world when I found this article on PopPhoto
The good news: Digital photography has taken huge amounts of chemicals
out of our waste stream, including bleach and silver, not to mention
millions of plastic-coated prints. The bad news: Digital sucks down a
lot of electricity and requires new equipment, which consumes lots of
resources and creates considerable eco-impacts, usually far away. Here
are a few things all photographers can do to be greener.
1. Watch the Power Meter
With digital, you'll need to keep your power consumption under control
if you don't want to warm the planet: Every kilowatt-hour you use
produces about 1.4 pounds of the greenhouse gases that cause global
warming. Choose Energy Star-certified equipment, and turn off or put to
sleep your computer, display, printer, and scanner when you can. Invest
in a power meter like the Kill A Watt to keep tabs on your usage -- you
may be in for unpleasant surprises.
2. Choose Your Power
A digital studio, including your Mac Pro computer, your Epson Stylus
Pro 3800 printer, and your Nikon D80 charger, will consume hundreds or
thousands of kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. Make sure that power
is coming from renewable, non-carbon-polluting sources. Through your
utility, switch to wind, hydro, or other sources; it may cost a little
more, but rebates can help with that, and you're making a difference
where it counts, at the source.
3. Recycle Everything
A digital studio will still produce paper waste -- it makes up about a
third of our trash. Recycle every scrap; making a ton of paper from
waste requires about two-thirds less energy than from wood pulp.
Recycle ink cartridges (office stores and online retailers will give
you credit for empties) and, when necessary, electronics. Electronic
waste has harmful metals and chemicals; give it to a recycling plant
that will salvage for useful parts and not just dump it in a landfill.
4. Shoot Locally
Transportation accounts for one-third of the average American's "carbon
footprint" -- the CO2 and other greenhouse gases that contribute to
global warming. If you're typical, you're responsible for about 15,000
pounds of CO2 a year. One round trip to shoot
account for half of that.
5. Offset Your CO2
Can't stay home? Can't get your computer, scanner, and printer off the
grid? You can help offset your footprint by buying carbon credits via
companies such as CarbonFund.org and NativeEnergy. Your money will help create renewable-energy sources and meet other conservation goals.
6. Conserve Energy
The basic energy tips you're practicing in your nonphoto life will work
in the studio, too. Using compact fluorescent bulbs and taking a degree
or two off the thermostat in winter (and adding a degree in summer)
will save energy and keep hundreds of pounds of CO2 out of the
atmosphere.
7. Unplug It All
Rechargers and other equipment left on standby create phantom loads
that waste megawatts every year. Unplug rechargers and power down
anything you're not using that has a little green or red light on it.
You'll save money and keep CO2 out of the atmosphere.
8. Watch the Chemicals
Processing in a darkroom? Use chemicals less harmful to the
environment, such as Kodak's Xtol and other ascorbate (vitamin C)
developers. Manufacturers say quantities you use at home can be
disposed via your sewer. Check silvergrain.org for nontoxic solutions.
9. Find Greener Options
Explore recycled papers such as Red River Paper's Green Pix, use
rechargeable batteries (NiMH is better than NiCd), and, if you print a
lot, buy ink in bulk rather than blowing through plastic cartridges.
Extra credit: Get a solar-powered battery charger.
10. Be a Responsible Consumer
Vote for the environment with your wallet: Ask camera, paper, and film
manufacturers about environmental efforts, from recycling to energy use
to materials.
11. Shoot the Change You Want in the World
It's not just how you shoot, it's what you shoot. Think about how your
images can represent solutions or illuminate a new angle on an
environmental problem.
12. Spread the Word
Small steps add up when millions join in. Tell two friends about your
new, greener way of looking at photography. They'll tell two friends,
and they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on...
13. Make It Last
A long-lived camera is environmentally friendly. Do your research, buy
great stuff, and treat it right: It takes a great deal of materials,
energy, and pollutants to make a new camera, and pretty much zero to
keep your current one in tip-top shape.
RELATED ARTICLES
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Edward Burtynsky's Silent Persuasion
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THE pen may be mightier than the sword but Fairfax is betting the multimedia-enabled mobile phone is the mightiest implement of all.
The company has launched an ambitious plan to put an iMate Jasjam mobile device in the hands of every reporter and photographer at its Herald and Age publications, as well as Fairfax Digital, to enable them to file video, audio, still images and copy on the fly.
The plan is largely aimed at generating video and other rich media material to populate the company's smh.com.au and theage.com.au websites as Fairfax reinvents itself as a digital media company and audiences and advertisers migrate to the internet.
It could eventually be used to generate material for the former Rural Press publications following the two companies' merger, and Southern Cross' metropolitan radio stations including 2UE, 3AW and 4BC, which Fairfax hopes to acquire.
Fairfax online editor-in-chief Mike van Niekerk said 12 reporters and photographers were using the devices at present, but the plan was to give all staff training and access to them.
"We are still trying to understand how best these kinds of tools can be used in the newsroom," he said. "We tested an earlier model a year ago and we've been using it purely within the online editorial breaking news team. Now we're buying a lot more of these ones and making them available through the newsroom."
Fairfax would not say how many staff could be affected, but a source from the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance estimated the plan could involve 400 reporters and photographers.
At the recommended retail price of $1300 per device, the move could cost the company more than $500,000 before data charges and training costs are taken into account.
Mr van Niekerk said a Fairfax Digital reporter used a mobile device to conduct a video interview with a witness to an accident in the Sydney suburb of Kogarah earlier this year, in which a woman was killed when a car ran into a crowded bus stop.
"The reporter was on the scene within 20 minutes," Mr van Kiekerk said. "That video, which was actually quite dramatic and newsworthy, was on the site within 15 minutes of the reporter arriving at the scene of the accident."
Web-quality video, stills and audio of live incidents, press conferences and sit-down interviews can be captured on the devices, but photographers are also using them to file print-quality images taken with high-resolution digital cameras.
"You'd probably find two years down the road that everyone would have something like this," Mr van Niekerk said. "They're an all-in-one reporting tool."
It's unclear if staff can be forced to use the technology.
According to the MEAA, once staff have been given training on how to use the devices, they can be asked to file multimedia material but the company may not use the technology to reduce staff numbers, or as leverage to deny promotions.
Mr van Niekerk said: "We'd like for reporters to have the training and the skills to be able to (file in as many media as possible)."
News Limited is running limited tests of similar technology in its Sydney metropolitan dailies.
Nationwide News photographic manager Steve Grove said staff in the Canberra bureau of The Australian were using the pocket-sized Canon TX1 camera to file video and stills for the web.
He said high-speed mobile networks were crucial to moving the amount of data required: "It's also about the uniqueness of the video."
Dallas Morning News new media producer David Leeson told newspaper publishers at the recent PANPA conference that new content formats were still developing to meet online demands.
Mr Grove said edited first-person interviews, in the vein of ABC television's Australian Story, were one possible format.
source: The Australian
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