Sure, you can give me a call at 512-560-2302.
On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 3:39 PM, Wexler, Rebecca
<r.wexler@yale.edu<mailto:r.wexler@yale.edu>> wrote:
Rebecca Wexler
Information Society Project
Yale Law School
P.O. Box 208215
New Haven, CT 06520
Email r.wexler@yale.edu<mailto:r.wexler@yale.edu>
Tel. 1 203 710 8562<tel:1%20203%20710%208562>
27 June 2011
Dear Mr. Brown,
My name is Rebecca Wexler. I am a documentary filmmaker and Fellow at
the Yale University Law School Information Society Project where I teach
visual advocacy. I am beginning work with Oscar-nominated PBS Frontline
Producer/Director Helen Whitney on a documentary film about civil liberties
and civil disobedience on the Internet.
You may already be acquainted with Helens work. She has been making
films for network television over the last thirty years. In the last decade,
she has produced a series of PBS specials: John Paul II: the Millennial
Pope, Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero, and the four hour series, The
Mormons. Her films have won Peabodys, DuPonts and Emmys. Most recently,
Helen and I worked together completing a three hour PBS special,
Forgiveness: A Time to Love and a Time to Hate, about forgiveness,
transitional justice, and global reconciliation after genocide, which aired
in April. That film introduced us to the ongoing risks of post-9/11 abuses
of justice, and is an intimate part of our wanting to make this film about
civil liberties and Internet governance. More specifically, I became
particularly interested in Anonymous in December when I wrote this article
about Operation Payback:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/post-wiki-world-part-ii
Ive read some of your interesting writing about Anonymous activities.
While I understand that you are no longer directly associated with any
Anonymous initiatives, I would like the opportunity to speak with you about
your opinions about these actions and the recent LulzSec contributions.
What are the possibilities, the limitations, and the symbolic complexities
of using DDoS attacks and other technical exploits as forms of protest?
On a somewhat unrelated note, Im also curious about the science &
journalism project initiative of Project PM. After studying history and
philosophy of science and becoming aware of some of the failures of the
scientific press (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18761279) I began
working in doc film with the personal mission of creating better science and
technology documentaries. One of my former mentors, Jon Beckwith at Harvard
Medical School, is a longtime activist with Science for the People and
runs an organization of scientists in the Boston area who work towards
improving science content in media. Perhaps he would be interested in your
initiative. In any case, I am curious to hear more about your work in this
area as well.
Might it be possible to arrange a phone conversation at your earliest
possible convenience? I would like to conduct a telephone pre-interview
with you, and discuss the possibility of your appearing in our film.
Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Wexler
Fellow, Yale University Law School Information Society Project
Producer/Director, Helen Whitney Productions
HELEN WHITNEY
Producer and Director
Helen Whitney has worked as a producer, director and writer for
documentaries and feature films for over 30 years. Her documentary work has
appeared on ABC's Closeup and on the PBS series, American Masters, Frontline
and American Experience. Her documentaries have extended across a variety of
subjects, among them: youth gangs, presidential candidates, the mentally
ill, a Trappist Monastery, Pope John Paul II, the class structure of Great
Britain, the aftershocks of 9/11, and the photographer Richard Avedon.
Whitney's documentaries and features have received many honors, including an
Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, an Oscar nomination, the Humanitas Award and
the prestigious duPont-Columbia Journalism Award.
REBECCA WEXLER
Producer and Director
Rebecca Wexler is a Fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society
Project. She holds an M.Phil in history of science from Cambridge
University (Gates-Cambridge Fellow) and a B.A. from Harvard College (summa
cum laude). She has worked with filmmakers Richard Leacock, Alex Gibney,
Ross McElwee, Robb Moss, Helen Whitney, and Michael Epstein on documentaries
distributed by PBS/American Experience, PBS/WETA,HBO, VH1, and Verve. She
has produced and directed documentaries for the Yale Art Gallery, La Maison
Européenne de la Photographie, and the Long Wharf Theatre. She currently
teaches a Yale Law School practicum on visual advocacy and the intersection
of law and film.
--
Regards,
Barrett Brown
512-560-2302