“The historical account provided by ‘Rights and Wrongs at the RNC’ is particularly important since the NYPD has defended all of its actions during the Convention and has insisted that it made no mistakes,” said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the NYCLU. “The performance of police was decidedly a mixed one. While hundreds of thousands of people were able to make their voices heard, the right to protest was severely undermined by the mass arrests of hundreds of peaceful demonstrators and bystanders, the pervasive surveillance of lawful demonstrators, and the illegal fingerprinting and prolonged detention of nearly 1,500 people charged with mostly minor offenses. This compromised their Constitutional right to protest.”

Among the recommendations from ‘Rights and Wrongs’ is that the City establish an agency independent of the NYPD to oversee the planning and management of large demonstrations, with the NYPD remaining part of the planning — but with a focus on law enforcement. ‘Rights and Wrongs’ also calls for an end to the indiscriminate tactics by police that sweep up lawful protesters and innocent bystanders; and for an end to the practice of fingerprinting those arrested for minor offenses. The report also calls on the NYPD not to detain people arrested for minor offenses for excessive periods of time and for arraignment; and to ensure that any holding facilities for arrestees are open to public inspection by appropriate government officials, advocates and members of the press.

The 64-page ‘Rights and Wrongs’ documents the important events in the months leading up to, during and after of the Convention. In a city with a long history of fervent protest activity, the Convention presented a crucial test of our commitment to the right to free speech and dissent. Although demonstrations were peaceful, police arrested more than 1,800 people — the largest number of such arrests at a national convention. More than 90 percent of those arrests have since been dismissed or ended in acquittals.

Among the policing deficiencies cited by the NYCLU report are:
The indiscriminate mass arrests by the police of bystanders and peaceful protesters, such as the arrest of 227 demonstrators soon after their anti-war march began on August 31st. On October 6th, the Manhattan District Attorney threw out those arrests at the request of the NYCLU.
Detention of protesters for excessively long periods of time in hazardous conditions such as Pier 57, where hundreds of people were held on mostly minor offenses under filthy conditions and often without access to legal assistance or their loved ones. Two-thirds of those arrested who filed complaints with the NYCLU were held for longer than 24 hours; 40 percent were detained for longer than 36 hours — all mostly for minor offenses.

The routine fingerprinting of people charged with minor offenses which is not allowed under New York law. This practice raised concerns about whether the NYPD was seeking to build a database of the fingerprints of political activists.
“In an effort to maintain tight control over protest activity, the NYPD too often lost sight of the distinction between lawful and unlawful conduct,” said Christopher Dunn, Associate Legal Director of the NYCLU. “Despite dire predictions that the Convention would be the target of violence or even terrorism, the demonstrations were peaceful.”

In the aftermath of the Convention, the NYCLU filed three federal lawsuits against the NYPD, challenging the mass arrests and detention tactics as well as the fingerprinting of those arrested at the Convention. The NYPD has since announced that it has destroyed all fingerprints. The NYCLU lawsuits are pending in court.

Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that the Republican National Convention arrests will be investigated:

The Justice Department will investigate claims that the police violated citizens’ civil rights in making arrests during the Republican National Convention last year. Responding to a request from the ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman John Conyers Jr., the Justice Department said in June that it would investigate his allegation that the police engaged in a pattern of unconstitutional conduct. The police arrested 1,806 people during the convention, and in most cases the charges were dismissed or the defendants acquitted. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said lawful dissent had been accommodated.(NYT)

The police presence at Union Square was heavy, including many undercover cops (who stood out like sore thumbs) and a police helicopter. Sadly, at least 18 people were arrested last night during the Critical Mass rides. From the New York Times’ coverage:

In one of the first arrests of the evening, a young woman who was straddling her bike and walking it out of the south end of Union Square Park was seized and personally arrested by Assistant Police Chief Bruce H. Smolka Jr.

“You’re riding your bicycle on the sidewalk,” Chief Smolka said. “You’re under arrest.”

The woman protested that she had done nothing wrong. The chief insisted that she get off her bicycle immediately, and then he tried to pull her off. The woman argued, and then other police officers, some of them wearing plainclothes, joined the chief and forcibly removed the woman from the bike.

Ride participants tried to retrieve the woman’s bike and scuffled with police officers, who then arrested a second woman.

The sight of a senior chief in the Police Department struggling in a crowded public place with the woman roused the gathering of people.

Cries of “Let her go, let her go,” and “fascist state” filled the air, as Chief Smolka and other officers led the woman into a van. A line of 10 motorcycles then sealed the edge of the sidewalk at the intersection of 14th Street and Union Square East. The arrested woman began to give her name in response to a question from a reporter, but only uttered one word – “Lisa” – before she was pushed into the van and the reporter was forced away from her.

Chief Smolka is the police official in charge of southern Manhattan, and oversaw many of the mass arrests made in August before and during the Republican National Convention, including more than 100 arrests of bicyclists at a Critical Mass ride that swelled to include 5,000 riders.

Since then, the mass rides, which were conducted peacefully for several years before that, have become a point of contention with the Police Department.

There’s one image from last night in particular that I can’t get out of my mind. A few hours after the ride started, a group of cyclists passed by Union Square chased by several police cars and at least 3 police vans. As I stood on the corner and watched, a police car moving at high speed swerved in front of a young cyclist who was riding by himself by the side of the road and who was clearly obeying traffic laws. It was an incredibly dangerous and aggressive move by the cop driving the car. Luckily the kid on the bike avoided the car and injury..

Matt Ransford wrote about his experience riding last night here. Also check out Gothamist’s interview with
Matthew Roth a Time’s Up volunteer and bicycle enthusiast.

Here’s a gallery of photos including many of the heavy police presence.

Street adverts are a privileged form of address and the space they commandeer is disproportionate. Advertisements and the mass media depict life and how we should live it in a spectacular way. We find it increasingly difficult to know how to express our inner thoughts and feelings, which seem mundane in contrast to the emotional saturation in the plethora of advertising surrounding us.

[ via we make money not art ]

It is no longer legal to publish current photographs of the Eiffel Tower at night without permission:

The Eiffel Tower’s likeness had long since been part of the public domain, when in 2003, it was abruptly repossessed by the city of Paris. That’s the year that the SNTE, the company charged with maintaining the tower, adorned it with a distinctive lighting display, copyrighted the design, and in one feel swoop, reclaimed the nighttime image and likeness of the most popular monument on earth. In short: they changed the actual likeness of the tower, and then copyrighted that.[link]

In Chicago, a permit is required in order to photograph Anish Kapoor’s silver sculpture in the public Millennium Park.

When [photojournalist Warren Wimmer] set up his tripod and camera to shoot the sculpture, security guards stopped him, demanding that they show him a permit. Wimmer protested, replying that it’s absurd that one needs to pay for a permit to photograph public art in a city-owned park.

Ben Joravsky, the author of the Reader article, attempted to contact park officials for an explanation and received a response from Karen Ryan, press director for the park’s project director:

“The copyrights for the enhancements in Millennium Park are owned by the artist who created them. As such, anyone reproducing the works, especially for commercial purposes, needs the permission of that artist.”

Hence, Millennium Park–a nascent destination for countless citizens and tourists that was built with $270 million in city funds–is slowly emerging as Chicago’s most privatized public space. [link]

Our historical record is also under copyright assault. Downhill Battle is organizing to bring Eyes on the Prize “the most important documentary ever made about the Civil Rights Movement” back to a nationwide audience. For the past 10 years the film has not been available to the public because of “expired copyright licenses.”

Eyes on the Prize is an award-winning documentary series that many consider a foundation of our collective memory of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s the most vidid portrayal of the civil rights movement and for millions of people, it’s the foundation for understanding what happened. Makers of Eyes on the Prize brought together extensive historical footage from the period and featured ordinary people who helped change the course of history for the better. No other book or movie has comprehensively brought together this much footage or has become a more common reference on the civil rights movement…

So why has Eyes on the Prize been unavailable for the past 10 years? Copyright restrictions. For example, the film includes footage of a group of people singing “Happy Birthday” to Martin Luther King. Incredibly, “Happy Birthday” is under copyright and some rights holders believe that they should be given licensing fees if the song appears in any film, even a documentary. (Yes that’s correct, “Happy Birthday” is restricted under copyright–so if you’ve ever sung it in a restaurant or a park, you could literally be breaking the law.)

But “Happy Birthday” is just the beginning. Eyes on the Prize is made up of news footage, photographs, songs and lyrics from the Civil Rights Movement that are tangled up in a web of licensing restrictions. Many of these licenses had expired by 1995 and the film’s production company, Blackside, could not afford the exorbitant costs of renewing them. “Eyes on the Prize” has been unavailable to the public ever since…

Copyright law has expanded out of control, and its public mission is no longer being served. Copyright was originally designed to encourage creativity and innovation–much like patent law. But for the past 50 years multi-national corporations like Disney and the major record labels have aggressively lobbied Congress to expand and expand and expand the reach of copyright law. Instead of lasting 20 years and requiring registration (like patents do) copyright has become automatic and now corporate copyrights last 90 years.

In addition to the excessive 90 year copyright, corporations have created a legal environment that effectively strips the free speech rights of documentary filmmakers and artists to excerpt copyrighted works for their productions. Nowadays even incidental copyrighted material appearing in a documentary (e.g. a television that’s visible while people are talking) is being tossed on the cutting room floor because filmmakers are threatened with lawsuits. Copyright has become so twisted that it now severely restricts innovation, creativity and speech rather than encouraging it. In this case, our unworkable copyright law has kept “Eyes on the Prize” out of homes and classrooms, depriving us of a crucial historical record. [link]

You can get involved by organizing or attending a screening of Eyes on the Prize or by spreading the word. Check out http://www.downhillbattle.org/eyes/ for more info.