One of the projects that might be a part of the upcoming national broadband strategy, reports NextGov, is a video repository:

A proposal in the draft of the government's imminent broadband plan would create a YouTube-like online archive called Video.gov to preserve agencies' Web content and possibly information provided by the media, an official with the Federal Communications Commission said on Monday.

The planned national digital archives for the 21st century would expand upon the government's Data.gov Web site, a warehouse of downloadable federal statistics, and be maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration, the Library of Congress and other agencies, said Eugene Huang, FCC's director of government performance and civic engagement for the national broadband plan.

It's not entirely clear from NextGov's reporting what exactly would go in a Video.gov archive (and why "agencies' Web content" would be something that would be housed there). But you could imagine this being a useful institutionalization of the sort of thing that citizen archivist Carl Malamud has been doing with FedFlix, where he converts and stores some of the many government and government-related films that exist out in the world.

The New York Times reports on Brave New Films' web campaign to circumvent an upcoming History Channel film that paints the Kennedys in a negative light:

Now a documentary filmmaker who makes no secret of his liberal politics is releasing an Internet video in which Kennedy scholars say the scripts offer a portrait of the president and his family that is, at best, inaccurate, and at worst, a hatchet job.

“It was political character assassination,” the filmmaker, Robert Greenwald, said of the screenplays in a telephone interview. “It was sexist titillation and pandering, and it was turning everything into a cheap soap opera of the worst kind.” Mr. Greenwald said he is hoping that his 13-minute video and an accompanying petition, at stopkennedysmears.com, will take on lives of their own on the Web. A title card at the film’s conclusion reads: “Tell the History Channel I refuse to watch right-wing character assassination masquerading as ‘history.’ ”

Some things never change. You might recall that it was organizing against the anti-John Kerry doc "Stolen Honor" in 2004 that brought together progressive bloggers in a collection action for what was really the first time. Seems like a lifetime ago.

Or live streamed. Or posted to YouTube, it seems. The Supreme Court has ruled to keep the cameras turned off during the Perry vs. Schwarzenegger trial that began Monday the federal courthouse in San Francisco. SCOTUSBlog's Lyle Denniston has a great look at the 17-page ruling. The justices broke along the conservative-liberal divide, with Justice Anthony Kennedy joining Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas in the majority opinion. Those justices seemed to take particular issue with the fact Judge Vaughn Walker of the California Northern District Court had moved to gear up the federal courts' video "pilot program" in a case this controversial. Here's Denniston's take:

As a practical matter, the ruling almost certainly dooms any broadcast coverage of the trial as it goes on. The trial’s length has been estimated variously at two weeks to several weeks. There is no indication that final Supreme Court action on the dispute would be speeded up to the point that the question could be resolved during that brief span of time.

The Court gave the supporters of the Prop 8 ban two options to seek a final order against the television coverage: they could (as they have indicated they would) file a petition for review from the lower courts’ orders, or they could file a petition seeking what is called a “writ of mandamus” -- that is, an order from a higher to a lower court to take, or not take, some action. The Court did not indicate whether it would grant review of either approach, although Wednesday’s order was a strong hint that it would.

And, in fact, the main opinion seemed to indicate that the Court, in the last analysis, would not permit the coverage in any event...

(Photo credit: Sonomabuzz)

From her seat inside the federal courtroom, LGBT POV's Karen Ocamb picked up on federal judge Vaughn Walker testimony yesterday that, judging from the official comments he received, public sentiment leaned heavily towards posting video from the Prop 8 trial to YouTube:

Walker then said that he received “a substantial number of comments by 5:00pm Friday -- 138,574” with the “overwhelming majority in favor of the rule change; there were 32 comments opposed. People laughed. He said uproar, however, was “very helpful” -- noting that it is “highly unfortunate” that the courts have not dealt with the issue of public access in the past. “Finally, after some 20 years, we’ll get some sensible movement forward,” Walker said.

It's weird. Without a video feed from the trial or even an official transcript, trying to find out what's really going down inside that courthouse in San Francisco is like engaging in a trans-continental game of Telephone.

Whether or not there is any actual utility to allowing C-SPAN, that eye on democracy sponsored by the cable industry, to broadcast the House and Senate's final negotiations over their respective health care bills is a debate gripping the blogosphere. There seems, generally speaking, to be a particular bent to the critique thus far that focuses on whether transparency-via-video would actually improve how legislation gets made. To catch up on the commentary, check out how the Wonk Room's Igor Volsky (somewhat oddly) uses the vapidness of congressional floor debate, which is often little more than kabuki at this point, to argue against the airing of this final, substantive round. Matt Yglesias concludes that it's "a terrible idea," while Ezra Klein finds himself conflicted about the prospect.

Perhaps fortuitously for advocates of televising how government works, there's a somewhat simpler case on the horizon that highlights the other selling point for institutional camera work: its educational value. Televising government, the thinking goes, can help us all understand how government works, even if it is a total mess. What's come up is that the California judge presiding over the Proposition 8 case Perry v. Schwarzenegger has raised the possibility of allowing a single pool television camera into his courtroom to cover the trial. He's accepting public comments on the matter until Friday. Opponents of same-sex marriage are arguing that, since this is a trial, with witnesses and the like, cameras aren't proper. Generally speaking, though, these same-sex marriage cases are kind of the perfect storm (in a good way) of incentives towards allowing cameras in the court.

There's considerable public interest in the same-sex marriage in general, and Prop 8 in particular. And more than that, we're dealing here with some of the core, enduring questions about the complications of doing democracy American-style. How do we balance the rights of the minority and the will of the majority? How do states and the federal government engage with one another when personal rights are in question? Cameras in the court aren't going to change any verdicts here. (At least one would hope not.) But it could create the opportunity for more people to better understand how the operating system of government works today -- and the mechanisms we have available to change it.

The Courage Campaign, for one, is running a "Televise the Trial" petition drive.

But would anyone watch? Hard to say, but a point in favor of the idea that they would is the March 5th California Supreme Court hearing on the validity of Prop 8. To cite one example, Ana Marie Cox ran a lively live blog of the proceedings, all few hours of it. You had lawyers helping law people parse the nuances of the law, and all assembled debating the moral and social aspects of the case. It was really quite wonderful, and you can't ask for much more than that.

The 2009 post-election protests in Iran have changed the Internet. Or, at least, how people are learning to use the Internet to resist oppressive governments and other regimes. The Catch-22 of online resistance is that those places in the world where we've seen the citizenry most actively pushing back against governments online -- Iran and China, to name just two -- also happen to be the places where authorities tend to have the most control over the Internet, able to dictate that telecommunications companies filter Internet traffic or, as we've seen happen around the world, simple flip the "off" switches on the country's routers and hubs until times of turmoil pass.

That's why we're seeing a great deal of creativity going into figuring out ways to circumvent the censors, and perhaps not surprisingly, the latest round of work dedicated to online circumvention seems to be focusing on video work. A new group called Access has sprung up that is dedicated, at the start at least, to protecting and promoting web video. Online video has been proven to have enormous currency in the Iranian context. We might not be able to easily wrap our minds around the latest dictate from this or that cleric, or parse the latest official statement coming out of the Iranian government, but video of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan in the streets of Tehran is powerful stuff. It stays with you. What you take in through video can be difficult to shake.

Just one example: the gruesome video above of the seeming death of a protestor in Tehran on December 27th.

YouTube's CitizenTube blog has been aggregating videos from Iran's most recent protests, and it has a guest post up from Access' Executive Director Brett Soloman about how the organization is working to make video accessible from all over the world. Part of Access' strategy seems to be to flood the zone. The group spends time converting videos to all sorts of formats (including mobile, enormously popular in Iran) and propagating them throughout social networking sites like Facebook and the Iranian-themed Balatarin, all in an effort to make video of what's happening in Iran nearly unavoidable.

Staten Island state senator Diane Savino isn't exactly a household name, even in New York City political circles. But a YouTube video of her impassioned, funny speech on floor of the New York State Senate in favor of a marriage equality law -- which blended heartfelt testaments to the quality and durability of the intimate relationships of her gay friends with sassy references to a reality TV program involving a dwarf bachelor -- is being widely passed around through blogs and Twitter. The video, posted by the technology team at the New York State Senate, has been viewed more than 160,000 times in the last 48 hours. The senate's second most popular video, involving debate over an esoteric tax provision, has about one-tenth of the views.

We might be computer obsessed here in the United States, but in much of the world, mobile is king. The White House and State Department have been doing an impressive job recognizing that if they're to use digital media to reach target audiences outside the United States, than cell phones and other mobile devices can be a direct line into the pockets and lives of the members of those desired audiences.

Case in point: Obama's recent speech laying out his strategy for the war in Afghanistan. There's a benefit in having citizens of the region hear the President's words directly, but only a sliver of the populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan go online via computer. "Looking at data on Whitehouse.gov," reports the White House blog, "we don’t have a lot of traffic coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan because Internet penetration in the region is relatively low at 2% and 11% respectively. However, mobile penetration is much higher. 52% of the 177 million people in Pakistan have at least 1 mobile device and 30% of the 28.4 million in Afghanistan." To get at that audience, they took a minute-long segment from the President's address that was specifically targeted at everyday Afghanis and turned it into mini videos, complete with local language voiceovers, that can be sent around via cell phone.

The tiny size is a perfect fit for a cell phone screen, and voiceovers eliminate the problem of scrunched, unreadable subtitles. The White House's mobile video clip aimed at the citizens of Afghanistan is available in Arabic, Dari, Urdu, and Pashto (the last of which is the clip up above). Curious what exactly Obama is saying to the people of Afghanistan? It's available in English, too.

We've been covering in some detail the U.S. State Department's efforts to foster new conversations and smooth some of life's more difficult transactions using technology, from promoting digital violence tracking in Mexico to encouraging social networking in Pakistan to setting up mobile banking in Afghanistan. Some of these efforts seem simple, but eliminating some of life's fear and confusion -- whether that's engaging with a wider circle of humans or making it physically safe for women to play a role in a country's burgeoning economy -- holds the promise of being transformative. Earlier this year, the State Department took a delegation of U.S. tech company representatives to Baghdad. They met with students, they met with elected officials. And one of the things they heard is that the gap that exists between your average Iraqi trying to make a life for himself or herself and Iraqis in government is frustrating, alienating, and only serves to worsen the assumption of many everyday Iraqi nationals that they don't have a role to play in their country's uncertain future.

This morning, as a direct outgrowth of that trip, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced that the Iraqi national government has just launched its own YouTube channel, online at YouTube.com/IraqiGov. YouTube's Steve Grove has more.

Say you have in interest in having regular folks whip out their video cameras or cell phones and create wonderful video content for your organization, advocacy group, or news enterprise. There's a great deal of appeal (especially given news and non-profit budgets these days). Your most passionate supporters have a way of channeling their energy and creativity towards advancing your work, and you get free material to work with. Win-win! Alas, there are downsides. Lots of people, frankly, create a lot of junk. And when your fans upload their stuff to YouTube, it gets lost in a sea of tangential response videos and clips of cats doing admittedly hilarious, but off-topic, tricks and stunts.

Finally, a solution. YouTube is offering up a new service called YouTube Direct:

Built from our APIs, this open source application lets media organizations enable customized versions of YouTube's upload platform on their own websites. Users can upload videos directly into this application, which also enables the hosting organization to easily review video submissions and select the best ones to broadcast on-air and on their websites. As always, these videos also live on YouTube, so users can reach their own audience while also getting broader exposure and editorial validation for the videos they create.

With YouTube Direct, you can plug right into your site a video upload tool as well as content moderation features, creating your own little personal YouTube hub targeted to your particular mission but benefiting from the network and tools that YouTube has built. So far, most applications of YouTube Direct have been by news organizations, but there seems to be a great deal of potential for even small political groups to use it to turn into tiny Rupert Murdochs.