In an attempt to install a legal mechanism for dealing with incidents of "happy slapping," (the most notable in France [fr] took place last April), the French Constitutional Court approved a law last week that criminalizes the recording and broadcasting of violence, thus making the videographer as culpable as the attacker, possibly facing up to five years in prison and up to 75,000 euro in fines.

While this piece of news has passed mostly under the radar among major news outlets (except for, perhaps ironically, FOX News), it was brought to the attention of several popular blogs with Peter Sayer's article on MacWorld. Sayer points out that:

The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991.

While this French article reports that legislators included clauses that would protect journalists or those reporting a crime, Pascal Cohet of the Internet liberties group [en] Odebi [fr] is not convinced that lawmakers did not have more sinister motives [fr]. The law, proposed by Nicolas Sarkozy, could conceivably be used to inhibit citizen journalists from recording, for example, police brutality, effectively prohibiting certain kinds of sousveillance. (In the case of Rodney King, not even video evidence was proof enough. The police officers were initially acquitted.)

Sayer further reports,

The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules. The journalists’ organization Reporters Without Borders RSF [fr], which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories.

With governments all over the world trying to legislate the Internet and knowing that Sarkozy "is not afraid of the word 'Internet regulation'", this is an important issue for the Internet community. Notorious for its censorship of the interwebs, China recently blocked Livejournal and is also prohibiting the creation of new Internet cafés. But who's to say that our governments won't do the same? Parisist encourages a healthy suspicion towards authority especially given that politicians often have to decide on things they don't know much about.

Voilà, additional Parisist coverage of this subject en français.

What do you, dear readers, think about this law?

Image by BBC.