MISSION STATEMENT TAGLINE

Little Brother Watching Big Brother Be the Media

Photography is Not a Crime
Executive Summary for PINAC, Inc.
A non-profit news, advocacy and educational organization



In 2007, multimedia journalist Carlos Miller was beaten and arrested by Miami police for
photographing them making an arrest, motivating him to launch a blog called Photography is
Not a Crime to document his trial and prove his innocence.

As he proved his innocence in court, cleared of all charges except one, reversing it upon appeal
as he represented himself, his blog morphed into a national news site documenting the growing
number of incidents of citizens arrested for recording police in public.

Many times, these citizens had captured police abuse on camera, exposing a side of law
enforcement many had not seen before.

Even citizens who were not seeking to record cops were being harassed, intimidated and
arrested for photographing public buildings, bridges and trains, treated as suspected terrorists; a
result of a post-9/11 hysteria despite the fact there has never been any evidence of terrorists
using photography to plan attacks.

Photography is Not a Crime became the primary news site for these stories, a valuable
educational source for citizens who began learning and asserting their rights in response to this
Constitutional crackdown, sparking a citizen movement that is just now getting organized.

People are breaking partisan and economic lines to unite on this issue; a growing segment of
the population no longer afraid to point a camera back at the government, which has pointed a
camera at them for decades.

Miller became an authority on the issue, having published the Citizen Journalists Photography
Handbook this year. He frequently gives talks and interviews on how to be your own media.

And now he has incorporated his blog as a Florida nonprot, PINAC, Inc., where he is building a
dedicated team of multimedia journalists and public records specialists, which will serve as the
nucleus to a nationwide network of activists, attorneys, advocates and journalists

Thanks to Life is Art, Inc., a Miami-based 501 (c) (3) that has agreed to be a scal
sponsor, PINAC is now accepting tax-deductible donations.

The goal is to turn PINAC into a multi-staffed news site that informs and reports as well as
educates and empowers, especially when it comes to Constitutional rights and public records
law.

The goal is to teach people to be their own media.


MISSION STATEMENT TAGLINE
Little Brother Watching Big Brother Be the Media


The Issue
From urban cities to rural towns, police nationwide have displayed a systematic crackdown
against citizens for documenting police activity in public, despite the fact that numerous court
decisions have upheld that nobody, including police, has an expectation of privacy in public.

Not only is it a First Amendment right to record police, the United States Department of Justice
issued guidelines for police departments laying out the law for ofcers, explaining how they
should handle citizens who record them.

But it has mostly fallen on deaf ears by the ofcers on the streets who continue to violate the
oath they took to the Constitution.

The videos dont lie. The sad reality is that cameras have not only caught countless cops
abusing citizens, they have exposed many cops fabricating reports.

Compounding the issue is the fact that government agencies throughout the country, whether
they be local, state or federal, have proven to be uninformed or unwilling to comply with public
records requests, despite laws requiring these records be made available to the public for
inspection during business hours.

These public ofcials rely on citizen ignorance to abuse the laws. And when that doesnt work,
they rely on police to order the citizens out of the building as they have done to several PINAC
members on several occasions.

In June 2014, a sheriff in Tennessee reported a journalist to Homeland Security after the
reporter began making a series of public records requests.

Marshall County Sheriff Normal Dalton not only tried to intimidate Alex Friedmann, editor of
Prison Legal News, who had been working on a piece about complaints coming out of the jail,
the sheriff reported him to Homeland Security.

But the law states that public records belong to the citizens and the government is merely the
custodian of these records.

That is why it is essential to educate as many citizens as possible about their rights and laws
when it comes to ensuring government transparency.

Meanwhile, the government continues to increase its surveillance on citizens, monitoring
journalists, activists, photographers and anybody who does not toe the government line, even if
there is no reasonable suspicion these citizens are involved in criminal activity.

Big Brothers message is clear: they can watch us, but we cant watch them.




MISSION STATEMENT TAGLINE
Little Brother Watching Big Brother Be the Media

The Vision
The plan is to combat this madness by building a national powerhouse of journalism, education
and advocacy; a well-oiled machine churning out breaking news and investigative reports while
providing journalistic training and public records education to citizens in every state as well as
ensuring legal support for people arrested while recording in public.

This ambitious project will transform Photography is Not a Crime from a one-man blog into a
multifaceted umbrella organization uniting journalists, activists, advocates, attorneys and
everyday citizens from around the globe, a natural transition considering its strong readership
already cuts across partisan, educational and cultural lines; a growing number of citizens of all
ages and sex outraged over the aggressive culture within law enforcement agencies today.

These are readers infuriated that nobody is doing anything about the epidemic of police violence
and abuse we see daily. Not the politicians. Not the press. Not the prosecutors who seem to
take delight in targeting innocent people who dare question authority. And certainly not police,
who have proven to protect their own at all costs.

So it's time for PINAC to do something about it.

And we will do this by continuing to do what we have been doing over the years, but with a
much larger budget, allowing us to hire more writers and editors to add more journalistic breadth
and clout to the site.

We will also launch the Open Records Project, where our team of public records specialists in
Florida will organize, educate and oversee a national network of public records specialists in
every state to ensure government transparency. And we will create a network of attorneys in
every state to sue government agencies when they dont comply with our requests.

We will also implement a crowdsourced platform where readers can report on their communities
through the use of camera and public records laws, utilizing the training they have received
through the Open Records Project.

This mission, which we are calling PINAC 2015, includes rebuilding and redesigning the site by
New Year's Day, giving it a complete makeover and overhaul, leaving it with multiple columns for
multiple content on multiple pages.

The best way to envision PINAC 2015 is by imagining two sections, within the site; the editorial
division, which will focus on journalism, and the educational division, which will focus on public
records education and advocacy. The two divisions will work independently from each other, but
also collaboratively on investigative projects.

At a time when the media landscape is still evolving from Old Media to New Media, a transition
that will take decades to complete, PINAC is establishing itself as a permanent player on a
global level.

We're not just creating a news site. We're creating a new system.



MISSION STATEMENT TAGLINE
Little Brother Watching Big Brother Be the Media

The Plan
Introduce a talented news team, including a managing editor, staff writers, videographers
and producers, signicantly boosting the quality and quantity of the journalistic content, which
will consist of breaking news, camera reviews, legal advice and investigative reports.

Launch the Open Records Project, where we will build teams of public records specialists in
every state in order to build an extensive and accessible online database of public records,
which will remain open-sourced, allowing anybody to contribute.

On-the-spot reports and investigative stories from areas where police have proven to be a
problem. We will also conduct training seminars for the community in these areas, teaching
citizens their rights and the law, showing them how to hold police accountable and keep
government transparent through cameras and public records laws.

Build a network of attorneys from every state to enforce public records violations through
lawsuits.

Incorporate blogs of selected independent journalists under the PINAC banner in a
designated news feed column on home page, whom will remain independent, but also
collaborate with PINAC on projects, including William Grigg, the Bay State Examiner and
Luke Rudkowski.

Allow readers to create their own blogs under the PINAC banner where they will cover
their communities utilizing the skills and training obtained through the Open Records Project.

Debut the PINAC NewsCamp an annual citizen journalism training conference in Miami,
featuring talks and training sessions from national experts as well as a platform for attendees
to create their own sessions.

Launch a Legal Defense Fund for citizens who get arrested for recording in public or
otherwise utilizing their First Amendment rights to hold police accountable and keep
government transparent.

Introduce PINAC Hotline where readers with news tips or legal challenges can call and
leave two-minute message, which would lead to further content for videos and articles and
could also be posted as standalone podcasts.

Develop partnership with Miami documentary lmmaking company, Explica Media, where
resources, space and talent will be shared and high-quality videos will be produced.

Develop PINAC smartphone app that will not only include access to the daily content, but
include a camera that live streams and stores footage remotely as well as includes relevant
laws pertaining to public records and the right to record in public.

Launch fellowship program where we will train journalism and law students in the power of
public records law.


MISSION STATEMENT TAGLINE
Little Brother Watching Big Brother Be the Media


The Team
The founding core PINAC team is equipped with talent, experience, maturity and youth, all
whom share the same drive of maintaining police accountability and government transparency,
but who also bring in their own level of skills and expertise to the organization.

Jeff Gray joined PINAC in 2013, has become a favorite with readers and an inspiration to other
citizen journalists because of his calm, professional demeanor when communicating with police
on his HONORYOUROATH Youtube channel. He is also developing his public records skills,
which enabled him to discover that the Florida Fusion Center, a coalition of federal, state and
local law enforcement agencies, had developed a le on him, labeling him suspicious because
he regularly does audits on public ofcials to see whether they respect his right to record.

Charlie Grapski joined PINAC in 2014, is a former University of Florida professor who once ran
for state representative. He has always been a huge public records advocate, having fought a
one-man battle against ofcials in Alachua County where he began to expose corruption
through his requests a few years ago. But that made them retaliate against him where he ended
up arrested multiple times, including one time where police left him in a coma for two days,
before he was convicted of battery on a police ofcer. To get the full story, Google the words
Citizen Grapski for the 44-minute documentary. He will oversee the Open Records Project.

Thomas Covenant aka Epic Old Guy joined PINAC in 2013 by partnering with Gray public
records requests excursions, tending to hang a few away with various stealth cameras, ensuring
what ever happens to Gray will be recorded. He also handles public records requests for the
PINAC editorial team when needed and would like to educate other senior citizens about their
rights when dealing with government bureaucracy.

Taylor Hardy joined PINAC in 2013 while still a student at the Miami Media School and was
immediately facing a wiretapping charge from the Boston Police Department in retaliation for a
video that was reported on PINAC two months earlier showing a cop bullying a citizen with a
camera. But Boston police ended up withdrawing the charges against Hardy along with a
witness intimidation charge against Miller for publishing a public number. Hardy, who has since
graduated, is PINACs Miami-based videographer and producer.

Andrew Meyer, who is best known for his Dont tase me, bro incident in 2007 while still a
University of Florida journalism student, joined PINAC in 2014 after graduating law school, and
will become PINACs rst staff writer and has quickly become the house expert on the legalities
of citizens operating camera drones.

Eddie Lange is PINACs techmaster, the one who gets the site back online after it crashes
because of ongoing hardware issues, which will be resolved with the new site. He will continue
his role as server administrator as well as consult throughout the entire rebuilding and
redesigning of the site.




MISSION STATEMENT TAGLINE
Little Brother Watching Big Brother Be the Media


Pending Projects
In order to to hit the ground running on our ofcial launch date of January 1, 2015, we have
already embarked on several longterm projects, not limited to the following listed below:


Albuquerque Police Department - Despite the lapel cameras that ofcers were issued in
2010, Albuquerque police continue to shoot and kill citizens at an alarming rate, many times
claiming the cameras didnt work, but the videos that have been made public are not pretty,
including a video that went viral showing them shooting a homeless man looking for refuge in
the foothills of the mountains surrounding the city. Grapski spent two weeks in New Mexico
last month where he began a serious of public records requests as well as conducted video
interviews with familiar members of police-shooting victims.

Fall River Police Department Earlier this year, this Massachusetts police department
arrested a man on wiretapping charges after the man video recorded him yelling profanities
into a phone in public. Charges were dismissed and police eventually returned his phone,
after an outside analysis determined police had reset the phone, wiping it clear of the footage
of his arrest, essentiality destroying evidence that could be used in a lawsuit against them. We
led several public records requests, which were ignored. We have since retained a lawyer
and will be ling suit.

Crowley Police Department This is a small-town police department in Louisiana that
arrested a woman named Theresa Richard twice in the last seven months for video recording
police. After the rst arrest, which took place within the lobby of the police department, they
posted a sign forbidding photography and videography. However, we ew to Crowley earlier
this month, entered with our cameras and were not arrested, proving what we knew; that there
is no law against recording inside a public lobby. However, when we asked the police chief to
remove the sign, he said he would consult with the attorney general, but that was weeks ago
and it doesnt take that long to determine if the signs are Constitutional. We already have a
lawyer and will likely be ling suit.

Miami Gardens Police Department This police department has only been in existence
since 2008 after the Miami Gardens community in North Miami-Dade incorporated, but it has
already been at the center of national controversy after it was revealed they had arrested a
man more than 40 times at his employment on trespassing charges, not because they
received complaints from the store owner, but because they were trying to maintain an arrest
quota that would increase federal funding. Weve done several video interviews and now plan
to organize our very rst community outreach meeting where we teach the locals about their
rights when it comes to stop-and-frisk detainments as well as about public records laws. We
will video recording this event as the rst in what will be a serious of nationwide events.






MISSION STATEMENT TAGLINE
Little Brother Watching Big Brother Be the Media


Financial Stability

One of the drawbacks for many startup nonprot news sites is that they lack the name
recognition that many corporate media companies have developed over the years, making it
difcult to obtain nancial stability once a foundation decides to stop funding.

Another factor that can affect name recognition is the tendency for these news site to create
partnerships with established media companies where the nonprots create the content and the
media companies distribute the content.

While this may make sense for a startup with no name recognition, it doesnt help develop the
name recognition in the long run. And this can affect donations considering people tend to
donate to organizations they are familiar with.

But PINAC has been building that name recognition for more than seven years where it has
been regularly featured on major news sites, including the Washington Post, the New York
Times, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, the Guardian and even Playboy magazine.

To further spread that name recognition, PINAC in 2012 introduced a merchandise line of t-
shirts, caps, hoodies and stickers, which will be expanded upon under the new venture. The
merchandise, which can be viewed at www.pinacnation.com, consist of high-quality clothing and
original designs created by Miami artists.

Through its scal sponsor, Life is Art, Inc, which focuses on building communities through art,
PINAC will continue to work with local artists in creating t-shirt designs, but also in creating
urban murals throughout the city as well as in producing local music videos with local musicians
to spread the PINAC message.

The slogans will be simple, but catchy: Be the Media, Know Your Rights, Little Brother Watching
Big Brother, Police the Police, Question Authority and, of course, Photography is Not a Crime.

At a time when many news companies are trying to gure out how to tap into the youth market,
PINAC believes it can achieve this goal through cultural connections, whether it be fashion, art
or music as well as journalistic training for young people.

The idea is not only to further promote the PINAC brand, but also promote the wealth of artistic
talent residing in Miami, which will always serve as PINACs headquarters.

PINAC will also raise funds and market itself though educational events, including the PINAC
NewsCamp that will be held annually in Miami, as well as through frequent training seminars
throughout the country, all which will be part of an extensive video series.

And nally, PINAC is planning on raising revenue the old-fashioned way by rebuilding and
redesigning the site to maximize journalistic content and ad revenue.


MISSION STATEMENT TAGLINE
Little Brother Watching Big Brother Be the Media


Annual Budget

PINAC is striving to establish a $5 million annual budget to kick things off with the intention of
steadily increasing that budget over time.

While that might seem ambitious for what was a one-man blog operating on fumes for seven
years, it is essential in order to fulll our goals in establishing a permanent organization that not
only holds police accountable and keeps government transparent, but educates citizens in how
to do so, providing them the platform and guidance to keep their work professional and relevant.

Consider the annual budgets of three of the largest police departments in the country to put this
into perspective:

New York City Police Department $3.6 billion
Los Angeles Police Department $1.4 billion
Chicago Police Department $1.3 billion

Multiply those gures by the annual budgets from law enforcement agencies throughout the
country and its easy to see what were up against.

Obviously, a nonprot news site does not have the seemingly unlimited resources law
enforcement agencies possess, but the initial goal of $5 million is comparable to other nonprot
news sites with national readerships, including ProPublica and the Center for Investigative
Reporting, which both have annual budgets exceeding $10 million.

Both have produced excellent investigative reporting over the years, including a project that
earned ProPublica a Pulitzer Prize in 2010, becoming the rst online news site to win the
prestigious award.

However, statistics indicate that PINAC has a larger readership than CIR and almost catching
up to ProPublicas readership, so imagine what it can do with the right funding.