Have you ever wondered what it is like to learn how to run a prison, you should check out this video:
This Bureau of Prisons video has become public in an unusual way. It was part of a huge grab of “free” public records that was obtained then made much more accessible by two activists. The story is told here, and is close to my heart because it involves criticism of the enormously clunky PACER system, which contains all federal case filings. The activists decided to download all of the recent cases on PACER in order to make them more accessible. They were in the process of doing that when the federal courts shut them down. Fascinating stuff.
They also obtained government videos that they’ve collected into “FedFlix,”
a growing archive of many films originally produced by the federal government, which he’s been uploading to the Internet Archive and a YouTube channel.
The 524 films in the FedFlix catalogue so far include such gems as “Sludge Management,” “Welcome to the Bureau of Prisons!” “Foreign Lottery Scams,” “(Motorola Presents) Atomic Attack,” battle footage and training films from World War II and Vietnam, and the Cold War classic “Duck and Cover” [starring “Bert the Turtle”].
Does the word “propaganda” come to mind when you’re viewing any of these? For a lot more information, visit the activists’ website, Public Resource.
