Dr. Baglow vs Freedom of Speech: September 15, 2014

September 15, 2014 — xanthippa

This is a continuation of a prolonged court, the earlier bits of which are here:  Day 1 part 1 and part 2 , Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 part 1 and part 2 of this trial were covered in March, 2014 (write-ups by me at links).  Day 5 is more or less covered by days 6 and 7.…  Day 6 is here.  Day 7 part 1 is here – sorry about having had to chop this up into short little bits, it seems my original write up was too long for WordPress to format correctly… part 2 is here.

Dr. Baglow’s impression of my coverage of the court hearings, as per Twitter, is here.

Which brings us to the first day of the ‘fall session’ of the trial, where the defense part of this case starts.

Aside – I understand that the court-ordered ‘blogosphere expert’ will be testifying on Thursday..

I showed up in court nice and early – long before the information desk folks (on the 2nd floor of the Elgin St. Courthouse in Ottawa – but facing the main Elgin St. entrance) got the memo about which courtroom this particular civil case will be heard in.   However, as time passed on, I learned that the case will have been heard in Courtroom #20 – the courtroom closest to the main/front entrance (and thus dubbed ‘the smoker’s courtroom’).  Here are the players:

Justice:          Polowin, J.

Plaintiff:        Baglow, John

Lawyer:          Burnet, Peter Francis

Defendant:     Smith, Roger

Self-represented

                 Fournier, Connie

Self-represented

                 Fournier, Mark

Lawyer:            Kulaszka, Barbara

As the ‘players’ arrived on the ‘playing field’, these were my observations:

Barbara Kulaszka (BK) looked her steadfast self:  short hair kissed with just a tiny bit of silver, billowing lawyer’s robes framing her slender frame, she was her true self.

Peter Burnet, (PB) slightly balding and silver, looked distinguished (edit:  a complained-of phrase has been removed here).

Roger Smith looked dashing in his tan slacks, brown shoes, blue blazer, dark (black or charcoal) shirt with a blue-inside-a-gray-striped shirt and blue thin-striped tie, his silver hair dashing, his cheekbones chiseled above his silver, manicured beard/mustache.

Dr. Baglow wore his signature outfit:  black suit, blue shirt (opened collar, as if to stress his ‘blue collar’ sympathies), the ubiquitous riding boots (with delicate and adorable little silver trimmings), silver watch, rings on the ring and pinkie fingers of his left hand, silver hair and tailored silver mustache accentuated by the gun-metal framed spectacles he twirled in his hands more than he wore.

The charismatic Mark Fournier wore a new-looking dark blue suit with a thin gray stripe, black shoes and a cream, open-necked shirt.

Connie Fournier was elegant in form-fitting dark trousers which flattered her shape and a dark violet, v-necked thin-knit pullover (with cute button-sleeve detail) which highlighted her fine, strawberry-blond hair cut into a flattering bob.

To complete the picture, let me just say that the same Court Clerk (from the spring) who did not want to be blogged about (and worried she’d be ‘Twittered’) presided over the case, fussing over the improperly entered ‘stuff’ from the spring and lamenting that it will fall to her to re-enter and correct it all.  The ‘Madam Court Reporter’ was a pretty young woman sporting longish black hair with flattering bangs.  Her trim figure was perfectly framed in a navy blue, long-sleeved knit dress accentuated by a thin brown belt with gold-coloured metal trimmigs.  Her pumps were impeccable!

Also, the CCLA, an intervenor in this case, was not represented by Mr Frankel, but by a competent-looking young woman in a black-and-white striped shirt, black slacks and blazer and bright red flat shoes (which she shed while she sat cross-legged on the spectator bench) – I understand Mr. Frankel will rejoin the case later in this week.

Courtroom #20 differed from most court rooms in that on the right side, it sported a sturdy-looking gray sofa with 4 fluffy-looking pillows.  I can only presume that Dr. Baglow’s past blood-pressure difficulties motivated the court to pick a courtroom with a sofa in it.  Otherwise, Courtroom #20 was much like most of the courtrooms in the Elgin St. Courthouse in Ottawa:  creamy-white walls with the ‘head’ wall (behind the judge) being a wood-panel in the same tan colour as the doors and the wooden-bits of the spectator benches, bearing the Canadian Coat of Arms. (The back wall – not the benches!) The seat bit of the upholstered spectator benches was a muted pink, which clashed rather badly with the crude orange-red of the floor carpeting.

It is difficult to describe the air of expectation one can only experience in the courtroom, with everyone present and waiting for the judge to arrive.  I can only liken it to a cross-section of the feeling which, as a 14-month-old (OK – I’m an Aspie and remember this), you are expecting the vaccine-baring MD to enter the room where your mother is holding you down overlapped with the dread you feel as you are sitting at a desk, awaiting your fist Calculus exam paper to arrive.  Add to this the distinct staccato of high heels in the distance – it is ever present, even if completely unrelated to the judge’s arrival – and you approach the hushed tenseness that awaiting the judge’s arrival in the courtroom accompanies!

As in – no movie could possibly do it justice!!!  No amount of suspense could possibly capture the breathlessness of these moments!!!

At 10:05, Madam Justice Polowin, J., entered.

Her hair was longer and lighter than before – and her (paler than before) face looked puffy and strained.  Yet, her eyes looked as intelligent and as sharp as ever!

The first session of the first morning of a hearing are usually taken up with tedious ‘housekeeping’ or ‘administrative’ matters.  Not so in Madam Justice Polowin’s courtroom today!  We went straight to the start of the defense’s case!!!

The first person to take the stand was Roger Smith (aka Peter O’Donnel).  He explained that even though ‘Roger Smith’ is his legal name, it is not ‘unique’ – both ‘Roger’ and ‘Smith’ being ‘common names’. ‘ Peter O’Donnel’, however was somewhat less unique – and as it was his birth name, he used it extensively  (though not exclusively – he sometimes picked ‘humorous nicnames’) in his online activities.

It is my impression that Roger Smith is a very reluctant defender:  it seems to me that he believes that his only defense lies in his truly held beliefs (and that promoting these is in the public good), but that he also thinks that having to justify his deeply held ‘political beliefs’ in front of a judge is very inappropriate of itself (regardless of the eventual ruling) and subversive of our democracy itself – akin to having to having one’s very thoughts needing to br sanctioned by a court of law….which, obviously, is a violation of the most fundamental freedom – the freedom of thought.  So, it seems to me, he is very reluctant to present his beliefs and convictions to the court – yet, his only defense (it seems to me) lies in him claiming to ‘truly believe’ what he had said/written/posted on the internet.  As in – it seems to me as though Roger Smith believes that it is not his statement of his beliefs, but his convictions themselves, which are on trial here – a form of ‘thought-crime-policing’, if you will.

And, since (in my never-humble-opinion) he thinks ‘thought-crime’ ought not be a ‘crime’ (if you excuse my clumsy expression of the principle), he is having difficulty with the whole matter.

As in, defending his views would be a bit of  a violation of the ‘thought-is-not-a crime’ bit.

At least, that is the impression I have been left with following his testimony and the bit of cross-examination I saw.

The testimony bit of the day merely repeated what had been entered into the record in the past – just the light it had been cast in was ‘slightly’ different.  And by ‘slightly’, I mean ‘a lot’.  As in, the bits that the prosecution entered in as ‘strong’ evidence now seemed rather silly and frivolous…which is not much of a comfort, since in a civil case of libel, ‘malice’ is presumed and needs to be disproved, rather that that whole ‘innocent until proven guilty’ bit of jurisprudence….

Yes, much revolved around SmallDeadAnimals (SDA) and Jay Currie’s blog posts, as well as Free Dominion and the Conservative blogosphere in general…plus Dr. Dawg’s blog –  ‘progressive’ site run by the plaintiff (civil prosecution).

Roger Smith’s background – from Math and Science to an Honours’ BA in Geography in order to become a ‘Climatologist’ (‘Climate Scientist’ in Newspeak), along with the necessary Global Warming/Anthropogenic Climate Change baggage – was discussed, as was the means by which Roger Smith makes his living as well as his online identity  – all this was explored at great length.

Then we got into the relevant bits – the 7 words which are the subject of this lawsuit (and which I therefore fear to mention – on the pain of ‘re-publishing slanderous material’) and the context in which they had been uttered.

It seemed to this court observer that Mr. Smith not only proved (beyond a reasonable doubt- a much more strenuous test that required in a civil lawsuit) that he believed the truthfullness of his statements, but also that stating them in an online forum was ‘in the public interest’.

Actually, this is where things got rather interesting – after the lunch break (1-2 pm), when Roger Smith had finished his testimony and his cross examination by PB commenced!

PB seemed obsessed with the idea that Roger Smith’s view of what constituted ‘appropriate speech’ was ‘beyond the pale’.

Which is rather funny – considering me being in the audience (and the only person there in the courtroom with the express purpose to report to you, my dear readers, on the contents of this hearing)!!!

If you read my blog regularly, you may know that I am a free speech absolutist – because I am an anti-slavery fundamentalist.

Perhaps it is my Asperger’s that informs this bit of me, but, for better or worse, I cannot help but see this issue in black-and-white – with no gray in between.

To me, this is the necessary extension of the principle of self-ownership:  if you own your self, then you and only you are responsible for your reaction and any and all resultant action you may take based on what you hear/read.
In other words, if you can be swayed to bad actions through ‘hate-speech/incitement to violence’ you hear, then you are admitting that the speaker is a de-facto part-owner of you and thus, submitting to their will is a tacit admission/permission of slavery.  And I am 100% against slavery!!!
Self-ownership implies self-responsibility!
A 100% self-ownership (i.e. anti-slavery fundamentalism) implies a 100% self-responsibility, thus making all forms of hate-speech/incitement irrelevant.
Which means that all hate-speech/incitement laws are an admission of and permission for a form of slavery – something I will never accept.
And since I cannot accept any form of slavery, I cannot acknowledge that hate speech/incitement can sway a self-determining, self-owning individual…which makes outlawing it an admission that my core principles are irrelevant…something I cannot accept.
I hope this makes some kind of sense to you – it certainly makes sense to me.
But, that is me – and (thankfully) not the subject of this particular lawsuit.
Anyhow, it seemed to me that PB spent most of his cross-examination time trying to ‘nail’ the ‘bit’ where Roger Smith drew ‘the line’ between ‘permitted speech’ and ‘illegal speech’.

SILLY BUNNY!!!

As IF there ought to be such a thing as ‘illegal speech’!!!!

 

Roger Smith said he drew the line between what ought to be permitted speech and not somewhere between what Ernst Zundel said and what is routinely said online by people whom ‘the progressives’ label as ‘Neo-Nazis’ but who are in reality no such thing.

As in – according to Roger Smith – Ernst Zundel was ‘illegal speech’ while the wrongly villified ‘neo-nazis’ who were not really ‘neo-nazis’ were OK…if you actually listened to what they truly said rather than just buying into their rhetoric.

But, PJ tried very very hard to paint this in the worst light possible – as in, he tried to twist Roger Smith’s words into saying that Ernst Zundel’s crap (and his claims ARE crap) was OK but the Neo-Nazis were not OK.

It seemed to me that Roger Smith, naturally nervous, being on the stand and all, did not really understand where PB was aiming with this ‘twisting’.  But, the judge sure did!  And, she put PB in his place on it, too.

However, this was not the only bit of testimony that PB tried to twist – and I am not entirely certain that the judge (much less Roger Smith, who was justifiably nervous, arguing for his retirement fund and all) quite got the manipulation or not.

Anyhow, that is where I had to leave off – having real-life obligations and all….I do hope to be filled in on the bits I missed and report to you tomorrow!!!

 

 

 

 

Posted in Aspergers, atheism, corruption, debate, language, opression, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 25 Comments »

Baglow v Free Dominion has become an Internet test case!

August 14, 2014 — xanthippa

From Connie and Mark Fournier:

 

New news in the Baglow Trial

The court has now appointed an expert witness (that the parties have to pay for), and the “three-day” trial that turned into seven, now has seven additional daysscheduled in September!!

It is obvious that the court is serious about wanting to make case law regarding internet defamation, and that Baglow vs Free Dominion is now the test case.  We are doing our best to make sure that the decision is one that will help put an end to frivolous internet defamation lawsuits for good!

We’ve started a fundraiser to help pay for the court-appointed expert and for the additional court days.

You can help us by making a donation and/or by sharing our fundraiser link on your social networks!

The outcome of this case is important to all of us!

We can add offline donations to our fundraiser total now, so, if you prefer:

You can use PayPal by clicking this link:  Donate
 
or

If you feel more inclined, you can also help out using an Interac Email Money Transfer to connie@freedominion.ca .

Alternatively, our mailing address is:

Connie Fournier
2000 Unity Rd
Elginburg, ON  K0H 1M0

As always, your thoughts and prayers are appreciated more than anything else!  Thank you so much for your faithful support! 

Fondest Regards,
  
Connie and Mark

 

Posted in debate, freedoms, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

John Baglow vs Connie Fournier, Mark Fournier and Roger Smith: the ‘FULL TRIAL’, day 7, part 5

June 8, 2014 — xanthippa

Day 1 part 1 and part 2 , Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 part 1 and part 2 of this trial were covered in March, 2014 (write-ups by me at links).

Day 5 was going to be written up later, but….  As I was writing up the background needed to accurately portray the events of day 7 (parts 4 and up), I realized that I am describing much of the material that came out on day 5 and that a separate write up would be redundant.

Day 6 is here.

Day 7 part 1 is here, part 2 is here and part 3 is here – sorry about having had to chop this up, it seems my original write up was too long for WordPress to format correctly.

Part 4  left off just as Dr. Baglow explained that he had produced email communication for discovery from the period that he believed ‘the comments’ had disappeared from his old blog, but not the period that the defense claims the comments ‘had been disappeared’, because he simply thought they were not observant enough to notice that the materials they need for their case had disappeared months earlier…

This had actually come out on Connie’s cross of Dr. Baglow on day 6 – but the background had to be explained in order for my report on the events of day 7 to make sense.

As a result of the now defined and testified to difference between the two time periods under discussion, Connie Fournier asked the judge to direct Dr. Baglow to produce the emails they had actually asked for instead of the ones he thought they ought to have.

Which the judge did.

…and which Dr. Baglow had indeed produced – on the morning of the 7th day in court….long after Mr. Bow’s cross examination had finished so he cannot even be cross examined as to the content within them. And Dr. Baglow cannot testify to anything about Mr. Bow’s side of the conversation, as he is not Mr. Bow.

Nice, non?

OK, so Dr. Baglow had finally disclosed the emails from the requested time period on the morning of the 7th day of court….and he even visibly hedged when describing the emails, saying these are the emails from this time period ‘that he thought were relevant’ – immediately raising in me the question whether there were others that the defense might deem relevant but he did not  and so they would not have been disclosed…but I guess that is just my literal Aspie mind!!!

It was during Dr. Baglow’s cross examination by Connie Fournier regarding these late-disclosed-emails (which she had only 50 minutes to review before having to cross examine him on them!!!)  that I reflected on Dr. Baglow’s past as a high-ranking member of PSAC (that’s pronounced P. S. A. C. – Dr. Baglow is not fond of the usual ‘Pee-sack’ pronunciation and testified so in court earlier), a behemoth of a public sector union.  I could juxt picture him in labour negotiations, sticking to his line, appearing reasonable and affable (he can be incredibly charming), and making the most unreasonable labour demands sound like reasonable, middle-of-the-road compromises.

Aside:

This is, again, my literal Aspie mind at work here, but…it seems to me that if a group of organizations has to specifically be exempted from being charged under the racketeering laws, then they are (by definition) a form of legalized racketeering.

 Now had we had a market system (instead of the fascistic crony-capitalism system we actually have now – and I am using the word fascistic in its core meaning:  the collusion of government, big business and big labour against the rest of society), this would be self-correcting in the private sector:  if the labour unions raise labour costs to an unsustainable level, the company goes bankrupt and a correction occurs.

But, in the public sector, unsustainable labour costs get passed down to the taxpayer until the society itself becomes bankrupt and collapses.

That is why I consider public sector union to be the cancer which is weakening our society and hastening its demise.

And, I say this as someone who had been a member of both a private and public sector unions…I’ve see the rot from the inside!!!

In my defense, I was young and when I learned the truth, I took a lower-paying non-unionized job…and felt the cleaner for it!  After all, we Aspies like the laws to apply to everyone equally… As my favourite philosopher of the 20th century once said:  a person’s a person, no matter how small!

In other words, I was admiring Dr. Baglow’s self control and ability to be completely non-pulsed and to appear relaxed even as clear contradictions to his sworn testimony were pointed out.  I could certainly not handle it with such grace…

But, not Dr. Baglow!

Cool as a cucumber, he stuck to his line that all the comments had disappeared in November 2010 and he was positively baffled that the defendants could access them as late as March and/or April 2011!  Not only could he not explain that discrepancy to them, he would have been glad had someone could explain it to him – after all, he testified, he is technologically quite ignorant…

 

When Madam Justice Polowin had a question about IP addresses, Dr. Baglow was very helpful to the court and correctly explained in great detail some very technical aspects of how the internet protocol worked – he spoke with the ease of an expert going over familiar ground and I was very impressed.

But, I digress…

Once the comments had stopped being visible (for whatever reason and at whatever time period) on the internet, the defense had asked for them in disclosure.

From what I understand, after a lot of hum-ing and haw-ing, a TEXT file with tens of thousands of comments, interspersed with code and completely devoid of context (i.e. missing such details like which posts they were in response to, other comments in their thread and their position in that thread – these had been completely stripped out).

As it was a text file, it was not possible to convert it to an actually usable format….

Dr. Baglow explained that they had submitted the comments in that format ‘in order to help the defense’…

Aside:  an unimportant observation… Whenever Dr. Baglow is about to say something particularly patronizing or obfuscating – especially to Connie Fournier – he takes a moment, tilts his head back, glares down his nose at Connie, and only then speaks.  I have no idea why, but it is a definite pattern…

It seems that Connie Fournier had not considered this to ‘be helpful’ and thought it an attempt at sabotaging the defense – and she objected to it.

From what I gather, she objected most vociferously!

It then (if I understood Dr. Baglow correctly) still took Dr. Baglow/Mr. Bow a couple of weeks to produce the comments in a format that was sortable and workable with.  Indeed, Connie Fournier had produced a sample page showing how the comments (as Disqus files) were sortable and searchable.

Now that I have explained a little bit about the background of ‘the comments’, I can return to Connie’s cross of Dr. Baglow.

Connie had singled out one email in particular – dated, if I am not mistaken (please correct me if I am), April 3rd, 2011 – that appeared to be a ‘test comment’….since the word ‘test’ or ‘testing’ appeared on it and it had the identifier of having come either from Dr. Baglow himself or from someone who had his administrative identifiers.  Once she established the date of the comment, entered the content, and demonstrated the identifier, Dr. Baglow claimed to have absolutely zero idea of how this could possibly have happened.

He was positively baffled – and looked up to the ceiling as he asserted so.

Well, well, well…

It seems that in one of the emails between the two of them – but only disclosed on the morning of the 7th day of the originally 3-day court hearings – Dr. Baglow had sent Mr. Bow his administrative id and password.

And the email came just before the time/date stamp of the ‘test comment’ from, I believe, April 3rd, 2011…

Now, if the plaintiff and his IT guy were testing the appearance of comments in 2011, why would they believe them to have disappeared in November of 2010?!?!?

As they say – the plot thickens!!!

Before the significance of the ‘gotcha’ could sink in on all present, Dr. Baglow laughed heartily and in a jovial manner informed all in the courtroom that he had since changed this password!

Madam Justice Polowin smiled indulgently and assured him that she has no intentions of using that password to access his blog…

I must admit, the deflection was skillfully executed – and again, in my mind, I was picturing Dr. Baglow sitting at a labour negotiations table.

Let me end here.  There is very little more to come – some more of my observations and, perhaps, something about the pleasant conversations Dr. Baglow and I have enjoyed during some of the breaks.

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John Baglow vs Connie Fournier, Mark Fournier and Roger Smith: the ‘FULL TRIAL’, day 7, part 4

June 7, 2014 — xanthippa

Day 1 part 1 and part 2 , Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 part 1 and part 2 of this trial were covered in March, 2014 (write-ups by me at links).

Day 5 was going to be written up later, but….  As I was writing up the background needed to accurately portray the events of day 7 (parts 4 and up), I realized that I am describing much of the material that came out on day 5 and that a separate write up would be redundant.

Day 6 is here.

Day 7 part 1 is here, part 2 is here and part 3 is here – sorry about having had to chop this up, it seems my original write up was too long for WordPress to format correctly.

Following the break (more about that later), Connie Fournier had a chance to cross examine Dr. Baglow regarding some emails he had JUST disclosed to her that morning.  If this seems confusing (given that this has been dragging on for years), let me back up a lot and paint the situation:

One of the ‘bones of contention’ – and a source of huge frustration to the Fourniers – was the disclosure of emails between Dr. Baglow’s technical specialist, Mr. Bow, and Dr. Baglow during the time period when the comments from his old blog had disappeared from visibility on the internet.

Even more background information is needed, or this will not make any sense.  And, I admit freely that my understanding is limited and I apologize for any errors I make.  If you spot them, please, let me know and I will publish the correction!!!  I’d rather be corrected than stay in error any day!!!

Dr. Baglow used to have ‘blogspot’ host his blog – which meant that the word ‘blogspot’ would appear in the middle of his blog’s address.  Online, he had befriended Mr. Bow, who does some IT stuff as his hobby – and Mr. Bow eventually convinced Dr. Baglow to have his blog moved over to Mr. Bow’s server.  Not only would he get a better service, Mr. Bow would get him an address for his blog that would not contain the server name on it.

Aside:  why he would go about it in such a complicated manner is beyond me. All he had to do to get a domain name for his blog without the word ‘blogger’ in it (a few dollars a year) and use a pointer, so that the ‘non-blogger-name-displaying address would be visible and the ‘blogger’ bit be hidden:  no migrating or headaches from lost comments necessary!  But, of course, that would not bring Mr. Bow income for hosting the site, so, perhaps, he might not have mentioned this easy alternative…

For quite some time after Dr. Dawg’s blog had been ‘migrated over’ to the new server (with all the posts but without the old comments, which were in a difficult format), the old blog and all the comments for the posts were still visible on the internet.

According to Connie Fournier, that is – something Dr. Baglow bitterly disputes.

Connie Fournier and Barbara Kulaszka (BK), Mark Fournier’s lawyer, were looking through these comments on the old blog because they believed that much of the material they needed for their defense was contained in these very comments.  According to my understanding (highly imperfect) of what Connie Fournier claims, she and BK were in the very process of looking at them one fine day in the spring of 2011 when suddenly, all these comments went ‘poof!’ and disappeared.

Or, perhaps, were disappeared…

If they ‘had been disappeared’ by the plaintiff or his agents at his direction (as opposed to just ‘disappeared’), it seems to me that this would be a very bad thing indeed….  Something called ‘despoliation’ – or, if I understand, willful destruction of evidence.

Dr. Baglow, of course, most vigorously maintains that the comments had NOT ‘been disappeared’ but simply were not visible on the new site due to a technical glitch and, as far as he is aware, they had also disappeared (not ‘been disappeared’) from the old blog, which he insist on calling ‘the transitional blog’ but admits it is identical to the old blog, except for the colourscheme…..and, of course, it lacks the comments.

As Dr. Baglow had had his blog moved from blogger to Mr. Bow’s server in November 2010, he insists that all comments also disappeared (due to said technical glitch – which was endlessly gone over and over on day 5 of the case – and since I am explaining it here, it now seems redundant to write that day up separately…) in November 2010.

Ms. Fournier insists she was browsing through them online in the spring of 2011.  I am not certain of the exact dates, but the 30th of March and 3rd of April 2011 kept coming up as the timeframe when the comments were visible online and when they disappeared.

Or were disappeared.

Not my call….

So, in discovery, the defense asked for all the emails between Dr. Baglow and Mr. Bow from this time period to be disclosed (I am not certain of how it was phrased, but, I cannot help but have an impression that spring 2011 was specifically mentioned).

Dr. Baglow had indeed disclosed a slew of emails between himself and Mr. Bow – but from November/December 2010.  When questioned about why he had disclosed emails from the wrong time period, Dr. Baglow became nastily condescending and said (and I am paraphrasing) that he just thought  the defendants were too stupid to realize when the comments had disappeared, so he had thought to help them and provided them with the emails from the ‘right’ time period.

And he stuck to that line.

At least, that is my most humble recollection  and my most imperfect understanding of the events and the testimony regarding them.  If I got something wrong, it is not intentional and I would respectfully request that if you can, please do let me know so that I may correct my posts.  Thank you.

More coming soon!

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John Baglow vs Connie Fournier, Mark Fournier and Roger Smith: the ‘FULL TRIAL’, day 7, part 3

June 6, 2014 — xanthippa

Day 1 part 1 and part 2 , Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 part 1 and part 2 of this trial were covered in March, 2014 (write-ups by me at links).

Day 5 will be written up later, as writing it up may affect the trial…

Day 6 is here.

Day 7 part 1 is here and part 2 is here – sorry about having had to chop this up into short little bits, it seems my original write up was too long for WordPress to format correctly.

 

Following up on Dr. Baglow’s ‘uncivil’ language regarding Kate McMillan, Mr. Frankel brought up Dr. Baglow’s testimony that he believes in being ‘uncivil towards the uncivil’.  In my never-humble-opinion, this was a low point for Dr. Baglow….being shown to have been ‘uncivil’ to Kate McMillan even after she had been so ‘civil’ to him!

It was at this point that the judge noted that the level of sarcasm on the blog posts she had read was incredibly high…and she questioned Dr. Baglow if all the blogs were like this.  He explained that no, not all were – for example, some of the anthropological blogs he frequents, even though they address controversial topics, they maintain an academic level of discourse.

Then we got into the Godwin’s Law…the discussion was predictable, as was the redirect regarding it.

Following that bit, Mr. Frankel went on to demonstrate that Dr. Baglow did not object to much more reputation-damaging statements than the impugned words, such as  being called ‘a shill for Hezbollah’ and ‘traitor’.  Dr. Baglow’s response to all this was ‘context’…as in, had it been in ‘different context’, he would have taken legal action against them, too.

Next Mr. Frankel concentrated on the difference between Dr. Baglow’s blog posts and his editorial pieces for the National Post (having convinced an editor by the name of Kelly McParland (sp?) that having a leftist’s POV would enrich the publication).

It seemed quite clear to me what he Mr. Frankel was doing (if, indeed, he was doing what I think he was doing):  he was demonstrating that the submission process to a newspaper – even an editorial – is much different than a blog post or comment for a blog post.

It also seemed to me that Dr. Baglow also saw where this was going and was doing his best to avoid going there…like saying that ‘he knew how an op-ed ought to differ from a blog post so there was no need for anyone else to make changes to it’ and so on.

Yet, Mr. Frankel got Dr. Baglow to admit that the comments to his blog were not read by him until after they had been posted – in other words, he had no ‘editorial  control’ over the comments posted on his site – while the op-ed pieces he submitted to National Post were not only groomed by himself to adhere to a different standard than a blog post would, but that they had to be vetted by the editor prior to publication.

To me – this is the key difference between the blogosphere/discussion forums and actual online publications:  the ‘newspapers’, even in their online versions, have editorial control of what they publish because they read and OK everything PRIOR to publication, while blog comments and discussion forum posts/comments are NOT read/vetted by the administration prior to publication.  Indeed, in the case of a discussion forum with some 10,000 users (like, say, Free Dominion), vetting all posts/comments by the administrators would not only be physically impossible, but leaving everything in a vetting cue would prevent the ‘online conversations’ which define the very nature of debate on discussion forums.

 Therefore, it is (and I am extrapolating where I think this argument was going) it is ridiculous to hold people who have not seen a comment/post to the same standard of responsibility for it as those who have read and vetted it.

 

The next bit of time was taken up with discussing one of Dr. Baglow’s least favourite politicians… Vic Toews.

Frankly, I did not really grasp the significance of all this – except to unmask the visceral hate Dr. Baglow has the capacity for.  I really did not understand how this bit impacted on the matter in hand…except that Dr. Baglow’s hate-on for this politician resulted in him posting some nasty stuff about him – stuff one might argue was more slanderous than ‘the impugned words’….  As in, it demonstrated Dr. Baglow had both written and published more ‘libel-worthy’ things about Vic Toews than had ever been posted anywhere about him self.

Dr. Baglow’s not entirely convincing response was that had he been called on it, he would have cowered in a corner and backed down with a generous apology.  (I am paraphrasing somewhat…but I found the answer to be less than convincing because Dr. Baglow would not look up while he spoke until almost the end and then hurriedly added that, of course, he would only do it for statements he thought were truly potentially defamatory – and that then he’d re-phrase them but, of course, he would not take down and apologize for frivolous claims…)

I know I am going over this in a LOT of detail – but, I do think that the CCLA’s participation as ‘a friend of the court’ in this matter is very, very important.  The outcome of this case will, after all, determine the freedoms all of us enjoy (or not) on the internet!!!

The next bit struck a little bit close to home for the CCLA:  supporting freedom of speech was being criticized as ‘enabling’ hate speech….

Yet, Mr. Frankel was able to turn it inside out and, after he got Dr. Baglow to admit that supporting free speech – even for neo-Nazis (as per some people’s definitions) could be perceived (and was repeatedly labelled as such by his ideological comrades, as well as Dr. Baglow himself) as ‘support for neo-Nazis’ (or other such ‘hate’ groups), then support for Omar Khadr and his ilk could, reasonably, be seen as ‘supporting’ – or, at least ‘giving aid and support/comfort’ to the Islamists/Taliban that Omar Khadr was working with. What’s good for the goose…

It was very well done and it revealed clearly demonstrated the ‘if one, then the other’ bit here.  I fully expect it to come out in Mr. Frankel’s closing argument.

I suspect this highlights the ‘important’ bits of Mr. Frankel’s cross examination.  I know, my write-up is verbose, but it took surprisingly little time – just over an hour!

The court took a little (less than an hour) break at this point. And, so shall I – leaving the rest for another post!

Posted in freedoms, politics, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments »

John Baglow vs Connie Fournier, Mark Fournier and Roger Smith: the ‘FULL TRIAL’, day 7, part 2

June 6, 2014 — xanthippa

Day 1 part 1 and part 2 , Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 part 1 and part 2 of this trial were covered in March, 2014 (write-ups by me at links).

Day 5 will be written up later, as writing it up may affect the trial…

Day 6 is here.

Day 7 part 1 is here – sorry about having had to chop this up into short little bits, it seems my original write up was too long for WordPress to format correctly.

We re-join the action as Mr. Frankel, ‘the CCLA guy’ is cross examining Dr. Baglow.

Much of the next bit of cross examination was designed to demonstrate to the judge just how internet forums worked.  The post ‘Yokels with pitchforks’ was used as an example…

In is my strong impression that Dr. Baglow feels really, really badly about having used this phrase.  Not because it insults right-wingers, but because as an avowed blue-collar people defender he is supposed to be protective of our agricultural workers (I do believe this was the turn of phrase he used) and using the negative stereotype of the rural farmers as a smear against his ideological enemies comes dangerously close to lifting the proverbial curtain and revealing the champagne socialist behind it…

It is also my strong impression that Mr. Frankel noticed Dr. Baglow’s discomfort with having so bared his prejudices against our rural neighbours and agricultural workers and that this is precisely why he selected the ‘Yokels with pitchforks’ post as an example.

It is also my strong impression that Dr. Baglow understood perfectly well that Mr. Frankel saw through him and that that is why he elected to use this post as an example of ‘nesting’, as he (Dr. Baglow, that is) flushed and chuckled to try to hide his discomfort.

As I said before – look out for Mr. Frankel, he WILL become a superstar of our legal system!

This is the atmosphere in which Mr. Frankel’s cross examination of Dr. Baglow took place.

Aside:

When Ms. Kulaszka cross examined him, D. Baglow was relaxed and calm.

When Connie Fournier examined him, he assumed a patronizing drawl, an air of impatient indulgence towards a particularly dense student as he alternately said he was baffled by the facts that things he had testified could not have happened had actually happened, explained his technical arrogance ignorance and, for a man in his prime , he certainly experienced a lot of memory lapses.  But, he kept his cool.

When under cross by Mr. Frankel, Dr. Baglow’s cheeks were flushed, he looked down a lot of the time and he seemed very uncomfortable in his seat.

Other blogs and bloggers were raised.  Two that came up a lot were Kathy Shaidle, the Canadian poetess and the grande dame of Canadian blogosphere, for whom Dr. Baglow had visceral contempt (which I found surprising, as she is an acclaimed poetess and Dr. Baglow has his doctorate in poetry – I would have thought there might  have been room for some common ground there) and Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals (SDA).

Disclosure:  when I first started blogging, it was Kathy Shaidle who reached out to me, even though we are not of the same ideological bend, welcomed me to the blogosphere and encouraged me to blog…as well as introduced me to several other bloggers.  It seemed to me that she did not care about my ideology but thought that the more varied opinions on the Canadian blogosphere there are, the better for everyone.  For her kindness and encouragement, I will always be grateful to her.

As for SDA – I am aware of the blog but, as I am not a fan of the format, I am really not aware of what goes on there.  I just don’t have the time to follow more than a handful of blogs myself.  Yet, after what I’ve heard of Kate McMillan in court, I just might stop by there and check SDA out!

It seemed that the very mention of Kathy Shaidle unsettled Dr. Baglow so much, the judge requested that Mr. Frankel go with the Kate McMillan example – which, with a satisfied smile (I saw that as he turned away from the judge and witness to permit himself that brief smile) he was happy to do. I suspect he wanted to go there all along….as that is where some rather unpleasant ‘stuff’ about Dr. Baglow came out.

A few years ago, Dr. Baglow’s partner suffered an illness, from which she eventually died.  Dr. Baglow was her support, her rock – and was understandably devastated by the loss of the partner he loved.  He has my deepest sympathies for his suffering and loss, which I am certain he still feels every day.

One of the people who expressed empathy to Dr. Baglow and his partner as they were undergoing these trying times was Kate McMillan of SDA.

Mr. Frankel established, through Dr. Baglow’s statements, that Kate McMillan had put aside all partisanship and supported Dr. Baglow on a human level when he needed it most.  For his part Dr. Baglow said he was grateful to her – and looked quite somber and sad as he seemed to know where the questioning was heading… It seems that even though she supported him in his hour of need –  human to human – Dr. Baglow had no difficulty in objectifying her as an ideological enemy, with no regard for her humanity, and calling her some truly vicious, unpleasant things.

Dr. Baglow explained that this was because they had had a ‘falling out’…

Sad, so sad…

And I suspect this was not lost on Madam Justice Polowin…

More installments coming soon!

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John Baglow vs Connie Fournier, Mark Fournier and Roger Smith: the ‘FULL TRIAL’, day 6

June 3, 2014 — xanthippa

Day 1 part 1 and part 2 , Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 part 1 and part 2 of this trial were covered in March, 2014 (write-ups by me at links).

I have as yet to write up day 5…as it was a little complicated and I would hate to get it wrong…let it suffice to say that the day started out with Mark Fournier’s lawyer, Ms. Kulaszka, cross examining Dr. Baglow – and it was in continuing this cross examination that the trial resumed today.

Oh, what a tangled web this lawsuit has become!!!

So many threads, on numerous blogs, intersecting, backtracking, re-posting of threads between blogs (with the necessarily resulting divergent discussions) – it’s messy, messy, messy, messy!

And the acerbic language, colourful metaphors, hyper-hyperbolies!!!

And by colourful, I do mean mostly brown…as in, Nazi brown…

But, let me narrate the day from the beginning:

The court was scheduled to resume at 9:30, so I set out nice and early so as not to miss a second of it!  By 9 am, I was whipping down the Quensway towards downtown, traffic fast and smooth, despite the warm rain.  The radio was droning on about one thing or another when I heard a report that Ottawa is the 3rd most  traffic congested city in Canada (third only to Toronto and Vancouver) and 5th most congested city in North America. As the disembodied voice in my dashboard went over the details, the traffic on the Queensway slowed down to a crawl!

How lucky for me that I was nearly at my exit – Metcalf St.!!!

I reached my short little off-ramp.  I was quite happy – as, in the past, it had taken me between 7 and 12 (worst traffic imaginable) minutes to get to the City Hall, where the ample parking is practically under the Courthouse.  So, was going to be early!  YES!!!

At this point, the reporter chose to point out that the most traffic congested time period on Ottawa is  – wait for it – Tuesday mornings!!!

(Of course, today WAS Tuesday morning…)

Well….if this were in a movie or a novel, I would have called it ‘calculated’ and ‘overdone’ and ‘not realistic’.  But – and I still have a hard time believing this – the tiny little distance to travel down the short little Metcalf St. offramp took me 20+ minutes to travel!!!

As I finally made it to Elgin St. (just a few short blocks to go up to the courthouse), I realized it was dug up with construction……and very, very s l o w….

At last, I pull up to the City Hall parking entrance, just south of the Elgin St. courthouse, and I pull in….and, for the first time in my memory (and I have gone to quite a few of these court hearings by now), the lot was FULL!!!  The parking attendant who turned me away told me I needed to go to the Laurier Street parking lot.  So, I went.

Of course, the Laurier Street parking lot was also full.  But, pulling out of that entrance, I got stuck going onto the Laurier Street bridge – and the unholy mess of traffic at Ottawa University.  THAT is a mess at ANY day and time – and much more so on the dreaded Tuesday morning Ottawa ‘worst traffic congestion’.

Oh – did I mention that every one of the streets there is  under construction?

And – there were tour buses with high school trippers stopping everywhere, spilling their charges in all directions….

Eventually, I managed to fight my way to the just-waking-up Market, then back downtown… and now I got turned down by four different ‘always a cert’ paring lots before I finally found a place to rest my teenager-transport-vehicle…

…and I RAN to the courthouse.  Let me warn you – this is a precarious process at best and I would not be surprised if there were reports of earthquakes in the area as a result….

Finally – I was there!!!

I found my way to Courtroom #37 – a really big one (where, if I remember correctly, the jury selection usually takes place).

I burst in, pen and paper in hand (so as to make as little noise/disruption as possible)  and saw that ‘we’ were still waiting for the judge to enter!!!

YES!!!

It may have been well after 10 am, but I still got there before the judge!!!  I just had time to note that Beth Trudeau from the Language Equality folks and a companion were there supporting the Fourniers, as well and the charming Aubrey and his lovely wife (in a pretty floral-print top with an elegant cross-mid-riff detail and flattering tan pants).

Connie Fournier looked very sophisticated in a smart, yet feminine, tan blazer topping an elegant, layered, reddish-brown, abstract-floral patterned chiffon skirt with a matching reddish-brown blouse and a silvery necklace, all polished off with nice black pumps.

The charismatic Mark Fournier wore a grey herringbone blazer, black pants/shoes, striped shirt and a tie – and his deep eyes shone as intensely as ever!

In contrast, Dr. Baglow wore an open-necked blue shirt under his elegant black suit, accessorized with a chunky watch, a lapel-pin and his signature riding boots (which were clean and shined!)  It is really too bad Dr. Baglow is on the wrong (from my free-speecher-absolutist point of view) side of this lawsuit – he is very charming and an excellent conversationalist!  (And very good looking to boot!  …no pun intended – just saw it when proof-reading…)

Courtroom #37 is big – really, really big.  It is the largest courtroom I have ever been in.

There is not one big table for the lawyers/participants, but two, layered behind each other.

On the right, there is a jury box – on the left, there is a plexi-glass ‘penalty box’-like thingy from which I imagine very dangerous criminal suspects would be able to watch their court proceedings.  Quite somber….

In addition, the acoustics in the room are a bit freaky.  Everyone speaking has to speak into a microphone and the words are piped in through hidden speakers…except that all the mikes are on at all times, and pick up ‘everything’.  So, throughout the day, I kept looking over my shoulder as it sounded as if someone ‘just behind me’ were breathing loudly – even though there was nobody there!  Yes, trick of technology – but still creepy…

Madam Justice Polowin breezed in just a few minutes after I caught my breath and settled into a position where I could see Dr. Baglow’s face when testifying….his face is indeed very expressive of the emotions he is experiencing and/or projecting….after all, he IS an experienced Labour negotiator and I, as an Aspie, lack even average ability to judge facial expressions.  Still, I did not want to miss a bit!!!

 

Without all of the documents and threads in front of me, it was a little difficult to follow all that was said.  But, I will try my best.

The morning started with some procedural arguments – par for the course, as I’ve learned.  It seems Connie wanted to include some new documents, but, not being able to prove that they were so hidden that she could not have found them earlier (despite her having said some were too recent to have been included in earlier findings), they got ruled inadmissible.  It seems to my layman’s eye that there is a huge chasm between what is the truth of the matter and what is admissible in court.  Undoubtedly, thinking the courts were there to find the truth of a matter demonstrates my lack of sophistication.  My apologies…

Once the procedural stuff was dealt with (Madam Justice Polowin seemed much more strident than before), Ms. Kulaszka, Mark Fournier’s lawyer, started things off.  She covered some of the same ground as before, which helped me catch up on where it was we had ‘left off’.  In a case like this, chopped up by scheduling pressures, continuity is important!!!

A few times, the judge lectured Ms. K. on ‘stuff’.

A few times, Mr. Burnett, Dr. Baglow’s lawyer, objected to some things.

Aside:  Mr. Burnett affects the same patronizing drawl that so infuriates me when the current Ottawa Mayor, Jim Watson, employs it.  Pretending to sound ‘reasonable’ while uttering the worst kind of jibberish (Mr. Watson,, that is…)  I don’t know what it is about that manner of speech that rubs me so raw, but, it does and it makes me feel so looked-down-upon and denigrated, I have to consciously use self-control not to burst out in protest!!!!  Oh, and during today’s proceedings (and during breaks), Mr. Burnett changed up his nervous tick from scratching the inside of his left ear with the arm of his glasses to scratching of the inside of his right ear with it….

One of the bits that Ms. K.’s cross examination focused on had to do with the IP address of Ms. Mew.

In the past, Dr. Bagow had testified (if I recall correctly) that he is technically not savvy and does not even really know the implications of what an IP address is – he had his IT expert, Mr. Bow, to handle all that.  Yet, under Ms. K.’s cross examination, Dr. Baglow testified that he thought it was difficult to believe that ‘everybody’ (especially Connie F.) would not know that HE was Ms. Mew as the IP address of his email would have been the same as that of Ms. Mew’s post’s IP address….

It came out during the cross examination that Connie F. was using gmail, which does not include the header info that contains the IP address – as Dr. Baglow explained – but he had assumed she could easily get it, somehow.  It was precisely because gmail does not show the IP address in the header that Jay Currie’s involvement in identifying Dr, Baglow as BOTH Dr. Dawg and Ms. Mew became necessary…  If I may say so myself, it seemed that between his testimony in March that he was not really sure how that whole IP thing worked, and today’s very specific testimony how IP address info could be ‘easily’ gleaned and used, Dr. Baglow seems to have acquired a very large amount of IT information in a very short time!!!

What is more, he presumes Connie F. would have been able to use the knowledge he claims now but denied in March to have found his identity out years ago…which, according to him, demonstrates he was not hiding who he was while posting as Ms. Mew.  At least, that is how it sounded to my untrained, ignorant ears:  i.e. my opinion only, not fact and never to be mistaken for fact.

If anyone would like to email me their own eye-witness (or participant) version of these events, I’ll be happy to publish it as an update on this post, in order to be fair and comprehensive and as objective and informative as possible.  After all, the more points of view there are, the better you, the reader, will be informed!!!

Ms. Kulaszka had finished her cross examination of Dr. Baglow at approximately 11:05 am.

Connie Fournierwas the next one to cross examine Dr. Baglow.

The questioning went back and forth, wither and hither.  Yet, the first part of Connie’s testimony focused on the technical aspects of the case.  It was detailed and technical and very, very specific…..it was only after the break that we got to the ‘political’ stuff’

What follows is not the back and forth of the questioning, but, rather, my highly imperfect conclusions as to what was shown by her questioning.  And, I will not limit it by technical/political, when what….just what my highly imperfect observations lead me to conclude.

There was much of going over the ‘same old ground’  – Haloscan, Echo, Disqus, transfer of comments, platforms, tech experts, difficulties, etc.

Still, it seemed to me that Connie established that while Dr. Baglow and Mr. Bow claimed the comments from ‘the old site’ (before Dr. Dawg migrated it to Mr. Bow’s server and newer technology/movable type) were still visible as of March 2011, even though Dr. Baglow and Mr. Bow claim to be ‘shocked, I tell you’ that these comments did not disappear in November 2010.

In my very imperfect understanding, Dr. Baglow and Mr. Bow claim that all comments from the ‘old Dr. Dawg’ site were lost, because Dr Dawg did not update his Haloscan comments to Echo protocol when Echo bought Haloscan….and then the old protocol comments could not be migrated to Disqus because there were no drivers to go from Haloscan to Disqus without the intermediate step…so, all these comments were stored on a server in a file, but could no longer be accessed via the internet.

When Connie F. was working on her defense in this case, she claims the comments were fully visible not just till November 2010, but until late March Early April 2011 – and just went ‘poof’ when she was using them.

All the disclosure materials submitted to Dr Baglow and his lawyer, they requested communication from March/April 2011 when the comments actually disappeared from the web:  however, only communication from November 2010 had been supplied to them by the plaintiff.

Dr, Baglow maintained that he believed the comments had disappeared  in November 2010, which is why he provided emails from then – and that he thought the defendants were just too stupid to have realized the proper time frame, so he provided them with what they needed (in his mind), not what they were actually asking for.

The ‘killing blow’ came from Connie when, after she established (beyond a reasonable doubt, not just by the preponderance of the evidence, as required in a civil suit)  that only Dr. Dawg (Dr. Baglow) and Mr. Bow had admin access to the site and Dr. Dawg’s email at this time – yet ‘someone’ had posted a ‘test comment’ from Dr. Dawg’s gmail account onto that site that is time-stamped in April 2011!!!

Dr. Baglow had no idea how THAT could possibly happen – he is, after all, technologically ignorant…..

Yet, when he testified about this, his gaze was lowered and he would not meet anyone’s eyes until after he had finished his claim of ignorance.  I do not pretend to know what ht means, being really bad at interpreting facial expressions – I am just offering he physical observation for your own conclusions.

There was a lot more Connie questioned Dr. Baglow about, but, this seemed to me to be the most important point.  Not only because Dr. Baglow avoided eye contact, but also because Mr Burnett, his lawyer, exhibited a huge amount of nervous ticks and affected frequent ‘deep sighing’ during this bit of cross examination.  Just from that, this one seemed to be ‘a biggie’, in my never-humble-opinion.

As Connie had finished her cross examination of Dr Baglow earlier than expected, the judge thought it would be a good idea to finish the cross examination (by the CCLA lawyer) today, then start the defense’s case tomorrow.  However, as Mr. Smith had been told that this portion of the trial would only be the cross and the defense’s case would not start till September, and since he ought to be there for all the defense as something Mark Fournier might testify to might end up being exculpatory for Mr. Smith, he needs to be there for the full defense bit….so they could not start it tomorrow.

There was a lot of wrangling, back and forth, and so on….

It seems 5 days in September may be insufficient to finish the case.

Plus the Judge is demanding an ‘expert witness’ that all sides agree to….which the CCLA lawyer will try to find, though finding someone with a PhD in ‘blogging’ willing to testify may be difficult.

Yet, that is exactly where the things ended today.

I look forward to seeing what tomorrow may bring!!!

 

 

Posted in debate, freedoms, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments »

Baglow vs. Fournier, Forunier & Smith – the trial continues

June 2, 2014 — xanthippa

Back in March, I wrote about the Dr. Dawg vs. Fourniers and Smith full trial, covering Day 1 part 1 and part 2 , Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 part 1 and part 2.

Aside:  I did attend day 5, and did keep notes, and I did try to write it up.  However, I found it difficult to do it justice, before the cross examination is finished.  I do still hope to write about day 5, just when the time is ‘right’.)

Well days 6 and 7 are almost upon us!

The trial will continue on June 3rd and 4th, at the Elgin Street Court House in Ottawa.  If you happen to be in Ottawa and have a bit of time, drop by and see history made.

And I am not exaggerating when I say that this will be a historic case:  the full trial is being held specifically because the appeal court justices believed that legal precedents regarding online communications need to be set.  Therefore, this case will become the guidelines by which all future online communication is judged!

In the words of the Fourniers themselves:

A win in the Baglow case could save FD!
 
Hi, FD Friends! 

Once again I’m emailing you with a Free Dominion legal update because you have helped us in the past, and/or you are on our list of friends who are interested in keeping up with our cases. (Please let me know if you no longer want to get these status reports.)
Never give up! 

 

Free Dominion, as you know, is still closed to the public, but that doesn’t mean we have quit! 
We are appealing the Warman decision that resulted in the site being closed, and we are currently fighting a very important test case for internet defamation.  A win in this case, Baglow v Free Dominion, could result in a decision that site operators are not responsible for the posts of other people.  That case law would mean it would be safe for us to re-open the doors of Free Dominion!
 

 

The case so far..

We reported last time we wrote you that the Baglow trial would be three days long.  Not only did it take that entire week, but we have to go back again for two days in June, and for another whole week in September!  That means we will be in court for a total of 13 days for a total of 7 little words!

On June 3rd and 4th we will be in Ottawa for the next phase of that Baglow trial.  Connie is representing herself and Barbara Kulaszka is representing Mark.  The CCLA is intervening on our behalf.

On June 3rd, Connie will be cross-examining John Baglow and we will hear from the CCLA on the 4th.  It will be at the Courthouse at 161 Elgin St, as usual.

Drop by if you can, we would love to see you!

We are running a fundraiser to get our legal fund through the summer.  We’ve decided not to use indiegogo this time because it costs a lot and we have to pay them their percentage on offline donations, too, if we want to keep the total current. Instead, we are running it on Free Dominion.

If you can help, we would really appreciate it!

You can use PayPal by clicking this link:  Donate
or

If you feel more inclined, you can also help out using an Interac Email Money Transfer to connie@freedominion.ca .

Alternatively, our mailing address is:

Connie Fournier
2000 Unity Rd
Elginburg, ON  K0H 1M0

Thank you so much to all of you for being there for us!  Monetarily, but also through your thoughts, prayers and encouragement.  We are not going to give up, and we hope that the result of our fight is more freedom for all of us!
Fondest Regards,
  
Connie and Mark

 

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A message from Connie Fournier of Free Dominion:

May 22, 2014 — xanthippa

From an email from Connie:

Never give up! 

 

Free Dominion, as you know, is still closed to the public, but that doesn’t mean we have quit! 
We are appealing the Warman decision that resulted in the site being closed, and we are currently fighting a very important test case for internet defamation.  A win in this case, Baglow v Free Dominion, could result in a decision that site operators are not responsible for the posts of other people.  That case law would mean it would be safe for us to re-open the doors of Free Dominion!
 

 

The case so far..

We reported last time we wrote you that the Baglow trial would be three days long.  Not only did it take that entire week, but we have to go back again for two days in June, and for another whole week in September!  That means we will be in court for a total of 13 days for a total of 7 little words!

On June 3rd and 4th we will be in Ottawa for the next phase of that Baglow trial.  Connie is representing herself and Barbara Kulaszka is representing Mark.  The CCLA is intervening on our behalf.

On June 3rd, Connie will be cross-examining John Baglow and we will hear from the CCLA on the 4th.  It will be at the Courthouse at 161 Elgin St, as usual.

Drop by if you can, we would love to see you!

We are running a fundraiser to get our legal fund through the summer.  We’ve decided not to use indiegogo this time because it costs a lot and we have to pay them their percentage on offline donations, too, if we want to keep the total current. Instead, we are running it on Free Dominion.

If you can help, we would really appreciate it!

You can use PayPal by clicking this link:  Donate
or

If you feel more inclined, you can also help out using an Interac Email Money Transfer to connie@freedominion.ca .

Alternatively, our mailing address is:

Connie Fournier
2000 Unity Rd
Elginburg, ON  K0H 1M0

Thank you so much to all of you for being there for us!  Monetarily, but also through your thoughts, prayers and encouragement.  We are not going to give up, and we hope that the result of our fight is more freedom for all of us!
Fondest Regards,
Connie and Mark

 

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John Baglow vs Connie Fournier, Mark Fournier and Roger Smith: the ‘FULL TRIAL’, day 4 part 2

April 6, 2014 — xanthippa

Day 1 part 1 and part 2 are here.  (all previous caveats still apply, though I have temporarily borrowed  slightly better tech.)

Day 2 is here.

Day 3 is here.

Day 4 part 1 is here.

Alternate account is here:  day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4.

As promised, let’s start with the ‘Fern Hill’ bit:  though, I am warning you, I might get a bit philosophical…

In her opening statement, Connie Fournier said her testimony would demonstrate a multi-year cyber-bullying campaign of herself by Dr. Baglow and that this lawsuit is just another means through which he is victimizing her.  It was alleged that, among other things, Dr. Baglow attempted to isolate Connie by bullying  and targeting people who supported her and even attempted to sabotage a fundraiser for their legal costs.  In order to have Dr. Baglow’s side of the story (as Connie’s testimony is still in the future), Mr. Burnet had to ask Dr. Baglow a lot of questions about this and thus bring his side of the story forward.

So, this is what is happening here.  I’ll explain this the best that I can – though, again, I cannot stress strongly enough that it is extremely difficult to follow what is happening in court because everyone has exhibits and is reading all kinds of materials which are being discussed, but the spectators have no access to these materials and only hear the references to them, what their importance is or is not according to all the different people.  So, I’ve tried to piece this together as best as I could…

Fern Hill is a blogger – and a decidedly progressive one.  Unlike Connie Fournier, Fern Hill is 100% pro choice and, from what I’ve gathered, she is very proudly far left of centre.  She has several co-bloggers, including a female blogger named DammitJanet.  And, as a fellow ideological leftist, she and Dr. Baglow were on very friendly terms.

Yet, when Dr. Baglow filed this particular lawsuit against the Fourniers, in my never-humble-opinion, Fern Hill saw the existential danger to the whole blogosphere that this lawsuit poses:  should Dr. Baglow be victorious, it will not be a ruling against the Fourniers and Roger Smith:  it will be a ruling against the blogosphere, as it exists today.  If one can be fined tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs and penalties for a honestly believed-in comment that 5 or 6 people saw (before the Streissand effect applied), then one could not possibly post one’s own honestly believed-in opinions on any kind of an open forum.

Fern Hill was a friend of Dr. Baglow – but hoped the defendants (whom she disagreed with, but whose silencing she saw as being potentially capable of silencing herself) would prevail in this particular case.  This put her in a very uncomfortable position:  side with her friend and loose her rights, or side with her rights and anger her friend!

Fern Hill arrived at what she thought was a win-win solution:  she would work hard to raise funds for BOTH sides!

This way, she would support her friend, Dr.Baglow, in his fight and thus show her loyalty.  At the same time, she would raise the same amount of money for the defendants, as they were also fighting for her own right to speak freely.

Both sides get some help – all benefit, her conscience is clear.

Win-win!!!

Right?

Wrong!!!

And it was during this portion of the testimony that Dr. Baglow was not his polished, professional self but let some of his raw emotion show.  He was truly and honestly hurt by Fern Hill’s suggestion that she support both her friend and her rights (as she saw it)!  In my never-humble-opinion, Dr. Baglow truly and honestly did not get Fern Hill’s dilemma, nor her reasoning for the proposed solution.  To him, this was a black-and-white issue:  either you support your ideogical allies, or you are a traitor to the cause worthy of the worst possible abuse.

This brings in the philosophy bit….

In my never-humble-opinion, this is a key, fundamental, un-negotiable divide between collectivists and individualists…and why the two cannot begin to see eye to eye.

Individualists  realize just how important to humankind the approval of their peers is, how necessary it is for one to have the acceptance/approval of the social group one exists in in order to thrive, physically and mentally.  It is precisely because they understand this basic human need ‘to be accepted’ that individuals who stand up to the group and/or specific elements of the group (which may be influential and/or powerful) and stand up for what they believe is right and wrong.

In other words, risking social rejection in order to stand on principle is, to the individualist, the highest form of morality, worthy of the greatest praise and admiration.

Conversely, compromising one’s ideals in order to conform to the group is, among individualists, considered to be the height of hypocrisy and the most contemptible, hypocritical  behaviour ever.

Now, let us consider the collectivist point of view:

To the collectivist, the group IS the embodiment of the ‘self’.

Thus, setting personal principles aside and supporting ‘the group goal’ (even if parts of it, or the means of achieving it proposed, are against one’s personal principles of ‘right and wrong’) is seen as the most admirable, praise-worthy quality of self-lessness and altruistic dedication to ‘the cause’.

Standing up against ‘the group’ (or, by default, the loudest and thus most influential elements within the group) in order to preserve one’s principles of right and wrong is seen as the cardinal sin of ‘arrogance’ and ‘self-gratification’  by the collectivists.

With such a different conception of what constitutes morality – standing on principle against the group vs. giving up principles to the will of the group – is it any surprise that a collectivist would not only fail to see how standing on one’s principles would not be praiseworthy, but how he could perceive a person trying to protect themselves from the actions of  ‘a member of the group’ would be seen as ‘betrayal’.

And this is what I think Fern Hill’s problem was.

Dr. Baglow testified that he felt betayed by his friend and ideological ally, he saw her action as aiding and abetting of Nazi enablers (because, even though the Fourniers are not themselves Nazis, by fighting for freedom of speech for everyone, even the distasteful elements in society, he sees their actions as enabling Nazis to spread hate speech).  I hope I have understood this accurately – if I have made errors, please, let me know.

Because Dr. Baglow felt so betrayed by Fern Hill’s support for both sides, he posted and Tweeted some nasty things, designed to express the depth of hurt and anger that he felt.  And, as a true collectivist who presumes guilt by association, he smeared anyone who stood up for Fern Hill (I believe it was in this context that some misogynistic abuse was hurled at DammiJanet, Fern Hill’s co-blogger and a fellow progressive).  He demanded that Fern Hill pick sides – and clearly indicated which side he thought she ought to pick.

In my never-humble-opinion, this admission proves the charge that he interfered with Connie’s fundraising efforts as well as her accusations that he tried to bully people who stood up for her cause, isolating her from supporters.  But, my understanding is necessarily imperfect as I have no legal training, and it is difficult to predict what kind of impression this made on the judge.

Are you familiar with the expression:  “Looking down one’s nose at something/someone”?

I am not a very good observer of facial expressions or body language, so I don’t really recall ever having quite understood what people mean by this phrase.  Until Dr. Baglow’s cross examination, that is.

At times, he would remove his glasses, tilt his head back and glare contemptuously at Barbara Kulaszka (who was the first to start the cross examination) and the rest of the defendants and, in the most derisive, patronizing tone, he’d utter phrases like “extreme free speech types”…  I found this very uncomfortable, because this did not seem like the very charming, courteous man whom I’ve had the pleasure to chat with.

Plus – compared to me, the Fourniers are very much ‘centrists’ when it comes to ‘free speech’ ideas.  Myself, I am an anti-slavery fundamentalist, and, thus, through logical evaluation, I must take the position of a free speech absolutist.  If I own my self, then I am 100% responsible for my actions, regardless of who does and says what.  This also means that if you own your self, then I am not responsible for your actions or how you react to my words.  Thus, falsely yelling FIRE in a crowded theatre must not be prohibited because if I were to be responsible for how other people react to my words, then such a responsibility implies at least part ownership.  After all, how can I be responsible for you if I have no coercive power over you?  And if I have coercive power over you, then you do not truly own your self….or so the reasoning goes.  Others have said all this much more eloquently many, many times before.

Anyhow, the cross examination  was very exciting.

Barbara Kulaszka, the lawyer for Mark Fournier, had gotten Dr. Baglow to agree to some of the basic facts about the Khadr case – in particular, that Omar Khadr had been picked up in a raid on the Taliban.  In other words, we were again covering the whole Al Qaeda vs Taliban thing.

Then we got into the ‘Taliban Jack’ nickname for Jack Layton because of his perceived support of the Taliban and why that was not defamatory.

The next bit covered had, I suspect, something to do with ‘context’.

Throughout is testimony, Dr. Baglow had testified that he did not remove words even more insulting and offensive that he was called, on his own blog and under his control, because of the context…either they were clearly miss-use of the  words or they were a simple vulgarity or if was so obvious from the context that they were just silly that it was not worth his time to bother with them.  This, however, was different, because there was insufficient context around the comment to make it clear it was not literally true.

Barbara Kulaszka skillfully walked Dr. Baglow through many instances on his blog where he relies on ‘general information’ for context and does not supply it – nor does he repair broken links that provide context on older posts, thus committing the same error of publishing strong statements of views without the necessary context.  I think she demonstrated this clearly, as it was at this point in the cross examination that Dr. Baglow began fidgeting in his seat.

There was a lot of back and forth, asking about the blogosphere, other fora and blogs and bloggers – and commenters.  One name kept popping up quite a lot:  ‘MarkyMark’.  Dr. Baglow testified that they had met through the blogosphere and became friends and that MarkyMark even stayed in his house!

When asked about blogs on the political right, he named many.  When asked about blogs on the political left, he hmmmd and eventually came up with a few rather unknown ones while not naming any of the ‘biggies’ (that even I know about – and I know very little about the ‘progressive’ bit of the blogosphere, for obvious reasons).  I was quite surprised at this and wondered about it.

He testified, with a straight face, that when he told people that if they were looking for Nazis (people who said they had guns and were looking to kill Nazis, no less), they should go see Connie Fournier, he did not intend for them to take their guns and threaten Connie but that he honestly believed ‘she could facilitate contact’ with them.  It continued much in this way for quite some time, suggesting Connie should be imitated with a staged Gestapo accent, and so on.  This is obviously just teasing and not abusive in the least, as per Dr. Baglow.

About his online implying that Connie had maliciously sent him an email with an electronic virus, Dr. Baglow forced out a chuckle and said that right after he had read his email, his computer crashed, so he joked about it.

Dr. Baglow mocked the Fourniers from the stand for winning the George Orwell Free Speech Award, sneering that was not an honourable award to win.

It was a bit after this when BlazingCatFur (BCF) was mentioned, and in that context the term SLAPP suit was raised.

For those who do not know, a SLAPP suit is a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation and a favourite tool of the totalitarians to suppress free speech by suing people into oblivion.  If you did not know what this term was, you are not alone – the judge did not know either and commented on what an interesting concept this was.

It was at this point that I got a bad toothache and I did not take as good notes afterwards.  My apologies – I’ll have to be a little bit brief.

The most important thing that came out during next little bit of talking about BCF and his blog was something Dr. Baglow had written.  It seems that something negative was said about BCF on another, most likely Dr. Dawg’s, and BCF copy/pasted it when rebutting it or somehow responding to it, so that the offensive term appeared again, this time as part of BCF’s comment.

Dr. Dawg had then written something to the effect that by showing the text and responding to it, BCF had, in fact, re-published it.

This is important because the words that are the subject of this lawsuit were similarly copied and re-published by the plaintiff.  So, getting him on record that repeating and responding constitutes republishing may become an important part of the case.

There was also quite a bit of stuff about Dr. Baglow saying rather unpleasant things about a lot of people, some in anger, some in frustration – it is what it is – as well as about the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who also happens to be intervening in this court case as a friend of the court.

Oh yes – and Mr. Burnet, Dr. Balow’s lawyer, had, at one point, jumped to his feet and outed himself as PeterOne or Peter1 or some name that sounds like this and admitted taking part in some of these online verbal skirmishes.

At one point, Dr. Baglow testified that ‘there is a lot of political motivation behind it’ – and by ‘it’ I understood he meant this lawsuit (I tried to insert other things, but this was the only one that made sense in this context), which would have proven what Roger smith had said in his opening statement:  this is a political disagreement and does not belong in a court of law because it is inappropriate for the courts to be deciding which political opinions are legal to hold and which are not.

And this ends my account of day 4 – report on day 5 coming soon!

 

 

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