While millions of viewers tune in to network coverage of speeches and interviews at the Republican National Convention, videos displayed on YouTube are exposing the less-than-democratic side of the convention. The proliferation of digital video equipment and online video share sites has allowed several controversial arrests and detainments to be documented for public consumption.

Clips of DemocracyNow! radio host Amy Goodman's seemingly unwarranted arrest Monday has drawn more than 600,000 hits as of this post. Goodman was seeking information about the arrest of two of her producers, Shariff Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, when she herself was detained forcefully by a SWAT team member. The video shows Goodman [1] attempting to display her legitimate press credentials, while the police drag her by the arm toward a paddywagon, oblivious to her protests.

DemocracyNow! reported that Kouddous received a bloody nose from being dragged face-down on the ground after his arrest.

I-Witness Video, another civilian journalism project covering the convention, had its employees detained inside the house [2] while police waited to obtain and execute a search warrant. The group had video equipment and laptops seized without any explanation, is in violation of a federal statute requiring a subpoena for the confiscation of the news product of legitimate journalists, according to an on camera statement made by a member of I-Witness. I-Witness was integral in the overruling of hundreds of charges stemming from protests at the 2004 RNC, with videos its journalists produced being the main (or often only) piece of evidence contradicting erroneous police testimony.

Matt Rourke, an AP freelance photographer covering the protest, also was arrested, preventing him from providing photographic reports of the event.

This interference with lawful, and might I add, constitutionally protected, news-gathering is extremely disheartening. But I do take solace that the growing ubiquity of online video and its ability to capture infringement might discourage unnecessary police aggression and interference in the future. 

- Pete [3]