Warman vs Free Dominion and John Does – the Jury Trial (day 10)

September 25, 2013 — xanthippa

Day 1′s events can be read here.

Day 2′s events can be read here.

Day 3′s events can be read here.

Day 4′s events can be read here.

I’m afraid that I was unable to attend on day 5.  I have heard some accounts which I would like to share with you.  However, do remember I have not seen this myself, so it is just a person on the internet repeating a rumour….so give the account weight accordingly.  Mr. Warman was still on the stand and acted up the self pity, even bringing forth tears for the jury, when he recounted just how difficult this has all been for him, the righteous protector of our society.

Day 6′s events can be read here, as a real newspaper sent the liberal Glen McGregor to cover the appearance of Mr. Icke as a witness.

Day 7′s events can be read here.

Day 8’s events can be read here.

Day 9  was a procedural day, without the jury present.  It was to involve discussions between the judge and the counsel about procedural matters.  As such, I chose to conserve my strength and skip day 9.

Which brings us to day 10 – the closing arguments.

The jury filed in at about 10:25, each one of them encumbered with an arm’s length of documents:  the exhibits submitted during the trial.  It sure is a LOT of material to go through and keep in mind!!!

For some reason which escapes me, the defense was to go first with the plaintiff having the last word.  I don’t understand why this was so, but it was.

As such, Ms. Kulaszka was up first.  At the judge’s suggestion, she moved over to the lectern (which was rotated to more closely face the jury (though, the room was too crowded for much  movement) and Connie Fournier (wearing the white blouse with black embroidery detail, red cardigan and gray/tan slacks) moved a box of documents to her side at the lectern and then returned to sit not at the defense table, but in the spectator seats.

As a matter of fact, today, the courtroom was packed!

The whole ‘plaintiff’ side was taken up with legal students who were on a field trip to the courthouse today…so, even ‘Dr. Dawg’ (who is also suing the Fourniers in a separate suit, in a vain effort to emulate Mr. Warman) and his young, bald companion had to sit in the ‘defense’ side.  And, yes, for all of you who’ve asked:  Dr. Dawg was wearing those cute riding boots with the most adorable silver embellishments on them!  (Yes – the same ones he posted a picture of himself wearing while riding a horse or a mule or something…as if the courthouse were equivalent to a barnyard.)

At this point, Ms. Kulaszka introduced yet another binder – a compillation of some of the other exhibits.  Mr. Katz objected to not having had a chance to verify that all the documents therein were indeed the previously submitted exhibits, but the judge ruled that he ought to trust the opposing counsel, until proven otherwise.  Thus, everyone in the jury (and the judge, clerk and Mr. Katz) got yet another binder with the same evidence herein, just organized slightly differently.  I don’t claim to understand the process, but, my highly imperfect understanding was that this ‘exhibit’ had things in the proper context, as far as the defense was concerned – and, in this case, context is everything!

Ms. Kulaszka then delved into the ‘meat’ of the matter:  political forum, context is important, current political issues from a conservative point of view, comments not censored, fair comment, not defamatory, true statement, David Icke…’Maximum Disruption’…ARA…Jessica Beaumont (Connie has daughters)…Paul Fromm’s testimony…public figure…

She had proceeded to go through each and every posting, explaining the defense, stressing one point or another.  I must admit that as a ‘free speecher’, I found this very exciting and was at the edge of my seat – but, I don’t think the jury was like-minded.  I saw a few suppressed yawns and a few not so suppressed ones…even when she (Ms. Kulaszka) had pointed out that one of the people from Free Dominion that Mr. Warman had accused of anti-Semitism was actually Jewish…at least, that is what I understood from what had been said, in my highly imperfect comprehension.

This took us to a bit past the lunch break.  I think she had done a good job explaining why each and every single posting was not defamatory, but it was a long and necessarily tedious process.  Ms. Kulaszka did not address the greater picture of freedom of speech or what impact on the current internet practices in general as well as chilling free political speech in particular a guilty verdict would make.

Before she thanked the jury and the judge and rested her case, Ms. Kulaszka pointed out that Mr. Warman had sued 69 people – including her clients, in part for what Mr. Ed Kennedy had posted and for not ‘banning him from Free Dominion’,  but, despite the fact that Mr. Ed Kennedy did not hide his identity, Mr. Warman had never sued Mr. Ed Kennedy himself… a fact which resonated very deeply with me.

Next up was Mr. Roger Smith, who was representing himself in this matter.

He had made a passionate speech, painting the big picture as far as freedom of speech in general is concerned.

Actually, he was really awesome!

Understated as he is in his mannerisms, the distinguished and highly credible-looking Mr. Smith addressed the jury and the judge.

He explained how, following Mark Steyn’s persecution (my word, not his) by the BC HRC (which he had attended as a spectator) had affected him and motivated him to protect freedom of speech in Canada.  We had won the greater ‘Section 13’ battle – and this case was necessarily embedded in this context…

He explained how this lawsuit was a leftist’s attempt to abuse the courts to censor a right-wing political discussion he did not like.  Mr. Smith explained lawfare and SLAPP suits…and how they attempt to use courts to regulate public opinion – an abuse if there ever was one!

Should we have 1/2 of the country suing the other 1/2, just to have their political views suppressed by the courts?!?!?

He had explained the motivations (and results) of all his actions, though he did stop short of comparing them to and contrasting against the plaintiff’s own actions (letter to employers, etc.) – something I thought ought to have been highlighted.

Mr. Smith passionately explained his unease with a civil servant using the organs/powers of the government to go after his political opponents…as a daughter of a political dissident under a totalitarian regime, I found his arguments most compelling.  Yet, I am not sure to which degree the jury members had undergone Political Correctness and Cultural Marxism indoctrination, so it is hard to tell if they will have comprehended his meaning.

 

At 14:45, the most eloquent Mr. Katz took the podium to deliver the plaintiff’s closing remarks.  And, while all his points were predictable and, to my way of thinking, irrelevant, he made them in an animated and highly persuasive manner of speech.

Tomorrow, will be the 11th day of the hearings – the court will reconvene at 9 am to discuss the charge to the jury, which the judge expects to deliver at 11 am…and, then, it will be up to the 4 men and 2 women of the jury to decide!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in freedoms, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 10 Comments »

Warman vs Free Dominion and John Does – the Jury Trial (day 8)

September 23, 2013 — xanthippa

Day 1′s events can be read here.

Day 2′s events can be read here.

Day 3′s events can be read here.

Day 4′s events can be read here.

I’m afraid that I was unable to attend on day 5.  I have heard some accounts which I would like to share with you.  However, do remember I have not seen this myself, so it is just a person on the internet repeating a rumour….so give the account weight accordingly.  Mr. Warman was still on the stand and acted up the self pity, even bringing forth tears for the jury, when he recounted just how difficult this has all been for him, the righteous protector of our society.

Day 6′s events can be read here, as a real newspaper sent the liberal Glen McGregor to cover the appearance of Mr. Icke as a witness.

Day 7’s events can be read here.

It is getting harder and harder to juggle ‘things’ so that I can make it to the courthouse to observe.  Day 8 of the proceedings was no different:   could not make it in until the afternoon session.  Before I describe what I saw, I think it will not hurt if I re-state my biases, as I necessarily have them and the readers should be aware of them.

I am a free speech absolutist and an anti-slavery fundamentalist – which necessarily makes me a voluntaryist to a great degree (though I do stop short of anarcho-capitalism).  Prior to covering the Warman vs Free Dominion legal saga, I did not know either party, have never been a member of Free Dominion or even went to their site.  Over these past 3+ years, I have developed a genuine affection for and admiration of the Fourniers.  I have exchanged a polite ‘Thank you’ with Mr. Warman every now and then when we held the courtroom doors for each other.

From the tidbits of information I have managed to scrape together about the morning’s events, I did indeed miss much that was important.  Jason Bertucci, aka Faramir and one of the defenders represented by Ms. Kulaszka gave his testimony, as did another person (I did not write down the name, so I’ll have to confirm who…).  Apparently, Mr. Katz had softened from his previous adversarial style of questioning (imagine a US TV show).

Still, the defense was optimistically hopeful of the morning’s events.

The court re-convened at 14:04 and the judge asked Ms. Kulaszka what was her next step.  She replied that her witness, Mr. Paul Fromm, was waiting outside.

Thus, the jury was brought in and at 14:07, the bailiff went and fetched the witness.

The witness was sworn in on the Bible and stated his full name to be Frederick Paul Fromm.  He wore a dark suit with a dark red kerchief in the pocket, white shirt and a dark tie with a gold coat-of-arms type repeated motifs separated by a thin gold stripe.  With his graying hair and understated glasses, he looked very distinguished.

Considering that the plaintiff tried to cast Mr. Fromm (rightly or wrongly) as a neo-Nazi, I think his testimony (and cross-examination) were much more favourable for the defense than the prosecution.

I’ll jump around – in time, that is – to make it a narrative which is easier to follow…

Mr. Fromm started off testifying that he was with an organization called ‘Canadian Association for Free Expression’.  As such, he is committed to freedom of expression, even if the speech itself is politically unpopular.  (I am paraphrasing here.)

Then, he delved into ‘the Zundel saga’.  Mr. Fromm explained that whether he agreed with Ernst Zundel’s views or not, he found the process the government had subjected him to to be unconstitutional and had organized public protests in order to say so.  (He was, of course, later vindicated as the process itself was, indeed, found unconstitutional by the courts.)  As a result of these protests, he became the target of the Anti-Racism Association, the ARA, which had played such a significant part in the trial earlier.

If you don’t remembe the ARA, Mr. Warman had given a speech at one of their events during which he joked that the ARA members would be just as surprised that he has police officers as friends as his police officer friends would find it surprising to find Warman had friends among the ARA, Mr. Warman had identified himself as having belonged to the ARA while he had lived in Toronto and outlined his ‘Maximum Disruption’ doctrine to be used against either neo-Nazi groups or just for fun, against people who annoyed him…Connie Fournier had testified that this very speech had greatly informed her opinion of Mr. Warman.

One of the statement which Mr. Warman is seeking compensation for defamation is the claim that he had paid for a bus that brought the ARA to a rather ‘vigorous’ demonstration at Mr. Fromm’s house because, as he had testified earlier, Mr. Warman had stated that being accused of financing an urban terrorist organization would be damaging to the reputation of a practicing member of the bar…from which I can only conclude that Mr. Warman himself considers the ARA to indeed be a terrorist organization…

Mr. Fromm had testified that many of the people against whom Mr. Warman had laid complaints against under Section 13 of the Human Rights Act (HRA) were very poor and could not afford legal representation in front of the Tribunal.  Unlike in a real court, where one has to be either self-represented or represented by an actual lawyer, the pseudo-courts that are the HR Tribunals are not so strict about any of the legal procedures and anyone can be represented by a citizen who acts as their agent.  In this capacity, Mr. Fromm had represented Jessica Beaumont, Terry Tremaine, and a number of others.

He had done his best to help these poor, unsophisticated people defend themselves against the ‘Maximum Disruption’ assault launched by Mr. Warman.  But, back to the ‘Zundel’ bit:  and, again, I am jumping back and forth in time (testimony-wise, cross-examination and re-direct…) in order to have continuity in narrative.

It was established that Mr. Zundel had been the subject of protests (and/or threats by the ARA).

It was testified to (by Mr. Fromm) that the arsonists who had set fire to Mr. Zundel’s house were never criminally charged.

When the ARA protested in front of Mr. Fromm’s house (and trespassed on condominium property and greatly terrorized his neighbours), they chanted “Nazi scum, out out out!” – but, later, he testified that the ARA members threatened to ‘burn him out just like Zundel’… the implication of terrorist threat being rather obvious and not in the least conrtrovened by anything Mr. Warman’s side had to offer.

On cross examination, Mr. Katz brought out that Mr. Fromm had been a teacher, who had been fired from his job…but, his students from various cultural and racial backgrounds had protested his firing and even made a video in his support, testifying how he had not only taught them to achieve but also to have raised their self esteem and their self-confidence.

In the end, Mr. Katz introduced the letter of dismissal from when Mr. Fromm had been fired from his teaching job and had questioned Mr. Fromm on it.  I could not get the exact wording written down during testimony, so I asked him to repeat the exact wording to me after the court session was over.

Mr. Fromm said the letter said he had been fired because of his ‘persistent disregard of and contempt for multicultural and ethno-centric cultural equity, which are core values of the education system’…  He explained that he thought the core values of the education system were ‘reading, writing, mathematics, computer literacy, self discipline, co-operation with others’ and so on…

At this, both sides rested.

Monday, day 9 of the court proceedings, would be about the lawyers and the judge haggling out the questions for the jury – the jury itself would be excused.

An alternate view of the events can be read here.

 

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

Warman vs Free Dominion and John Does – the Jury Trial (day 7)

September 18, 2013 — xanthippa

Day 1′s events can be read here.

Day 2′s events can be read here.

Day 3′s events can be read here.

Day 4’s events can be read here.

I’m afraid that I was unable to attend on day 5.  However, I have heard some accounts which I would like to share with you.  However, do remember I have not seen this myself, so it is just a person on the internet repeating a rumour….so give the account weight accordingly.  Mr. Warman was still on the stand and acted up the self pity, even bringing forth tears for the jury, when he recounted just how difficult this has all been for him, the righteous protector of our society.

Day 6’s events can be read here, as a real newspaper sent the liberal Glen McGregor to cover the appearance of Mr. Icke as a witness.  Following Mr. Icke’s testimony, Connie Fournier took the stand and began her testimony.  From the Ottawa Citizen:

‘Icke testified Warman’s efforts led to the cancellation of speaking events on the 2000 tour and hassles at the hands of Canada immigration officials, including when he arrived in Ottawa on Saturday.

“I started to realize there was a campaign to stop me and I was being painted as some kind of racist who was going to be engaged in hate speech, when I talk in my books about the need to love each other,” he told the court.

“That was shocking and the name Richard Warman started to appear as one of the ringleaders of this extraordinarily unfair character assassination.”’

…

‘”In her opening statement before presenting a defence of the libel claims, Kulaszka said the website posts Warman complained of show “how utterly trivial this lawsuit is. Some don’t even mention Richard Warman,” she said. “Some are obvious jokes.”

“The paltry few lines he is suing for could not damage his reputation,” she told the court. She said Warman had made himself into a public figure through repeated use of Canada’s hate-speech laws.’

Today is day 7 of the trial and as it opened, Connie Fournier was testifying.

In a pretty white blouse with black buttons and black embroidery detail topped by a red cardigan and simple pearls, she appeared competent and likable. Most of all, she appeared well grounded and very much in touch with technology and the latest trends on the internet.

Her easy smile was endearing.

Her testimony was deeply thought provoking.

She explained, among many other things, just how clear it was that some of the statements that Mr. Warman alleges are defamatory, just how very crystal clear it was that they were parody.

For example, there had been a thread from several years ago regarding an essay contest for the Western Standard, a magazine that used to be published by Ezra Levant.  In this particular thread, Peter O’Donnel had posted a list of the most ridiculous titles for an essay one might write and submit to this contest.  The thread had already been several years old at this point, but someone else had added another title, regarding Mr. Warman, and then added an emoticon after it of a face with the tongue sticking out, clearly indicating this is parody.

Yet, Connie Fournier explained, Mr. Warman was claiming it was defamatory – as if it had been a statement of fact!

Another instance which, Ms. Fournier testified, where Mr. Warman claimed they had defamed him by was when they had posted his libel notice.  Earlier, while he was testifying, Mr. Warman had indeed lamented at great length that when Free Dominion had posted his libel notice, they had re-packaged all of the defamatory material into one convenient package and then re-published it:  not only did this hurt him all over again, it made it easier for his haters to use…

Connie Fournier explained that some of the material Mr. Warman claims is defamatory had been excerpts from an Ottawa Citizen article which was overall very favourable to Mr. Warman, but which listed some descriptions of what his critics were calling him…  She was surprised he’d find this defamatory and one of the reasons she had posted it was precisely to show others what Mr. Warman thought constituted defamation.

Ms. Fournier testified that on the Free Dominion site, it was clearly marked that these were items Mr. Warman said were defamatory and in no way were they claimed to be statements of truth.  It was there as a public service, to let others know where Mr Warman thinks the ‘red line’ lies.

I, myself, remember that, a few years ago, when Mr. Ezra Levant was being sued for defamation by Mr. Warman’s friend and former co-worker from the Human Rights Commission, Mr. Vigna, he had also posted all the legal documents on his website:  both the notice of libel and his statement of defense.  As did a number of other people sued by Mr. Warman and/or his friends/minions.  From what I, the non-expert, had seen of the internet, this seems to be a pretty standard, non-controversial practice…these are, after all, public documents and as such, publishing them is newsworthy and good for society!

The other reason she had posted the notice of libel on Free Dominion, Ms. Fournier asserted, was to inform the John Does (who had not been identified so far) that they had become the subjects of a lawsuit.

Aside:

One little interesting thing happened at about the time Connie was testifying about this:  just 5 minutes short of noon, the Court Clerk we had had until now was replaced.  It appeared to me to be not due to any fault but because she just had to be elsewhere.  So, the Court Clerk with the most amazing strappy shoes left and we got one with great dangly earrings.  I only mention this because in my limited experience, I’ve never seen it before…

Later, during cross examination, Mr. Katz had returned to this.  Sorry to be jumping around, but it seems logical to me to finish the subject, even if the events were separated in time.

The questions Mr. Katz kept asking – at least, that is what my legally untrained mind made of it – he seemed to try to get Ms. Fournier to admit that she could have used non-public means to communicate the information about the lawsuit to both the John Does and the other members of Free Dominion, whom she was asking for help in this matter.  For example, she could have sent them private messages or even emailed them….

Ms. Fournier pointed out the practical limitation of trying to send 8 or 10 thousand private messages…and if my very imperfect Aspie observations of the jury were correct, I don’t think Mr. Katz advanced his clients position through this line of questioning.  Rather, it seemed to underline just how disconnected from reality Mr. Warman’s demands were…

The next bit of Connie’s testimony concerned (yes, we are back from the cross examination by Mr. Katz and back to questioning by Ms. Kulaszka) something called ‘Maximum Disruption Doctrine’  and Mr Warman’s speech to the Orwelian-ly named ‘Anti-Racist Action’ (ARA – sounds a lot like ‘NRA’, does it not?).

If you are not familiar with them, ARA use nasty techniques to target people who say things they don’t like – and they are not above not just doc dropping someone (and their family), but showing up by the bus-load at their homes or kids schools and protesting in less than pleasant manner.  Think ‘union thugs in training’…

Mr. Warman had testified earlier that he had given the ARA one of his ‘standard presentation’ speeches, with a preface and a few jokes tailored for this group, to make it more particular to them.  So far, so good.

In the opening remarks of this speech (and, I am trying to write as fast as I can at court, but I am a scientist, not a stenographer, so, if any readers out there have the exact wording, please post it in the comments for accuracy), Mr. Warman had made a joke about ARA members finding it surprising to know that he, Mr. Warman, had friends who were policemen – just as his police friends would find it surprising that he was friends with ARA people.

Ms. Fournier testified that this information had greatly informed her opinion regarding Mr. Warman:  the joke would not have made sense if ARA members were peaceful, law abiding citizens on good terms with the police…

Later in this speech, Connie explained, Mr. Warman had said that while he had lived in Toronto, he had been an old school ARA member, or words to that effect (again, please, help me out in the comments, if you can).

And, Mr. Warman had, in that speech, defined his ‘Maximum Disruption’ method of harassing Neo-Nazis and people who annoy him – for fun.  It was this bit that convinced Ms. Fournier that Mr. Warman’s goal was not conflict resolution but rather that he enjoyed the conflict itself and that later, when he made demands on the Fourniers under threat of legal action, he was not dealing with them in good faith and it would not have been possible for the Fourniers to satisfy his ever increasing demands.

Connie also testified that she had formed her opinion of Mr. Warman from his postings on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront, to which she had been directed through having read about them when she read the transcripts and ruling from the Human Rights Tribunal.  That was when she formed the opinion that he was ruining individual people’s lives as well as harming our society by giving support and encouragement to people who wanted to build Nazi organizations in Canada.  She gave quotes of where he had done that, but I am not skilled enough to reproduce them accurately, so perhaps, later, when I can catch my breath and/or get access to the source material, I may re-visit this.

One very, very essential point that Ms. Fournier had made on the stand was that, while reading the Tribunal transcripts, she had realized that some of the speech Mr. Warman based this particular Section 13 complaint were actually verses from the Bible.

If verses from scriptures, the Christian’s Bible or any other religion’s holy books, were to be suppressed as ‘hate speech’, then freedom of religion would be seriously threatened!!!

It went on in much that flavour, until I had to leave during the afternoon break (previous obligation).  I was fortunate enough to get this report about the last leg of the afternoon’s proceedings from another spectator (there were so many of us there today that we spilled over from the Fournier’s side of the courtroom benches to the middle, and Mr. Ike and a few others had to even sit on the prosecution side of the room!):

‘Too bad you couldn’t stick around for this afternoon’s proceedings in Court as Connie and Mark did very well in the hot seat up there.

David Icke even came up to Mark and later Connie and congratulated them on their testimony.
Mark gave a moving account of what it was like to have been hounded by Warman all these years.  He said with the exception of just one week, all of their marriage has been involved in fighting off the assaults that Warman has hit them with.  He talked about working 70 hours a week driving for a living as a long haul truck driver, keep driving an old car, and Connie having to quit her job to devote herself to fighting Warman, and working the website. Mr Icke told Mark that his honest speech was sure to have hit the jury more forcefully than all of the legal banter of Mr Katz.’
Posted in freedoms, religion, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 7 Comments »

Warman vs Free Dominion and John Does – the Jury Trial (day 4)

September 12, 2013 — xanthippa

Day 1′s events can be read here.

Day 2′s events can be read here.

Day 3’s events can be read here.

Today, Mr. Warman was being cross-examined by Ms. Kulaszka.

It seems that, over the years, Mr Warman had instigated or filed well over 70 lawsuits – and is very comfortable on the witness stand.

He continues to paint Ms. Kulaszka as a nazi-lawyer, sort of like a ‘mob lawyer’, and thus casts her clients as nazis and bad people in the eyes of the jury.

For all her great intelligence, Ms. Kulaszka is not a good orator.  Even the judge had difficulty following her questions at times and was asking for clarification.  After Mr. Warman would answer a question, she’d make minutes long pauses before acknowledging the answer…

Mr. Warman appeared to be trying to help her, and won much sympathy from the jury.

Half an hour into the afternoon session, I could not take it any more and I left.

EDIT:  during day 7 of the trial, the number of lawsuits initiated by Mr. Warman was said to be 69, which M. Katz side disputed by pointing out that some were multiple lawsuits against the same people but some were lawsuits with multiple defendants.

Also, I would like to clarify that the means through which Mr. Warman painted Ms. Kulaszka as a ‘nazi-lawyer’ was by name dropping and smearing, not through direct accussations.

Posted in freedoms, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , . 35 Comments »

Warman vs Free Dominion and John Does – the Jury Trial (day 3)

September 11, 2013 — xanthippa

Day 1′s events can be read here.

Day 2’s events can be read here.

Today is day 3 of the trial and, I am sad to report, I was not there for most of it.

Before day 2 came to a close, the jury had been excused so that the judge and the lawyers (and Mr. Smith) could discuss some technical details.  Much of it was very technical legalese and I must admit, I had a difficult time following it.

What it did drive home for me was just how physically strenuous being a trial lawyer is!

The first day of the trial had been long and exhausting, but, before they left, the judge gave the lawyers homework:  they were to write a short 1-2 page summary not of the facts, but from what positions they would be arguing the case.

Now, at the close of the second day, the judge gave out more homework!

And this time, it was not just a short summary:  the judge wanted each of the sides to look up precedent law on the technical bit they had been discussing and present him with it before the trial resumed today!

That is a lot of work, paying close attention to all the details of the trial and then having to spend the evening doing more detailed research – as well as work what had gone on in the courtroom into the next-day’s plans…you would have to be not just intelligent, but also have a lot of physical stamina in order to withstand this kind of a highly stressful workload.

But, again, I digress…

So, this morning had been more discussions between the judge and the lawyers and no presentation of evidence to the jury.  And, again, my lack of legal training is a sharp limiting factor on my ability to have followed the crux of it, but…this is the best I could glean.

The jury will be asked to rule if specific – certain, very specific – posts on the Free Dominion discussion forum (they keep referring to it as a message board) – if these constitute libel against Mr. Warman.

The problem is that these specific comments are in different conversation threads in different bits of the site, there are cross-references and soon, the mesh becomes very difficult to navigate.  Time-lines complicate things even more…  Yet, for the jury to render their decisions, things have to be as easy to follow as possible.  So, to the best of my understanding, they were discussing how best to achieve this, how best to organize the material for presentation to the jury.

The court adjourned while the counsel counseled their respective clients on the suggested organizational methodologies.

After all this had been agreed to by all the parties – an amicable process, at least when one watched it from afar, the court re-convened.  And – the judge made an exciting announcement:  we had another question from the jury!

Once they begin deliberating, will they have access to their original binders, with their notes in it?

This warrants a little explanation.

The jurors are permitted to take notes during the testimony, but are not allowed to take them out of the courtroom, for security.  Many of them have, indeed, been taking notes – either on note-pads or right inside the evidence binders, as they were following the testimony regarding the various posts and how they affected Mr. Warman and his reputation.  To the best of my understanding, the jurors were asking if they would have access to these same binders – with their notes in them – while they deliberate, which will, of course, not be inside the courtroom.

Justice Smith smiled and said the answer was yes.  Then, he asked the counsel if they think it would OK for them (judge and lawyers and Mr. Smith) to call the jurors in, give them the answer, but then excuse them until 2pm so that they (the judge, the lawyers and Mr. Smith) could finish going over the details of what and how organized and labeled and highlighted the ‘posts in question’ will be presented to the jury.

All agreed, the jury came in, got their answer, was dismissed till 2 and left.

And, even though my own load in just observing the process is much lighter than that of any other person there, I must admit, I was exhausted.  I am not very healthy and not being able to lie down for this long at a stretch, several days in a row, had taken its toll on me…I was tired, so very, very tired…

Plus my pen ran out of ink…

My backup pen was in the second bag from yesterday, which I had left in the car…

My backup backup pen was in the backup notebook, which I just could not find…

so, ladies and gentlemen, I apologize but, I, too left…

I hope to gather information on what happened after 2 pm from any observers who might have been there, but, up till now, I have not received any.

What I did do, however, was to try to get a perspective on how Mr. Warman behaved on the stand from a non-Aspie observer.  I am, after all, rather blind to social cues and body language, so I know my perceptions of how Mr. Warman performed on the stand are necessarily poor.

What I heard did not warm my heart.

It seems that Mr. Warman’s positioning himself as a victim was skilfully executed and that casually slipping in the ‘damaging’ (to him) information into what he said likely went quite unnoticed by the jury.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings!

 

UPDATE:  (at 22:22)  I have found my backup notebook with my backup backup pen!

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

Warman vs Free Dominion and John Does – the Jury Trial (day 1)

September 9, 2013 — xanthippa

Yet another installment in the Warman vs Free Dominion saga began today (9th of September, 2013) – and I was lucky to be there to witness it.  While I am no legal expert so I could only follow what was happening through my layman’s eyes, I am happy to share my personal observations with you.

As this was a jury trial, the first thing that had to be done was the selection of the jury.  One thing I learned was that while there are 12 jurors in a criminal case, there are only 6 in a civil case.  The process itself is interesting, if lengthy and, for the prospective jurors, I imagine it would be quite tedious and more than a little stressful.

The jury selection room at the Elgin St. Courthouse in Ottawa, where this trial is taking place, is located on the 3rd floor.  As soon as I came off the elevator, I spotted Connie Fournier from Free Dominion  with her lawyer, Barbara Kulaszka and a group of supporters standing in front of Courtroom #37.  Roger Smith, one of the John Does (who is representing himself) was seated nearby, and the highly charismatic Mark Fournier soon also joined the group.  All were either smiling hopefully or looking thoughtful.

Connie Fournier looked elegant in a pretty brown blouse with a simple silver necklace, charcoal slacks and black cardigan and understated black shoes.  Mark wore a simple dark green shirt, sporty black pants and his usual aura of immense energy, coiled  just beneath the surface!  The distinguished-looking Roger Smith wore a tan shirt, darker tan pants (brown shoes, of course),  blue blazer with a blue tie with a subtle tan stripe.  Barbara Kulaszka wore her lawyer’s robes, which drape pleasingly about her slender frame, flattering her tall figure.

Richard Warman breezed in just at the time appointed for the action to start, in his regulation crisp, flawless business suit (dark) with a light shirt and a tan-ish patterned tie.  He was accompanied by his handsome and extremely capable lawyer, James Katz (who appears to have moved from Brazeau Seller LLP to Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP) and his assistant (grey suit) whom Mr. Katz later identified as a law student.

In the meantime, all the prospective jurors (there were to be several juries, for both criminal and civil suits, to be selected today) had gathered in a crowded room just off the Court Room #37.  When the first judge (not for our case) was ready to start selecting the jury for the criminal case he was to preside over, they (the prospective jurors) were all led in (by the bailiff) and seated in the large and comparatively plush courtroom – however, as this did not concern us and the room was quite full, we left.

We moved to Court Room #35, a much smaller one, where the presiding justice, Judge Robert Smith, wanted to go over some points of procedure with the lawyers and Mr. Smith prior to selecting the jury.

Justice Robert Smith seems very kind and good natured, explaining to the self-represented Mr. Smith that, as he (Mr. Smith) is not a lawyer himself, he (Justice Smith) will explain all the procedures to him and his rights in how to represent himself and he (Justice Smith) urged him (Mr Smith) to ask questions if he has any and he (Justice Smith) will be happy to answer them.

Then there was some amicable procedural back and forth between the judge and the two lawyers and things seemed to be going quite well.  For example, Mr. Katz explained that the 10 days set aside for the trial was spread over 3, rather than 2, weeks due to his obligation to observe some religious holidays, and so on.

Procedural stuff!

The judge asked the counsel to prepare a brief 1 to max 2 page summary not of the facts of the case, but of the positions they’ll be arguing them from, for tomorrow morning.

In addition to the Fourniers, Barbara Kulaszka is also representing one of the John Does, (Jason Bertucci, from BC, aka ‘Faramir’ – who will attend the trial next week).  Several of the John Does Mr. Warman was suing had settled out of court and he had not discovered the identity of a few more, so, as per an earlier court order, the proceedings against the  unidentified John Does was vacated.  In case Mr. Warman was to win and damages were to be awarded to him, the terms of the settlements with the John Does would be revealed so as to prevent ‘double dipping’ (my term, not the legal one) of having overlapping (again, my imperfect understanding, not the legal words) damages awarded in both the settlement and the court case.

…haggling over some late-submitted evidence, the essence of which was quite lost on me…relevance – rulings, binding so stuff can be removed from evidence books if deemed irrelevant….procedural stuff!

Once Justice Robert Smith was happy, we went back to Court Room #37 where the criminal case jury selection was just finishing up (under the watchful eye of Justice Patrick Smith).  (It seemed like metal-workers were everywhere today!!!)

As it concluded, we were told that there was to be a brief break – and all the prospective jurors had to file out of the room, back into the cramped holding room off Court Room #37.

Ten or so minutes later, we went back in to do our jury selection – and all the prospective jurors had to file back in.  It was at this time that I observed something peculiar, but very, very human!

Being in a stressful situation, as being in a jury pool, with its inherent loss of control over one’s ‘destiny’ – at least, circumstances in the short term – is much more stressful that one might imagine and which was accentuated by all this ‘group herding’ from one room to the other over and over… but this bonds people together!

And, as the prospective jurors filed in this time around, from the guy carrying his bicycle helmet to the young woman in those ridiculously high heels, these people began to form ‘familiar stranger’ social bonds.  Some sought to sit near the same people as earlier.  Others exchanged smiles and acknowledging nods.  Many began to engage in ‘familiar stranger’ social chatter…

It is exactly this ability of humans to bond under stressful situations, regardless of race or creed, that makes humanity so awesome!

But, I am rambling.  My apologies – I’ll re-focus.

Justice Robert Smith spoke of the supreme importance of jury duty to our system of governance  and I fully approved of all the wonderful, important things he said.

So, the process of jury selection, patiently explained by Justice Robert Smith, was to select 20 potential jurors by drawing their pre-assigned number from a box, which looked a lot like a Bingo drum.  They will come up if their number is called. Then, if any of them had undue hardships, they could tell the judge and he’d excuse them from jury duty.  A gray-haired woman came forward and explained her English was not good enough for her to follow the testimony properly, a young man had been booked to travel on business during trial dates, and so on.  The judge excused them, if their ‘hardship’ were genuine.

The rest of the 20 who were up then stood facing the lawyers  and the self-representing Mr. Smith, one by one, and they (the lawyers and Mr. smith) could either accept them as jury members or reject them.  Each side could reject up to 4 potential jurors, this number being split equally between Ms. Kulaszka and Mr. Smith on the defense side, giving each of them 2 rejections.  Mr. Katz rejected a computer-savvy looking man.  Ms. Kulaszka rejected a nuveau-hippie looking young woman.  That was it.  The next 6 people were sworn (on either the Bible or the Koran) or affirmed in as jurors, the next two as alternates (these were dismissed at the beginning of the trial, when it was apparent that the 6 jurors would indeed be able to serve).

Thus, the jury of 4 men and 2 women was selected!

It was not even noon, and we were free till the body of the trial would start at 2 pm, in Court Room #35.

Perhaps not as exciting a process as the trial itself, but, as I had never seen anything like jury selection before, I found it fascinating.  Hence the recounting thereof…

Promptly, at 2 pm, the Warman vs Free Dominion and John Does jury trial began.

Once the jury was brought in, Justice Smith again spoke to the importance of their role to our society and went on to explain their prospective roles:  his job was to instruct them on what the law is and their job was to listen to the evidence, all of the presented evidence (and no more or less), for themselves, and then draw conclusion on what the facts were and apply the laws, as they are and not necessarily as they think they should be, to these facts and render a decision.  They could take notes, but not take them away with them – and taking notes should not interfere with their paying attention to the testimony.

Justice Smith further instructed the jury as to how things will proceed, how the testimony and cross examination will work, and all that procedural sort of stuff.  He was very good at covering the important points and, if the jurors looked puzzled, he explained closer. Very well done.

Aside:  at some point in the proceedings, the exact moment of which I cannot right now find in my horribly scrawled notes (as I am hurrying to write this all up), Justice Smith announced that any witnesses who are to testify in the case (none for Mr. Warman, though he himself would testify, but as a plaintiff and not a witness and for the Fourniers [who would each also testify, as defendants – not witnesses], there will be four witnesses called:  Tom Kennedy, Paul Fromm, Jerry Neumann and David Icke) are to leave the courtroom and isolate themselves from any testimony before they themselves are called.  (Sorry for the convoluted sentence – it’s a lot of information condensed together, but it is important ‘stuff’.)

All right – if I go into all the details, I will not get this typed up before having to head in again tomorrow morning (I am a slow thinker and an even slower writer).  So, I’ll simply hit the headlines and explain my perceptions of what took place.

Mr. Katz, a most competent lawyer (without whose brilliant work I suspect Mr. Warman’s lawsuit record would be quite dismal – and who is, unfortunately, not sporting that sexy beard of his right now) made his rather brief opening statement.  Quite well, but not as well as I would have expected from his past performances.  (Sad … I love to see a brilliant mind at his best!)

Then, he called Mr. Warman to the stand.

Exciting!!!

But again, the testimony itself was so much lower quality than what I had expected to see that it left me faintly sad…

Mr. Warman, aided adroitly by Mr. Katz, attempted to paint himself as ‘the victim’.  The courageous human rights activist who saw wrongs being done and took up the challenge to try to make the world a better place…and got nothing but grief and abuse as a reward!

At least, that is what, to my eye and ear, he attempted to sound like.  Just a little too hard…

I don’t know if the jury bought it, but, it did not ring true to my proverbial ear.

Why?

Because even when he attempted to cloak it is ‘oh, poor me, I’m doing good and the world is picking on me’ whines, he did make some rather stark factual admissions.

For example, Mr. Warman testified that there was a detestable man in the United States of America by the name of Bill White (if I am not mistaken) who got charged by the FBI for uttering death threats against a whole slew of people – and Richard Warman got himself added to that list, somehow.  It went to trial and, that detestable, horrible person was indeed found guilty of uttering death threats against every single person on that list – EXCEPT against Mr. Warman…

Aside:  if I am not mistaken (and I might be), Mr. Warman appealed this and lost – so not one, but at least two courts found his allegations of ‘death threats’ to be less than ‘provable’.  If any of my readers have more info on this, I would appreciate your ‘hard evidence’ because I am very sketchy on this and would like the legal record to be as correct as possible!  The corollary is: this is my highly imperfect understanding of the testimony Mr. Warman gave, not a statement of fact, and it should not ever be mistaken for one!

This bit is important because one of the defamatory comments Mr. Warman is suing about, from what I understand, is that someone claimed that he (Mr, Warman) had, in the past, made false claims that he got death threats…though, the bulk of his (Mr. Warman’s) testimony today was about ‘all the death threats’ from evil and detestable ‘neo-nazis’ (not even remotely connected to any of the people he is suing here – so I can only guess he’s laying groundwork against the claim of ‘his false claim of death-threats’) that he had, over the years, received…

Ah, what a web we weave…

Another ‘fact’ that Mr. Warman had testified to today was that, while employed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, he was also a complainant who brought cases before the Canadian Human Rights Commission…

Actually, to my untrained mind, Mr. Warman had made himself sound much worse than I suspect the facts of the matter are.  From previous information (which, I suspect, is not available to the jurors), I don’t think there is any evidence that Mr. Warman had himself investigated ‘Section 13’ (the ‘hate-speech’ section) of the Human Rights Code complaints.  Yet, the way he had phrased it on the stand, it would be easy for the jurors to misunderstand his statement to imply that he both brought the complaint to the Human Rights Commission and then investigated it himself….a clear conflict of interest, in my eyes.  A conflict of interest I do not think he is guilty of, but which the jury might misunderstand his words to suggest…

Don’t get me wrong – I am no fan of the past totalitarian actions of Mr. Warman.  But, being an Aspie, I cannot stand it if ‘the rules’ are broken and if ‘the truth’ is not clearly visible – whether that ‘advantage’ is in favour of the team I am ‘cheering for’, or against!!!  Which is why this bothers me so…

I want freedom of speech and freedom of the internet to win – but on the true facts and their merits, not on poorly given testimony which is then misunderstood!!!  That would be a hollow victory!

OK, that is my OCD speaking… sorry, I’ll move on…

Another fact Mr. Warman had testified to was that, while an employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, he had brought complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission which were investigated by it,then referred to its ‘Tribunall’  – which then awarded him tens of thousands of dollars in ‘damages’…while he was also drawing a salary from the CHRC.  Again, I can not read the minds of the inscrutable jury, but, my to mind (rightly or wrongly) this screamed ‘double dipping’ and ‘corruption’!  Yet, when Mr. Warman testified to it, he tried to make it seem like a good thing.  And, again, I cannot but suspect the appearance Mr. Warman’s testimony created was much worse than the truth of the matter…

Indeed – everything Mr. Warman testified to was couched in the ‘I am a victim – neo-Nazi’s are trying to kill me’ language.  But, the facts he himself put into evidence…to my layman’s mind, they were seriously damaging to his cause, his credibility – and in my highly imperfect comprehension, the way he had painted himself – his very own words on the stand today – were way more damaging to his reputation that anything I have, over the years, read on the internet.  Much worse than what I suspect is the actual truth of the things he had so clumsily testified to today…

It remains to be seen if the jury parsed his testimony the same way I did – most unlikely, as I am much more familiar with the background material so some things that were casually ‘slipped in’ practically ‘screamed’ at me…plus I have a very Aspie mind, and thus are much more sensitive to perceiving even camouflaged injustices/misrepresentations than the average person might be.

One final point:  during some bit where Mr. Warman was explaining just how damaging to his reputation, both as a lawyer and as a person, the posts at Free Dominion were, he flatly said (and I may be paraphrasing slightly, as I am working from notes, but not in the substance of the statement):  they might as well have said I cut heads off of babies!!!

Several jury members visibly cringed at this simile.

I have no idea if this means they had empathy with him for such damaging statements on ‘that accursed website’ or if they thought he was over-exaggerating and thus losing credibility with them…

Only time will tell!

Posted in corruption, freedoms, politics, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 8 Comments »

Free Dominion is going to hold a funraising BBQ in Ottawa

June 13, 2013 — xanthippa

UPDATE:  Please note that the date has been changed to July 21st, 2013  To make sure everyone gets this change, I’ll leave this post ‘stuck’ at the top for a few days.

UPDATE:  If all goes according to plan, yours truly will say a few words at the event!

Date:  Saturday, July 13, 2013  Sunday, July 21, 2013

Time:  6:00-11:00 pm

Where:  3500 Fallowfield Rd., Unit #3

This fundraiser is being held to help Connie and Mark Fournier of Free Dominion pay the costs associated with their upcoming trial in September which will define boundaries of freedom of speech on the internet for Canadians.  An important battle, if there ever was one!

For tickets and more information, please click here.

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

Patent-troll Alcatel Gets a Legal Spanking

May 16, 2013 — xanthippa

Oh, this is music to my ears!

“There’s good news and there’s bad news,” said Cheng in an interview with Ars. “The good news is, we won this case on every point. The bad news is, we’re running out of lawsuits. There are fewer trolls for us to fight. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last seven years figuring out what to do with these guys. There are strategies I think would be really neat and effective that I literally can’t execute. I can’t make good law because I don’t have any appellate cases left. They [the trolls] are dismissing cases against us before any dispositive motions.”

Newegg Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng
Newegg

Newegg has already won two other patent appeals this year from Kelora Systems and Soverain Software. Even though Alcatel-Lucent has billions in revenue from real businesses, when it comes to patent battles Cheng doesn’t see them as being so different. Since Alcatel is asserting patents in markets it’s nowhere near actually participating in he sees them as a kind of “corporate troll.”

I’m celebrating by heading over to Newegg and buying something!

Posted in society, technology. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »

Reason TV: How Patent Trolls Kill Innovation

February 20, 2013 — xanthippa
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January 18th is ‘Freedom of the Internet’ day: remember Aaron Swartz

January 18, 2013 — xanthippa

Unless you are plugged in to the ‘geek’ community, chances are you have never heard of the brilliant Aaron Swartz, his activism or how he was hounded to death by malicious US prosecutors who wielded the power of the broken US justice system as a club.

I have been racking my brains for days how to write this story, because it is an important one and it needs to get out.  But, I also wanted to make sure that I connected all the dots that, in my never-humble-opinion, need connecting.  I still don’t know how…so I’ll take the brutally honest approach, simply sketching out the ‘skeleton’ and then supplying the links to flesh it out, because otherwise, this post would be a book, not a post…

1.

When you ‘steal’ something, you deprive its rightful owner of its use.  As in, if someone steals your car, you can no longer use it for transportation.  But, if you make a copy of something, you are not depriving anyone else of the use of the original.  Sure, you may potentially limit their ability to monetize it in the future and laws covering that may be necessary.  But, it is not the same action and must not be treated as equivalent.

2.

In the past, the way a person monetized their ideas was by charging for the ‘vessels’ or ‘containers’ which were the only means of distributing the ideas themselves.  As in, a person would not be paying for the ideas themselves but for purchasing the book in which these ideas were contained. In the digital world, this system is not functional and it is unreasonable to attempt to cripple the internet in order to superimpose the outdated means of monetizing ideas onto it.

3.

It is my philosophical position that ideas are not ‘owned’ by anyone – that their existence is independent of us and that to ascribe ‘ownership’ to them in any manner is immoral.  As such, I think that all – yes, all – copyright and the very concept of ‘intellectual property’ are fundamentally wrong and any laws on this very subject are immoral and must be fought against.  Yes, I suspect I am more extreme in my position on this than most people and am rather in line with the ideas of the Church of Kopymism.

Aside:  Not finding what religions are ‘officially recognized as religions’ in Canada on our government’s website, I’ve called around to the relevant government departments and talked to many of the civil servants in the ‘appropriate’ departments.  I know they were the ‘appropriate’ departments because the other civil servants bounced me there…  And, the most informed civil servants on this issue have told me that the Canadian Government does not itself ‘officially recognize’ individual religions:  rather, if something is officially recognized as a religion anywhere on Earth, it is automatically recognized as a religion in Canada.  That means that since Sweden has recognized ‘The Church of Kopymism’ as an official religion, it is legally recognized as a religion in Canada.  This means, of course, in no uncertain terms, that all Canadian laws that restrict the free sharing of information are in direct conflict with our freedom of religion laws.

Why?

This position may seem extreme, but it has taken me many years and much thinking to arrive at it…and the ‘why’ is, perhaps, the most important reason for me taking such an extreme position…

So – why?!?!?

Because it is precisely by the use of laws – any laws – which assign ‘ownership’ to ideas, by enacting and then protecting these laws that our freedom of speech will be limited in the age where most of our communications are internet-enabled.

Please, think about it – I will not go further into this because I consider it self-evident.

In other words, I consider freedom of speech to be a necessary pre-condition (not the only pre-condition, but an essential one) for a free society.

Societies are built through communication.

The most powerful tool of communication ever build is the internet.

Therefore, communication over the internet MUST be free.

It is a pre-condition for us to live is a free society.

Which brings me back to Aaron Swartz.

I think that most people truly and honestly do not understand the salient point he was attempting to make…

Please, bear with me because I think this is very important.

Older scientific papers were in the public domain:  that means that the information they contained was ‘public’ and no longer copyrighted.  Spreading the information contained in these articles was 100% legal.

The problem was that this information was contained in physical journals – the ‘vessels’ I ranted on above.  So, a company decided to digitize them.  Perfectly legal.  They digitized them, housed them on their servers and made them searchable, so that the information contained therein would be easily accessible.  All this work of digitizing and storing and managing the ‘free information’ costs money – and so that company charged money to access their database of this ‘free information’.

They charged different organizations different amounts:  so, an educational institution in Africa would have free access while universities and colleges in richer countries would have to pay. But, once the college or university paid the fee, all its students and staff would automatically be lawfully allowed to access this information for free.

Aaron Swartz was one such person:  he had full free access to all these articles, because he was affiliated with an educational institution that subscribed to this database.  So, he had full, lawful access to this database and all the information in it.

So, he accessed it.

But NOT through the ‘regular’ path.

Instead, he went to a different educational institution, one which also had prepaid access to this database, and downloaded the articles through them.

Consider the implications:  a person who has legal access to public domain information downloaded it through an organization that had legal access to this public domain information – he just did not do it through the organization he belonged to.  (Important point – once an organization paid for access, they no longer had to pay ‘per article’ – so nobody was monetarily disadvantaged by this action.)

This, apparently, is a crime so severe, the prosecutors were seeking to put him in jail for 35 years!!!

This is not a joke!

The company that had digitized the information and from whom Aaron Swartz downloaded it did not want to press charges:  they may have been annoyed, but they did not think any crime had occurred.

Yet, this apparently merited longer jail sentence than rape, murder and terrorism would have earned him.

And people wonder why hactivists are trying to bring attention to just how misguided our laws are?!?!?

Also, if you take the time to read the links below, note not just what is being reported, but how…

OK – that was the ‘skeleton:  here are links to some of the articles about Aaron Swartz.

Federal justice and Aaron Swartz’s death

Aaron Swartz: Idealist, Innovator—And Now Victim

Was Aaron Swartz stealing?

Aaron Swartz’s reckless activism

I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for

Law Professor James Grimmelmann Explains How He Probably Violated The Same Laws As Aaron Swartz

There’s more, much more….

So, today, on what OpenMedia terms ‘Freedom of the Internet’ day, please, do take a moment and think about it all..

UPDATE:  US Senator Cornyn Questions Holder Over Death of Reddit Co-Founder Aaron Swartz

 

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