Use that TV Studio In Your Pocket For Fun and Profit!bySpocko 360p MP4 8/16/14 Even though it's totally legal to record the police there are still things remember, likethis 1963quote from Houston vice squad captain, J.F. Willis“You may beat the rap, but you won’t beat the ride.” the power dynamic is always in play over time. We need to be prepared for this before during and after clashes. It helps to understand the media, your opponent, the law and your technology tools in order to come out on top, even if you are in the back of a cop car. We can get stuck in the same cycle or learn from past events. After the smoke bombs have been swept up and sonic cannons are parked let's do some thinking and acting. Lately I've been talking to people aboutmaking their own news worthy actions, flipping someone else's media event, inserting a different narrative in a breaking media event or revising a previous event for a new angle. One of the things I'vefound is that on the left many groups don't have the right "personality" to do this kind of work. Sure my friends at New York Communities for Change do, but there is so much more aggressive work challenging powerful groups that people could be doing. So sometimes people have to pick up the ball themselves, and when they do I want them to know the rules, tips andtricks. I want to teach them how to anticipate responses and next steps. Luckily the video rules are guidelines for you. The Electronic Frontier Foundation put together an updated guide forpeople in the US who want to usetheir phones to record police and other actions at a protest. The ACLU has a guide, Know Your Rights: Photographers. GO tothe "special considerations when videotaping" section. Different states have different laws about consent when it comes to the audio portion of video. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have a state by state guidelineabout audio taping if your state is a single or multiple partyconsent state, criminal penalties rules about hidden cameras and penalties for publishing or disclosing information. Finally, BoingBoing has a podcast onwhat gadgets to use to gather your photos, video and audio. This is all good in helping peoplegoing tocurrent protests, but I also want people to look at previous protests to see both what we can learn and how we can use them for change at a deeper level. Plus prepare for future actions. Let's look at history to predict the future. How canvideo be used to make changes in police actions and policies?Did you see this?Occupy protester wounded by Oakland police gets $4.5 million I noted what this story didn'tsay. The officer who shot the bean bag was never identified. Why not? Does the city know, but just not say? Was there no video or just no one to lookat all the video and say, "There's the guy who shot the beanbag point blank at Olsen!" Was the officer following procedure? If not, what actions should be taken? Maybe the procedure should be changed. Has it been? Interestinglytheofficer who lobbed the tear-gas canister into the crowd trying to help the wounded protester was identified as Oakland police OfficerRobert Roche. Although the Chronicle reported the footage was caught by a "TV newscamera."I'm pretty sure that Kresling's reviewingthe video and then highlighting the event wascritical. I watched the KTVU footage when it first ran, they didn't point out the blatant disconnect between what the police told them and what they had on the footage.