Thunderf00t: My real name is…

October 9, 2011 — xanthippa

This is disgusting!

Yes, there are some people who abuse anonymity on the internet.

Then there are others who eschew it – they believe that attaching their real-life name to an online communication will add weight and respect to it.  This is, to some degree, true:  if their real-life name has some earned public credibility, attaching it to their online persona will add credibility to the online persona.

BUT!!!

Name is just a label.

If a person has built up his or her credibility using an online persona – truly built up credibility – by time and time again providing solid, verifiable, quality information, then their real-life name is really quite irrelevant.

To the contrary:  it is a very useful shield!

Journalists who publish in traditional media have an organization that stands behind them and offers them at least a modicum of protection should they become threatened by those who wish to silence them.

Online communicators do not have this luxury!!!

But ‘online’ is not the beginning of ‘anonymous protest speech’!

No, nowhere near…  Even the most basic bit of research into the history of anonymous protest speech demonstrates brings us to Colonial North America.  Printing presses were used to print anonymous pamphlets which were distributed and which informed the public of facts that the government did not want known and which fostered the atmosphere necessary for the fight for independence.

In fact, most of the works by America’s Founding Fathers were originally published as anonymous pamphlets!

So, let’s not go down the role of silly posturing:  anonymity is essential for free speech!

(Sorry if I am not particularly coherent in this post – I am so angry as I write this, I can hardly keep myself calm enough to type!)

To hear that Thunderf00t’s real-life name has been ‘outed’ by an Islamist group (which claims to be made up of ‘moderate Muslims’), that his job has been threatened, that his address has been published – and now, that his family members are being threatened with physical violence…THAT IS AN OUTRAGE!!!!

I guess all we can do is spread the word…

…and hope for the best.  Because I am at a loss for what else to do to help him.

 

P.S.:  It took me a second viewing to pick up pn it, but it does seem that the online Islamists just may have attracted the attention of ‘Anonymous’.  THAT would be interesting, to say the least!

Posted in atheism, freedoms, opression, politics, religion, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Pirate Party gets elected in Berlin

September 18, 2011 — xanthippa

Just in time for the International Talk Like a Pirate Day, the Pirate Party in Germany has made its legislative debut at the state level in Berlin.

And not too soon, if I may be so bold.

Why?

Because the vast majority of legislators ‘out there’ are woefully ignorant on digital issues.  What is worse – they are not only ignorant, they are not interested in educating themselves on the basic issues concerning it.  This makes them easy targets for well organized, amply funded lobbyists for industries intent on profiting fromone-sided digital policies…and from unscrupulous civil servants who want to play Big Brother – or just snoop on their neighbours!

In Canada, a whole slew of questionable digital policies are set to be rammed through the legislature this fall.  These policies will permit the police complete access to all your online communication – without a warrant!!!  And, for those of us who make our phone calls via the internet (our house phone, for example, uses voip), this DOES mean that the police would not need a warrant to listen to our phone calls…

 

In related news, the National Intelligence Service in South Korea has admitted to ‘packet tapping’ to monitor gmail communications (gmail had previously been considered to be more secure means of online communication that other systems, like Outlook, which are known to have ‘back doors’ built into them to facilitate government surveilance of private communication).  If these laws are passed in Canada, this type of outrageous government behaviour will not be a scandal – it will be ‘the law of the land’!

Too  bad that the Pirate Party of Canada seems so incompetent, and that there is not a peep from them during this Ontario election. Their wiki page does not even note the Ontario election’s existence…

I am looking for a place to park my vote – and not one of the leading candidates in my riding deserves it. It is not surprising that the voter turnout is so low!

 

Posted in corruption, freedoms, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Michael Geist: What does the Conservative majority mean for digital policies?

May 3, 2011 — xanthippa

In Dr. Geist’s assessment, the Conservatives’ newly won majority is a good-news/bad-news story when it comes to digital policies:

“The Conservatives have focused consistently on improving Canadian competition and opening the market is the right place to start to address both Internet access (including UBB) and wireless services.

…

The copyright bill is – as I described at its introduction last June – flawed but fixable.

…

Much more troubling is the lawful access package which raises major civil liberties concerns and could be placed on the fast track. “

Read the full assessment here.

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

Michael Geist: Wikileaks confirms US pressured Canada on copyright laws

April 30, 2011 — xanthippa

Well, well. well – I am not surprised, but, it’s good to have it confirmed.

I suppose this makes me an ‘acolyte’!

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Imagine: life as a wrongly accused pedophile

February 17, 2011 — xanthippa

Can you imagine how your life would change if you were accused of pedophilia – or of distributing child pornography?

If this accusation were in a public forum, where your kids, spouse, parents, extended family, friends, colleagues and/or customers, potential employers, community activists and anti-pedophilia organizations would be sure to see it?

If this accusation came from the government, which cited a legal warrant to confiscate your property because a judge has been satisfied that your property was used for the creation and propagation of pedophilia?

AND IF THIS ACCUSATION WERE 100% UNFOUNDED?!?!?

84,000 Americans do not have to imagine this – they are living it!

No kidding, it’s true.

That is EIGHTY FOUR THOUSAND!!!

And, please, ask yourself – why was this not front line news?  Why do you have to read about this in a blog?

As per TorrentFreak (via HackerNews):

“The US Government has yet again shuttered several domain names this week. The Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE office proudly announced that they had seized domains related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. What they failed to mention, however, is that one of the targeted domains belongs to a free DNS provider, and that 84,000 websites were wrongfully accused of links to child pornography crimes.

…

As with previous seizures, ICE convinced a District Court judge to sign a seizure warrant, and then contacted the domain registries to point the domains in question to a server that hosts the warning message. However, somewhere in this process a mistake was made and as a result the domain of a large DNS service provider was seized.

…

Most of the subdomains in question are personal sites and sites of small businesses. A search on Bing still shows how innocent sites were claimed to promote child pornography. A rather damaging accusation, which scared and upset many of the site’s owners.”

No kidding!

Imagine being involved in a child-custody battle, when your ex’s lawyer gets a hold of this….

Or a million other situations:  child abuse, especially sexual child abuse, is a serious issue.  Many people react to it instinctively…without thinking…considering this to be one of those areas where vigilante justice is not only OK, but necessary (as the courts have systematically failed to protect the kids).

So, what was the reaction of the government?

After all, they were after 10-12 specific sites:  these 84,000 innocent sites were siezed accidentally…

Did they make a huge announcement, explaining their mistake so that the 84,000 would not be stigmatized?

So that they would be believed when they defended themselves?

So they would even be listened to when they tried to explain?

Explain that the official banner everyone who came to their website and saw the official notice “that the website had been siezed because it distributed pedophilia” was one of those 84,000 that were accused by a mistake?

No, not really.

Actually, not at all!

“Although it is not clear where this massive error was made, and who’s responsible for it, the Department of Homeland security is conveniently sweeping it under the rug. In a press release that went out a few hours ago the authorities were clearly proud of themselves for taking down 10 domain names.

However, DHS conveniently failed to mention that 84,000 websites were wrongfully taken down in the process, shaming thousands of people in the process.

“Each year, far too many children fall prey to sexual predators and all too often, these heinous acts are recorded in photos and on video and released on the Internet,” Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano commented.

“DHS is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to shut down websites that promote child pornography to protect these children from further victimization,” she added.”

This is troubling on so many levels, I don’t know where to begin.

Sure, there are conspiracy theories out there – and I, for one, don’t buy into them.

However, once learned, institutions hardly ever forget lessons:  and the lesson learned here was that yes, it was possible for the US government to ‘make dissappear’ a whole block of thousands of websites.  The first one may have been a mistake, but will the second one be?

We know that in Australia, the leaked, ultra secret ‘black list’ of sites banned due to pedophilia/child pornography included more ‘political’ websites and innocent victims (including a dentist’s site) than actual pedophilia/child pornography sites.  And there was no appeal – since the ‘black list’ was uber secret, even knowing the name of a site on it was a criminal offense…  How do you defend against abuse in a situation like that?  Admitting you know the site was shut down is equivalent to pleading guilty to a child sex crime….even if the site was erroneously listed!

Of course, this is just one facet…

If your site is siezed in this manner, even after it is released, there will be echoes on the internet linking it to pedophilia for ever.

And….

If this is a business website you had built up, slowly but surely building up your livelihood by slowly climbing the way up the search-engine ratings – having had your site siezed in this manner will have pretty much wiped out your rating.  Even if you get your site back, even if you are again up and running – business will not be as before!  You will likely have to re-build your ratings – the ‘method’ your customers find your site – and this may take years!

It would be comparable to having the government falsely shut down a prominent store on ‘Main St.’, put ‘the person who runs this store is a pedophile’ sign in the front window, and then permit them to re-open the store, perhaps after they re-located it several blocks away from the busy area….

The walk-by traffic will just not be the same!

And that does not even address the ‘civil liberties’ aspect of confiscating someone’s property/livelihood in this manner….

Or the ‘eagerness’ with which some ‘child-sex-offender registries’ keep track not only of people who had been covicted, but also of people who had ever been accused of child sex crimes:  after all, we can never be too careful in protecting our babies!

Oh, and this is not the first time this type of thing has happened.  Perhaps not on this scale, but…

 

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Government-free internet

January 31, 2011 — xanthippa

For years, on and off, I have brrm ranting about the need to create an internet-type thing which would be outside the grasp and control of the powers that be – be they governments or large corporate interests (though, the lines between them have been so blurred lately, it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins).

And, no, I am not a complete conspiracy nut.

I have just ben paying attention – with all the ‘bailouts’, so many governments now have a physical stake in various corporations, it would be foolish to deny that the separation between our law-makers and the largest corporate ‘players’ has been eroding quite a lot.  To put it mildly…

That is never a good thing!

It is an especially bad thing when it comes to communications:  that is why I keep going on about the importance of free speech.  And, I also keep going on about the dual dangers to free speech:  government censorship AND corporate censorship.

Because BOTH of these are extremely dangerous to freedom of speech – and to the ability of regular, non-privileged citizens like you and I, to communicate with each other, to exchange information, to compare thoughts….

Without the ability to find out what is truly happening in the world around us – and without being able to discuss it amongst ourselves – we will be divided and powerless.

Isolated.

Easy to control…

This is well understood by those who would like to be rulers, everywhere.

That is why governments try to control media.

In the West, where people believe they have freedom of speech and where we would protest direct censorship of the media, more devious tools, like ‘political corectness’, are used to filter, distort and, yes, censor information that reaches the populace.  It is ‘censorsip by sneak’. so to speak.

It is also understood by the corporatists: hence the repression of all the freedoms we hold near and dear in, say, large areas around the spot where The Olympic Games are held, and so on.  (I have long held that the fascism inherrent in corporatism – the collusion between government-corporations-labour unions necessary to make this system function – is an incarnation of evil much worse than most others, because it pretends that it looks after ‘everyone’ and, if some person does not like it, there must be something wrong with them.  It thus oppresses both the body and the soul…)

But, I am rambling…..

Time has come for us, the ‘unwashed masses’, us, the rabble, to start taking things into our own hands.

Taking to the streets with pitchforks – except, I suspect we will be uch more effective if we can figure out an electronic equivalent to a pitchfork and take to the electronic equivalents of the streets and village squares.

First, of course, we have to build these electronic equivalents.

There are some who have started.

Please, read the following two links – they say it better than I could and are well documented and chock full of links with good info.

Both of these have come about because of what has happened in Egypt – and what could easily happen here.  (And, do not kid yourself – the groundwork has been laid for it….)

H/T: Tyr

 

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, politics, society, technology, war. Tags: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Richard Warman v Free Dominion: the ‘prima facie’ hearing, part 3

December 9, 2010 — xanthippa

Disclaimer:  These are my observations, my opinions and I have no legal training at all.  So, take it for no more than it is!

Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

When I left the tale at the end of part 2, Mr Katz – Richard Warman’s lawyer – was making a presentation to Madam Justice Blishen that Mr. Warman’s request that Free Dominion hand over the IP addresses of the site’s members whom  Mr. Warman wishes to sue for defamation satisfies the 4 points set out by Justice Wilton-Siegel and, therefore, that FreeDominion should indeed hand over the info.

Context, Mr. Katz kept stressing, is essential.

He also expounded that this case is not about freedom of speech on the internet – it is only about defamatory statements made about his client!

Some of the defamatory statements were couched as ‘statements of opinion’.  And THIS is where Mr. Katz made one of several pronouncements which rather floored me.  This is probably because I am completely lacking in any law school stuff, so my mind must be insufficiently trained to ‘get’ it.

Please, judge for yourself!  (And, if you could explain it to me, I’d greatly appreciate it.)

Mr. Katz said that in order for something to be a ‘statement of opinion’, it must contain the information on the basis of which this opinion had been formed.

In other words, the statement:  “Lawyers are, in my opinion,  cute little bunnies.” would not, under Mr. Katz’s suggested definition, count as ‘statement of opinion’ because it does not say why I had arrived at this opinion!  By his definition, this is a ‘statement of fact’.

I sure hope I’m misunderstanding this, but this  sure is what I thought I heard – as I have written it down as such. (See – I’m supporting my opinion, just in case…)

Mr. Katz then went on for significant length to say that one of the things his client was called suggests ‘unnatural sex acts’.  I will, of course, not repeat the term itself because I do not wish to defame Mr. Warman, even indirectly!  Let it suffice that Mr. Katz explored at length the damage that could be done to one’s reputation by accusations of ‘unnatural sex acts’.  (Again,  I did not hear the word ‘unfounded’ or ‘false’ in there, but I am certain from Mr. Katz’s tone that this was implied.)

Mr. Katz belaboured this point until the judge began to show unmistakable signs of impatience.

At this point, Mr. Katz referred to the Vigna v Levant case, where (if I caught this bit correctly – my notes show I was not sure I heard this bit correctly) Mr. Levant was found guilty of defamation by calling someone ‘a censor’ on his blog.  Whatever the detail – someone was found guilty of defamation by calling someone else ‘a censor’ in a blog.

Mr. Warman had, apparently, been called ‘a censor’ by the defendants in this case.  This, according to Mr. Katz, constituted the ‘prima facie’ case for the defamation lawsuit to proceed, thus satisfying the ever-important Wilton-Siegel point #2.  (Again,  just because one person is defamed by being called ‘a censor’ does not mean the term is, in itself, defamatory.  The term is only defamatory if it is used falsely.  My best guess is that to get ‘prima facie’ ruling, the term has to be found defamatory in some instances while the actual defamation trial has to find that it is defamatory in THIS case.)

At this point. Mr. Katz recapped the 4 Wilton-Siegel points (not in order):

  • he had demonstrated point #2:  the ‘prima facie’ case for defamation
  • his client did all he could to ferret out the identity of the ‘John Does’ through other methods, satisfying point #3
  • he read into record the Free Dominion membership disclaimer, in order to demonstrate that if the members made defamatory statements on the site, they had lost their expectation of anonymity (and thus satisfying point #1)
  • balancing of ‘stuff’ for point #4….

Since Mr. Katz had not really addressed this bit before, he got to it in greater length at this point. In my imperfect understanding, the gist of his argument was that since Mr. Warman was a private citizen and not a public figure, calling him bad things is not part of public debate or political debate or any such related thingie.  It is nothing but defamation – not ‘free speech’, protected on any grounds whatsoever.

Therefore, Mr . Warman’s right to sue those defaming little bastards (I AM paraphrasing to reflect Mr. Katz’s tone of voice) trumps their weasely little ‘right to privacy’ and their identities ought to be handed over on a silver platter.  Like, yesterday.

At around this point, the York case was cited as precedent. Mr. Katz said this case was, to a great degree, based on the York case.  Again, my lack training in ‘the law’ is interfering with understanding:  I would have thought that the York case would not be something Mr. Katz would like to bring attention to, because (unless I am mistaken), the York case judge goes pretty far to stress: ‘Internet encourages free speech and anonymity is a critical component of this speech.’

But, back to Mr. Katz and his case: this is when Mr. Katz made the other statement that took the breath out of my lungs!

While trying to establish that Mr. Warman is a private citizen and not a public figure – and therefore the law does not protect criticism of him as ‘political speech’, Mr. Katz stated, with a straight face, in the most ‘everybody KNOWS this is so’ voice, that in order for someone to be a ‘public figure’, they have to be ‘AN ELECTED OFFICIAL ONLY’!!!

According to Mr. Katz, even Her Majesty, Queen Elisabeth II, would not qualify as a public figure!!!

Who would have thunk it…. our good Queen, not a ‘public figure’…  Tomorrow, it will have been 27 years ago that I swore my oath of allegiance to Queen Elisabeth II and all her heirs – as I enjoyed the privilege of becoming a Canadian Citizen!  I take my oath seriously – and this really, really offended me.

Of course, Mr. Katz did not mention that Mr. Warman did actually RUN for public office – he just failed to get elected.  I think.  Or, I could be mistaken.  I am not making any statement about Mr. Warman, whatsoever!

With this, Mr. Katz finished up.

….more to come….

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Richard Warman v Free Dominion: the ‘prima facie’ hearing, part 2

December 9, 2010 — xanthippa

I have absolutely 0 legal training, so all these are simple observations and the conclusions and opinions are in no way expert.  I will do my best to be accurate, but these are all still nothing more than my personal observations and opinions.

Part 1 can be found here.

When I left off the tale, it was high noon and Madam Justice Blishen was listening to Mr. Katz, the lead counsel for Mr. Warman, present an argument why Mr. Christie, counsel not for Free Dominion but one of the co-defendants in the main defamation suit, has no standing at this hearing and should not be permitted to address the court.

This hearing was held solely to determine whether Richard Warman’s request that Connie and Mark Fournier, of Free Dominion, hand over the ip addresses which would reveal the identities of a number of Free Dominion members meets the 4 criteria, as set out by Justice Wilton-Siegel.  Mr. Katz argued that since that had nothing to do with the defamation itself, and since Mr. Christie was only representing clients in the defamation portion of the case, he has no standing before the court.

Mr. Christie eloquently argued that his client is being sued for defamation.  The second of the Wilton-Siegel points requires that Warman demonstrate that there is enough damaging ‘stuff’ there for a defamation lawsuit to go ahead ( establish a ‘prima facie’ case – this is to avoid ‘unjustified’ requests for identity disclosure).  If he can show that there is no ‘prima facie’ case – this second point – then there is no case against his client in the least!

Therefore, it is in his client’s interest that he address the court at this hearing.  (There was some specific word that was used in both Mr. Christie’s client’s case – so that was brought up and discussed, but to my untrained mind it seemed that the word itself was less important itself as it was only one of the ‘means’ to break the ‘prima facie’ point,)

Mr. Katz also pointed out that since Mr. Warman had arrived at a settlement with Mr. M– last Thursday, who had been Mr. Christie’s client, Mr. Christie has even less of a standing….

Mr. Christie pointed out that he is not there on behalf of Mr. Martin, but rather of Mr. B–.

In a most reasonable voice, Mr. Katz said yes, but Mr. Christie is trying to represent Mr. M.– here, and that has already been settled!

Mr. Katz truly does use his voice very, very effectively:  he conveys at least as much (if not more) meaning in the tone of his voice as he does in the words he speaks.  An excellent skill for a trial lawyer!  (My personal opinion is that without Mr. Katz’s expertize, Mr. Warman’s may lawsuits would never have gotten as far as they have…)

Of course, Mr. Christie could not be rattled that easily – and the judge ruled that since the rights of Mr. Christie’s client are going to be affected by any ruling here, she will permit Mr. Christie to address the court briefly after the other parties have made their main arguments.

Point one to Mr. Christie.

At this point, Mr. Katz complained that this is supposed to be a short hearing and now, so much of it had already been wasted by the above argument…

The man has some daring!  He was the one wasting the court’s time – now he complains about it, trying to shift the blame on to Mr. Christie!  And in such reasonable tones….  He truly is another Daniel Webster!  (The one from the story, not the Canadian lawyer…)

As he opened his main argument, Mr. Katz presented to the judge that the main aim of today’s hearing is to determine if there is a ‘prima facie’ case for Mr. Warman to proceed with his lawsuit.  (i.e. Wilton-Siegel point #2)

Point #3 – whether his client has done all he can to ferret out the identity of the anonymous posters on his own has been satisfied:  Ms. Kulaszka, the counsel representing Free Dominion, has conceded that this point has, indeed, been satisfied.

The judge pointed out that points #1 and 4 are also important. (#1 is whether or not the posters had a reasonable expectation of anonymity and the tricky one, #4 deals with weighing ‘public interest’, ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘right to privacy’)

Mr. Katz cited a precedent ruling set in Nova Scotia in June of 2010.  Unfortunately, even though I was aware of the ruling at the time, I cannot remember enough of the important details to find it, so I could link it.  (And, yes, I have spent a lot of time in cyberspace, sidetracking, while looking for this bit – so I have stopped in order to finish writing this up…)

Mr. Katz went on to argue that the specific libels against Mr. Warman are pretty clear.  He listed them.  For obvious reasons, I will not.  (In case you are not aware, it has been alleged that one of the defendants is being sued because he quoted Mr. Warman, from a deposition, where Mr. Warman complains about being called a list of names.  Apparently, repeating these – even when identified as a direct quote of Mr. Warman, could land one in a lot of hot water.)

Mr. Katz stressed that ‘context is important’ and addressed what he called the defendant’s position ‘that nobody takes bloggers seriously, so it is irrelevant if Mr. Warman is slandered in a blog…’.  (My imperfect understanding of the defendant’s position suggests that this is a re-phrasing-to-the-point-of-error of their position, but mine is not the legal mind.)  Of course people take bloggers seriously!

I think it is very nice that Mr. Katz thinks so highly of us!  I like him too!

Then he showed a legal ruling from the US that ‘it is defamatory to refer to someone as a Nazi’.

In my never humble opinion, that statement is clearly false.  Truth is always a defense.  Therefore, that statement could only hold water if it said:  ‘it is defamatory to FALSELY refer to someone as a Nazi’!

No, I am not making any inference as to Mr. Warman:  just because he had joined a number of Neo-Nazi sites does not necessarily mean he is a Nazi.

I am simply addressing the incorrectness of the statement itself:  in our country, truth still IS a defense!  In a real court, anyway…

Alas – I see the wordcount has climbed rather high… So, I will break for now and continue this tale in Part 3.

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Richard Warman v Free Dominion: the ‘prima facie’ hearing, part 1

December 7, 2010 — xanthippa

Today, I spent observing more ‘courtly manners’.

In the court-room, that is.

With Madam Justice Blishen presiding over the next installment in the ‘Warman v Free Dominion’ saga.

Background:

  • FreeDominion is the oldest, longest-running online message board in Canada which deals with political matters.
  • Richard Warman is a former Canadian Human Rights Commission lawyer and the most frequent user of Canada’s Human Right’s Legislation’s controversial ‘Section 13’, often described as ‘the censorship clause’.  Richard Warman has also personally pursued complaints under ‘Section 13’ where he was not the ‘injured party’ – on the grounds that there could, one day, be an injured party – and collected a tens of thousands of tax-exempt dollars in ‘damages’ as a result.
  • Richard Warman has also initiated tens, perhaps hundreds, of civil lawsuits against people whom he perceives as having slandered or defamed him
  • Many people on the internet call Mr. Warman all kinds of things….some of them not nice things.
  • Several people have made posts on FreeDominion which Mr. Warman believes defame him – and he has attempted to sue them, as well as the people who run the FreeDominion site, Mark and Connie Fournier.
  • As they have posted under pseudonyms, Mr. Warman has not been successful in discovering the identity of all the people who posted the comments he believes to be defamatory.  He has therefore demanded that the Fourniers reveal to him the identities /IP addresses of these anonymous people, so he can sue them
  • Earlier this year, in an appeal, FreeDominion successfully argued that they should not be expected to just hand over this information when asked:  a ‘prima facie’ case has got to be made that there are indeed grounds for a lawsuit for defamation there, first!  There were two ‘other parties’ permitted to speak to the appeals court about this:  the Civil Liberties people and Michael Geist’s ‘Internet Freedom’ people.
  • THIS HEARING was to determine whether or not the conditions for the disclosure of identities of anonymous bloggers (including a ‘prima facie case’ for a defamation lawsuit in these posts) have indeed been met.

 

And what a hearing it was!

Since this hearing was to determine whether there was there was sufficient reason for the disclosure of the identities of anonymous bloggers, perhaps it is best to re-state the conditions, as per the above-mentioned appeal.  From Defamation Law Blog:

After surveying previous decisions, Justice Wilton-Siegel set out four considerations, aimed at preventing abuse of the Rules and respecting the privacy of internet users, that should have been considered by the motions judge in deciding whether to order disclosure under the Rules:

  • whether the unknown alleged wrongdoer could have a reasonable expectation of anonymity in the particular circumstances;
  • whether the Respondent has established a prima facie case against the unknown alleged wrongdoer and is acting in good faith;
  • whether the Respondent has taken reasonable steps to identify the anonymous party and has been unable to do so; and
  • whether the public interests favouring disclosure outweigh the legitimate interests of freedom of expression and right to privacy of the persons sought to be identified if the disclosure is ordered.

[Warman, at para. 34]

To reduce the anticipation a little, let me first state that the third point was not much discussed:  everyone agreed that Mr. Warman had indeed done a lot to ferret out the identities of the anonymous bloggers.  So, the arguments revolved around the other 3 points:expectation of anonymity by the posters, whether there is enough material there to proceed with a defamation suit (as in, not just a nuisance lawsuit) and last but not least, balancing of ‘legitimate interests’.

The morning arguments opened a little late:  there was another motion scheduled ahead of this hearing – one involving an almost 30-year lawsuit over some inheritance, which was in the 2nd and 3rd generation of litigants.  I suppose this set the tone a little…

This earlier motion hearing meant that Madam Justice Blishen did not begin to hear this case until two minutes to noon.  To my untrained, layman’s eyes, it looked like this was very good news for Warman and his legal team (headed up by the eloquent and expressive Mr. James Katz).  Mr. Warman kept leaving the court-room and coming back with more and more papers, which he quietly discussed with his lawyers.  Mr. Katz’s student also kept running into the room, bringing in reams of paper and passing them to her boss.

I wondered what this was all about… and I suspect the reason might have been the second lawyer, sitting on the Free Dominion side of the lawyer’s table.  The ever-loyal and very intelligent Barbara Kulaszka was, again, representing Connie Wilkins-Fournier and Mark Fournier of Free Dominion.  The other lawyer was representing several of the other co-defendants in the lawsuit – and was none other than the formidable ans wholly unexpected Mr. Doug Christie!

No wonder there was some serious scrambling from the Katz team!

As the hearing opened, Mr. Katz argued that as this is a hearing to determine if the conditions for revealing the identities of the anonymous posters has been met and not the defamation hearing itself, it only concerns the Fourniers and not the other co-defendants in the defamation suit.  Therefore, Mr. Katz suggested, Mr. Christie had no standing there and should not be permitted to address the court.

In my completely legally untrained mind, it looked like ‘they’ really really really really did not want to give Mr. Christie a chance to speak at all – more than just mere procedural jostling for position or some type of lawyer-bickering.  It almost smelled like ‘they’ were afraid of M. Christie.  And here, I thought he was best known for making good cookies…

All right – I am getting silly.  It has been a very long and exhausting day for me – if I continue now, the likelihood that I will craft my report to accommodate as many puns as possible will increase with every new line.

So, please, forgive me:  I will sign off for now and continue my tale tomorrow.

 

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 9 Comments »

The ‘Wilson’ case

April 13, 2010 — xanthippa

This is supporting material for my narrative of the ‘Richard Warman v FreeDominion/internet privacy’ appeal hearing on 8th of April, 2010.

The arguments made during the hearing referenced various cases, rulings and precedents. Since I am not a lawyer, nor trained in law in any way, it helped me understand what was going on when I looked up a few of them.

The ‘Wilson’ case

This may be a distasteful case, but the ruling in it establishes an important principle.

Miles Wilson was accused of possessing child pornography.  The police followed a trail where they found an IP address they believed would lead them to the suspect.  The police officer found out that that IP address was served by the ISP provider Bell Canada, and wrote them a ‘form lettter’ requestisng disclosure of the physical location of this IP address.  Based on this information, the police officer obtained a search warrant for the residence indicated, executed the search and found the evidence the police were seeking to prosecute Mr. Wilson.

An analysis of this case from ‘The Court’:

The fundamental issue before Leitch R.S.J. of the Superior Court of Justice was whether, in accessing the accused’s name and street address from Bell without first obtaining a warrant, police had infringed upon the accused’s reasonable expectation of privacy, contrary to s. 8 of the Charter. Remove the legalese and the issue in Wilson becomes far more dramatic: are Canadians free from unbridled state surveillance of their online activities while in the confines of their homes?

…

First, in rejecting the accused’s s. 8 claim, Leitch R.S.J. determined that one’s name and address, or that of one’s spouse, falls beyond the inference-resistant “biographical core” threshold of Plant. Second, Letich R.S.J. found that given the fact that names and address are “information available to anyone in a public directory”, they are, in isolation, largely meaningless pieces of information as far as s. 8 is concerned.

Here, the issue is in the criminal realm, not the civil case we are talking about here.  However, there are aspects of this case which were examined and discussed during the appeal hearing, specifically as related to the IP address, the expectation of privacy and the differences between this case and the one under review.

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