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Your Silence Today Will Be Echoed Tomorrow!
July 2, 2012 — xanthippaDeclaration of Internet Freedom
July 2, 2012 — xanthippaDECLARATION
We stand for a free and open Internet.
We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles:
Expression: Don’t censor the Internet.
Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks.
Openness: Keep the Internet an open network where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate.
Innovation: Protect the freedom to innovate and create without permission. Don’t block new technologies, and don’t punish innovators for their users’ actions.
Privacy: Protect privacy and defend everyone’s ability to control how their data and devices are used.
SIGN THE DECLARATION
The Free Dominion Fundraiser
June 29, 2012 — xanthippaWhat is the cost of freedom?
Many have bought it for us, their descendants, with their lives.
Still, in our everyday life, most of us do not have to ask ourselves just how much of our income we would be willing to spend to protect our freedom of speech – in the public square as well as on the internet.
But, not everyone has that luxury.
Consider the case of Costance and Mark Fournier who run the Free Dominion forum. They have become targets of a serial suer, Richard Warman, and his minions.
From setting a legal precedent for protecting online privacy to proving that linking to online content does not constitute copyright infringement, they have done it. And more.
They have had to decide if they should comply with what they considered to be abuse of our (or, their subscribers) civil liberties or if they are willing to pay the money to defend themselves in a lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit…
If you hang out on the internet and comment on things or click on links, you are directly benefiting from the battles the Fourniers have fought and paid for on behalf of all of us!
(And not just in Canada – because of the related nature of our legal systems, Canadian legal precedents are quoted and considered in US rulings and vice versa….after all, we are all children of the Magna Carta!!!)
Yet, they are still facing more lawsuits against them!
They have launched a fundraising campaign to replenish their war chest.
Give generously, please!
From OpenMedia
June 27, 2012 — xanthippaThis is from an email I received today from OpenMedia:
Imagine a world where you could be dragged to court and receive a large fine for simply clicking on the wrong link, where service providers would hand over information about your online activities without privacy safeguards, and where online content could be removed by big media conglomerates at will.
This scenario could become a reality before we know it. In just a few days1, a group of 600 lobbyist “advisors” and un-elected trade representatives are scheming behind closed doors 2 to decide how the Internet will be governed, including whether you could get fined for your Internet use.3 Instead of debating this openly, they’re meeting secretly to craft an Internet trap through an international agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).4 Our government just signed Canada onto this arrangement, without our consent.5
In short, it appears that it will be big-media lobbyists—not citizens—who get to decide whether Canadians will be fined as suspected copyright criminals. Please help us raise a loud call before it’s too late. Visit: http://stopthetrap.net
We know from leaked documents6 that industry lobbyists intend to blanket these new restrictions and laws around the world, without us having any say in the matter. How can they do this?
Instead of an open, public process, they’ll use international tribunals to go around domestic judicial systems.7 And once the trap is set, there’s no going back. That’s why OpenMedia.ca and SumOfUs are launching this campaign today.
Here are the details—the TPP’s Internet trap would:
- Criminalize some of your everyday use of the Internet,8
- Force service providers to collect and hand over your private data without privacy safeguards9, and
- Give media conglomerates more power to fine you for Internet use, remove online content—including entire websites—and even terminate your access to the Internet.10
We deserve to know what will be blocked, and what we and our families will be fined for. If enough of us speak out now, we can prevent the Canadian government from slow-walking us into an Internet trap. Make your voice heard today.
For the possibilities of an open Internet,
Steve, Shea, Lindsey, and Reilly—your OpenMedia team
P.S. We’ve been through a lot together. Industry and government bureaucracies have tried to make Canada’s Internet more costly, controlled, and surveilled. We fought back together and successfully held the line. Now some of those same bureaucracies are going around our democratic processes to impose an Internet trap through this extreme and secretive trade agreement. Let’s take the next step to safeguard the open and affordable Internet together now.
Footnotes
[1] The next round of TPP negotiations will take place between July 2nd and July 9th 2012. The meetings remain controversially secretive without meaningful public participation while, according to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, industry lobbyists from Big Media entities like Comcast and the Motion Picture Association of America are “made privy to details of the agreement”.
[2] The TPP suffers from a lack of transparency, public participation, and democratic accountability. In this letter, a number of U.S. civil society organizations detail and decry the opacity of the process.
[3] See the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s analysis to learn more about the ways the TPP increases the threat of litigation from Big Media. Under the TPP, Big Media could come after you in court even “without the need for a formal complaint by a private party or right holder”.
[4] Find our backgrounder on the TPP here, and our press release about Ottawa’s irresponsible participationhere.
[5] On Tuesday, June 19, 2012, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada would join the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
[6] Public interest groups have obtained the February 2011 draft of the TPP’s Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. In it, we can see that the TPP would drastically increase Internet surveillance, increase Big Media’s Internet lockdown powers, and criminalize content sharing in general, with a likelihood of harsher penalties.
[7] The recently leaked investment chapter of the TPP reveals that the TPP would establish a two-track legal system that gives foreign firms new rights to skirt domestic courts and laws, directly sue governments before foreign tribunals and demand compensation for laws they claim undermine their TPP privileges.
[8] In addition to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s analysis, also see Public Knowledge’s run down of concerns with The TPP IP chapter’s criminalization of downloading.
[9,10] See infojustics.org’s list of the TPP’s effects on the intellectual property law in Canada and Mexico for more information on penalties, privacy implications, and also Public Knowledge: What’s actually in the TPP?
Support OpenMedia.ca
Ruling in the ‘Warman V Free Dominion’ case – well, in one of the cases, at least…
June 26, 2012 — xanthippaI have reported on what I saw and heard in court during the hearing itself here.
Richard Warman is an Ottawa lawyer whose hobby appears to be using the legal system to shut up people who hold views he does not like – and the consequences be damned. He also has frequent-flyer points on using the Human Rights commissions to persecute people he finds ‘annoying’ and many believe that it is at least in part because of the way Mr. Warman used (or, perhaps, abused) the Human Rights Code that the section he used most often, Section 13, got removed.
I suspect that Mr. Warman finds people who stand up to him to be ‘particularly annoying’.
Connie and Mark Fournier run Free Dominion, Canada’s perhaps oldest, certainly largest, discussion forum with a conservative bend. They have stood up to Mr. Warman and his hoard of henchmen for years.
The Fourniers have been a favourite target of the serial suer Warman.
The decision has now come down in the latest lawsuit, which will have impact on how copyright laws are interpreted not just in Canada, but to a lesser extent also in other common law countries. And, it is clearly in favour of the Fourniers and freedom of speech!!!
And, it is hitting all the internet high-sites!
From Dr. Michael Geist:
‘The court’s discussion is important for several reasons. First, the finding that several paragraphs do not constitute a substantial part of the work has echoes to the Supreme Court of Canada hearing in December when the court opened the door to questions about some of the copying in schools not rising to the level of substantial copying. Moreover, if this amount of copying is not substantial, it has implications in a wide range of additional cases (including the Access Copyright model licence). Second, the court’s conclusion is critically important to online chat forums, blogs, and other venues where copying several paragraphs from an article is quite common. Given the court’s analysis, such copying appears to be permissible on at least two grounds, including the notion that such postings can be treated as news reporting for fair dealing purposes.
The third claim involved a link to a photograph posted on the photographer’s site. The court had no trouble concluding that the link was not copyright infringement, rightly noting that the photographer authorized the communication of the work by posting it on his website. This finding should put an end to claims that linking to copyright materials somehow raises potential legal risks. ‘
In other words, 100% in favour of the Fourniers!
And, let’s not forget – this is only one of many lawsuits the Fourniers have faced and are still facing. They have already set legal precedents in Canada when they stood up for the privacy rights of the users of their forum!!!
The practical implication of this is that they had to represent themselves in this latest court battle.
Connie Fournier, a computer scientist with a formidable mind, had to not only research all the laws and put the case together herself, she had to learn all the ‘tricks of the trade’ on how to do it and how to do it right. Not an easy task…
Well, she did something right!!!
From TechDirt:
‘All told, this is an excellent decision, and offers further proof that Canada has the very real potential to move copyright law in a positive direction. There are still lots of battles to be fought, but there’s also a genuine emphasis on the rights of users (especially in the courts) that can hopefully be harnessed and nurtured more and more over time.’
From boingboing:
‘Canadian fed court: linking isn’t copyright infringement, neither is excerpting an article‘
From Law 360:
‘Ottawa Federal Court Judge Donald J. Rennie ruled against attorney Richard Warman, who along with the National Post Co. had sued Free Dominion website operators Mark and Constance Fournier for having reproduced a speech Warman had written and parts of a newspaper article that had been written about him, and for linking a photograph that was…’
I’m sure there is more….
The Richard O’Dwyer petition
June 24, 2012 — xanthippaDon’t know who Richard O’Dwyer is?
Richard O’Dwyer is a UK citizen and resident.
While in the UK, he is accused (not convicted) of breaking US laws in the UK – and is being extradited to the US for it!
Since when does the US have the right to enforce its laws on people outside its borders, who aren’t even themselves Americans?
OK, Kim Dotcom might have ideas of what this feels like – but he has a legal team to help him while this kid just created a website in his free time where people shared links.
His site itself did not host any copyrighted material – just links.
He complied with each and every takedown notice that he was linking to copyrighted material.
Yet, he is still being extradited to the US where he faces over a decade in jail?!?!?
This is all out of whack…
The petition voicing displeasure at this state of things is here.
It also fleshes out the backstory:
‘Richard O’Dwyer is the human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public. Earlier this year, in the fight against the anti-copyright bills SOPA and PIPA, the public won its first big victory. This could be our second.’
We should all pay attention.
Copyright infringement has always been – and ought to remain – a civil matter.
That we have permitted the resources of the state to be subverted for the use of Big Media, that we consider copyright infringement to be the same as theft – even though not a single person or corporation had been deprived of the use of their property – that is just unbelievably misguided.
But that people living in distant lands should be extradited and tried for their activities which, at best (if the prosecutors win their case), did not commit copyright infringement directly, but simply facilitated it…
That is too bizzare for words!
Leaked Documents Show the U.N.’s Internet Power Grab…
June 19, 2012 — xanthippaAs if we needed another reason to disband – utterly discredit, send the bureaucrats/delegates home and burn the buildings down, then dance on the ashes – the UN…
I never re-publish another blog’s post in its entirety and will not start now, but Nerfherder has a post which is short, sweet and informative about this issue. It describes what UN’s agency called the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) plans are for restricting access to the internet and gaining huge control over its content. Plus, it is chock full of links!
I strongly recommend reading the short post in its entirety. Here is a bit with key links:
‘ A pair of researchers from George Mason University created a website called WCITLeaks.org in the hopes that someone with access to the secretive proposals would leak them and make them available to the public. Last Friday, that’s exactly what happened. Someone leaked the 212-page planning document being used by governments to prepare for the December conference. You can read it yourself here.’
We really need to start raising awareness about this.
Information is the best weapon in the preservation of freedom.
That is why the UN wants to disarm us.
We must not let them!
The Dr. Dawg saga continues…
June 15, 2012 — xanthippaLast year, I reported on the courtroom proceedings in the defamation lawsuit John Baglow (aka Dr. Dawg) had brought against Connie and Mark Fournier: part 1 and part 2.
The judge in that hearing dismissed it in a summary judgment for the Fourniers. (In his ruling, it seemed clear to me that the judge did not think Mr. Baglow had handled things well…)
John Baglow appealed.
Now, a panel of 3 judges has ruled that Dr. Dawg will have his day in court:
‘Questions about what constitutes defamation in the caustic world of blogging have not been addressed by Canadian courts “in any significant way,” Blair noted. It means, he said, that a full-blown trial is needed to explore key questions…
‘
In other words, the case may indeed be vexatious, but the judges want to make new laws to govern the internet – and plan to do it on the Fourniers’ dime!
Ayayayayay!
When I know the details of when/where the case will be heard by the court, I’ll update this post.
UPDATE: While there is still no word of the court date/time, I have received a comment on this from Connie Fournier:
‘This case will be going to a full-blown trial now and there will be expert witnesses and a full examination of the role of defamation law in the blogosphere. This is of critical importance to any Canadian who operates a website where visitors are allowed to post comments. If the law stands as it is, anyone who operates such a site should have $50,000 in the bank so that they can defend themselves when Spockluver sues CaptKirkFan for defaming his online persona.’
Good news/bad news in the field of electronic communication
June 14, 2012 — xanthippaThe bad new is – predictably – coming from legislators. This time, in the UK.
They are introducing a bill which would force all internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor, log and store all electronic communication. But more than just that: they would also collect data about the physical electronic equipment used in the communication, who is communicating with whom and a long list of other intrusive measures. And, yes – physical communication would be similarly monitored, copying addresses from envelopes and packages and keeping the info for the government’s reference…
But, don’t worry! Home Office Secretary Theresa May said:
“Unless you are a criminal, then you’ve nothing to worry about from this new law.”
Ooooooh, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy…
OK, so the governments all over the world are using the fact that we are all distracted by the looming economic crisis (created by their corruption) to impose ever more intrusive surveillance on us.
And we should not worry, unless we are criminals!
Until, that is, the government decides that holding the views we hold makes us criminals…
Well, before we all get too depressed, let me get to the good news – predictably, from the world of science and technology.
While quantum cryptography has not quite delivered the desired level of security through encrypted communication that many of us had hoped it would, it seems that emerging technology based on the good old second law of thermodynamics just might give us a glimmer of hope!
‘Once again the secrecy is guaranteed by the laws of physics but instead of quantum mechanics, Kish and co say the second law of thermodynamics provides the necessary underwriting. That’s the same law that prohibits perpetual motion machines powered by heat from the environment.’
The goal of achieving securely encrypted communication is always to make sure the two parties communicating can decrypt the signal but anyone intercepting the message would lack the tools to decode it. This newly announced method sounds great and secure.
Let’s hope it becomes generally used by ‘everyone’ before surveillance laws leave us frightened and silenced!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 