YouTube-enabled Government Censorship

YouTube has summarily rejected 2 Concord, NH videos from 11/13/2010 exposing government violence, following government complaints that said violence -- and its perpetrators -- shouldn't be exposed (sound at all familiar?). The videos have now been reposted elsewhere.

Read the backstory, including the YouTube email citing the government complaint, here and here.

Now see the original videos your government got pulled, and the new YouTube replacement video, right here.

UPDATE: Threads on more YouTube censorship of the same event here and here.
And again, images are not a crime. Let alone government thug accountability...

And here's something to chew on: YouTube could conceivably pull any video of NH legislative hearings. Or any of the many police abuse videos all over the internet. Or dashcams of chases, right? Well, OF COURSE it's private property. But I can still expose censorship and government collusion just as I can with any other media outlet. Government employees are accountable to their employers -- that's you -- for their actions. If they want to hide, they need to work in the private sector, for a different boss.

Let's just say it flat out. YouTube is condoning government abuses and absolving it and its functionaries of any accountability by banning reporting of such abuses simply on government's whim. "Only doing my job" hasn't been a valid excuse since Nuremberg, at least. And government has a favorite low-bar charge for colluding with others to defraud and deprive: conspiracy.

UPDATE 2: This, just for example -- evidence of destruction of evidence by law enforcement -- could disappear very quickly.

The Empire's Underlings Frown On (Their Own) Accountability

Who knew...?

I received the following email from YouTube on 11/24/2010.

Dear bikerbillnh,

This is to notify you that we have received a privacy complaint from an individual regarding your content:

-------------------------------------------------------------

Video URLs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPIgDVLpzKU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9QvKwfRg_I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPIgDVLpzKU
The information reported as violating privacy is at 0:23

-------------------------------------------------------------

We would like to give you an opportunity to remove or edit your video so that it no longer potentially [emphasis mine] violates the privacy of the individuals involved. You can edit your video by removing names and other personal information from the video's title, metadata or tags. Annotations or marking the video as private are not acceptable forms of editing and your video will still be at risk of removal. Please edit or remove the material reported by the individual within 48 hours from today's date. If no action is taken, the video will then come in for review by the YouTube staff and be prohibited from being uploaded again.

If the potential privacy violation is contained within the metadata or title of the video, you should be able to edit this content without video removal. If the potential privacy violation is within the video content, the video may have to be removed completely.

Protecting a person's privacy is protecting their personal safety. When uploading videos in the future, please remember not to post someone else's image or personal information without their consent. Personal information includes things like names, phone numbers, and email addresses. For more information, please review our Community Guidelines at
http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines and our Safety Center at
http://www.youtube.com/t/safety

Regards,
The YouTube Team

Interesting that there seems to be no opportunity for rebuttal offered: "There's been a complaint. Must be valid. Take it down or edit it, or we will. As to the specific complaint and its source (which might help identify the "offense"), you're required to guess. Tick, tick, tick..."

"[T]he video will then come in for review ... and be prohibited from being uploaded again."
-YouTube-

"We're gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first class hangin'."
-Sheriff Cobb-

So what is the complaint, exactly? Is the alleged start point really identical for both? This we don't know.

They're my 2 videos from the 11/13 "Tilting at Windmills" protest at the Concord Fed building, and :23 appears to be the approximate start of footage in each, or the entrance, stage right, of "Our Heroes." My best guess is that the taxfeeding public employee who nominally "engaged" us in "Silent Propaganda Minister" complained to YouTube that somebody'd posted his name (and contract employer -- like, you know, they'd do, and more, in an MSM news report to one of their "suspects") in the video comments (hey! the Feds are watching my videos! and reading the comments!).

'Course, pulling the video wouldn't remedy that issue, now would it? And I'd just put it back up at blip.tv, with a link from YouTube, and a new blog post. In the mean time, I used YouTube's functionality to add a text box over my simple inquiry into his identity at the end:

Turns out self-important police state taxfeeders apparently don't like it so much when THEIR EMPLOYERS ask such questions ABOUT THEM. Welcome to OUR world...

Now, why the other video is included in the complaint is even less clear, as the previously referenced thug doesn't say anything in it, and he's not ID'd in any way, even in the comments (although I'd have to assume that complaint's also his). And the other taxfeeder, the disingenuously gregarious one, claims to love the attention. Surely he wouldn't lie to us...

Oh, and YouTube? Images are protected -- in other words, you don't need to worry about government ordering them taken down. If you really don't support the 1st Amendment rights to speech and press, perhaps you should just come out and say so...

EDIT: One more point: I find it telling that the authoritarian's very first, knee-jerk resort for redress (even, presumably, if it had merit, in this case) is always to "call the authorities." He needs "Big Brother" just to manage to live his life.

Fun With TSA -- And No One Else

It's tough to inform the aviating public of overstepping government when they would appear to be sufficiently informed already. Indeed, they would seem to be voting with their wallets and staying away in droves. It was dead for an average Wednesday, nevermind what I must assume would be considered typical for "the busiest travel day of the year." Herewith, the National Opt Out Day demonstration at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, 11/24/2010. The day before Thanksgiving.

Your humble chronicler arrived early to case the joint and, them fellers bein' so derned smart an' all, TSA was already on heightened alert, well aware a protest was scheduled for 10am, as I overheard one of 'em commenting to a suspect-- er... customer. Badges and goofy epaulets as far as the eye could see. Granted, that wasn't too tough, given that there weren't any travelers obstructing the view, of course...

Nevertheless, the protesters didn't trash the place, so we settled in to an uneasy peace. Until, that is, TSA decided to start handing out "free speech zone" maps. Which we ignored. And -- at least by the time I left, anyway -- they ignored us ignoring. Not even any threats.

WMUR TV was there even before I was, conducting interviews with "upper thugs." Betcha the "film at eleven" doesn't include images of all the wide open spaces. You go, citizens...

The Regime Can Be Brought Down

EDIT: These YouTube-censored (on behalf of your government) videos are now available here.

With chalk, evidently. Ephemeral chalk, it seems, scares the regime absolutely shitless. Scares them into cackling like the insane. Scares them into silence. Scares them more than the relatively more permanent cotton and rubber and flesh residue left by dragging uppity, disobedient civilians away to cages.

For chalk!

Don't ask me why. Clearly, don't bother asking them, either. Fortunately for them, they don't work for you, right...?

The now regular monthly "Tilting at Windmills" protest in front of the Concord, NH "Federal" Building, 11/13/2010. Keep apprised of future opportunities to join the fun on the forums at the NH Underground.

Porc411 calls here and here.

The Regime Can Be Brought Down


The Silent Propaganda Minister

Hey! We're Complaining Here! WE'RE COMPLAINING HERE!!

Although decidedly peacefully...

No longer merely a 4:20 celebration, the, um, "forces of good" take the battle directly to the enemy. Physically again, and now in a more "legal" context, as well. The concept of "redress of grievance" is prominently ensconced in both the federal Constitution (1st Amendment) and the NH Constitution (Part First, Article 31), yet has long been moribund under each jurisdiction.

Why might that be? Well, when government is directly confronted with the damage that it does to peaceful people, it gets uncomfortable. It has an image to uphold, after all. Its solution, of course, is to avoid that informed confrontation. Pretend it's not necessary, that the process to respect an expressly enumerated right isn't mandatory. Even when it's such an explicit requirement of its charter. But hey, nobody's paying attention, right? We can just continue to ignore it. Indeed, it's best that we do so. And this day will be no exception.

'V' masks oddly entirely absent (the preference being, apparently, to celebrate in the spirit of a different holiday, if somewhat prematurely), as NH free people descend on the NH State House in Concord for another Guy Fawkes Day 4:20 celebration, 11/5/2010, insisting on Government responsiveness to grievances and the protection of rights, including the foundational right to self-ownership.