Here's another example of the way in which the use of new media techniques look set to alter the balance of power between police and protesters in public order situations.
Only a few years ago this case, if it had gone to court at all, would have been decided on contradictory personal accounts and, perhaps, police video footage (and further back in time, personal accounts only). In either case a conviction would probably be the most likely outcome; that's a guess, but it doesn't seem unreasonable.
The fact that in addition to all the film the police hold there are now thousands of hours of footage of demonstrations and other situations routinely uploaded to Youtube - and definitively into the public domain - seems to mark a sea-change in what police and protesters can expect to get away with. This looks like a situation that police are going to have to learn to live with, just as people involved in demonstrations have over the last 10-15 years.
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