UPDATE: YouTube has removed this video due to a copyright complaint – even though under the ‘satire’ clause, this is a fully legitimate use of the material, as has been confirmed by Latma TV’s (the authors) copyright lawyers.
Via Jawa Report, here is the video from Dailymotion:
Via TRF:
Aside from the Mother Theresa bit, I think this about sums it up for the Gaza Flotilla: sending in used shoes and expired medicine…. some help these ‘peace activists’ are!
Just like BCF says:
Geert Wilders Needs Our Help Urgently
With four weeks to go before the general elections in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom are now engaged in a life-and-death struggle against the forces of jihad. In the last couple of years Geert Wilders has emerged as the international symbol of the struggle against Islam.
The Party for Freedom (PVV) refuses government subsidy in order to remain independent. All other Dutch parties receive government money. Therefore, the PVV is facing a serious challenge in order to survive this election season. Dutch state television is engaged in a massive campaign to smear the PVV.
The Party for Freedom needs your help urgently. Every donation is welcome.
There is a Paypal button on the English-language site: www.geertwilders.nl
…
ING bank account of the Stichting Vrienden van de PVV in The Hague: 67.04.72.344(IBAN: NL98 INGB 0670 4723 44, BIC: INGBNL2A)
Postal address:
Postbus 20018
2500 EA Den HaagThere is a Paypal button on the English-language site: www.geertwilders.nl
Please, don’t get me wrong: I hate the burka.
In my never-humble-opinion, wearing a burka (or niqab) is immoral.
So, I resent having to write in the defense of the burka!
…because, nothing, not even the burka or niqab, grant any government the power to legislate a citizen’s choices in clothing.
The government does not – and must not – have the right to tell me how to dress. What to wear or what not to wear. EVER!!!
‘Governments’ simply lack the authority to a law that determines how I choose to dress.
However…
This does not mean that governments do not have the right to enforce a dress code in public buildings/parks/vehicles etc.
As in, if you enter a public building – for whatever reason – the government which administers it has the right to demand that you wear shoes (that is a safety/liability issue – stepping on stuff can harm an unprotected foot), and so on. In the same way, the government has the right to demand that every person entering a public building or park (anything administered by that level of government) must not cover their face.
Therefore, schools, libraries, public transit, hospitals, government offices – well, all the ‘public spaces’ – are areas where the government has the authority to pass a law that people must show their faces. Fully.
That IS within the government’s jurisdiction to pass laws about.
And yes, governments SHOULD pass these laws!!!
Leaving all the ‘obvious’ reasons aside (many people have made these arguments very eloquently already), another very valid argument could be made that it is absolutely necessary that a person’s mouth be fully visible while in public buildings: obscuring one’s mouth is discriminatory.
Our laws , our very constitutions, forbid discrimination on he grounds of disability. Governments naturally hire people based on their skills, regardless of any potential disabilities – like, say, being hearing impaired…. Whether accessing or providing a government service, lipreading is an accepted means of communicating and much more common than most people realize. Many of us even do it without realizing it!
Obscuring one’s lips behind a veil thus discriminates against people who are hearing impaired and rely fully or partially on lipreading to communicate. This is an important issue: a constitutional matter! Perhaps this argument appears disproportional, but, please, take a moment to think about it. It is a valid point.
And, for a society which prides itself on being inclusive and does not discriminate against people with physical disabilities, this is a big deal.
Of course, all private places of business also have the right to enforce dress codes for people who enter their premises. That is fully accepted in our society, and must remain so. It is best captured by the signs: “No shoes, no shirt, no service.”
Perhaps the new ones will read: “No shoes, no shirt, no face, no entry!”
And that would be good.
It not only ‘would be good’, in my never-humble-opinion, it is necessary.
It also seems to me that our existing laws already cover this issue (no pun intended).
Private places of commerce have the right to enforce dress codes. They are free to ban ‘face coverings’ – and must remain free to do so.
Public places are also governed by rules which can be interpreted as forbidding ‘face coverings’: on the grounds that covering one’s mouth discriminates against people who are hearing impaired. This is not permitted in public places. Therefore, no burka, no niqab.
We even have a law (at least in Ontario) which says that a driver’s face must be fully visible and recognizable from outside the vehicle: that is why the front windows in a car are not permitted to have a dark tint. Wearing a veil of any type which is not transparent and obscures a driver’s face, or any other thing which prevents the driver’s face to be fully visible from outside the vehicle is, therefore, already illegal!
No new law needed!
It is not a good idea to have more laws than absolutely necessary. Passing multiple laws to govern one thing is misguided and dangerous.
To sum it up:
Perhaps I’ve missed a few specific instances, I’ll grant that. BUT – they would still be ‘specific instances’! It is wrong to pass a blanket law which bans the burka.
Permitting the government the exercise any authority to legislate how people dress is as frightening as it is ludicrous!
Who’d enforce these laws?
The ‘Fashion Police’?
OK – I don’t understand how ANYONE would think this is a ‘good idea’!
IBM has now created a machine which can detect ‘pre-crime’ – by measuring a person’s brain waves.
It sounds like a bad science fiction flick, or a particularly stupid April fool’s joke – and I wish it were! Alas, it appears to be ‘real’…
From GIZMODO:
IBM clearly wants this to go big. They have spent a whooping $12 billion beefing up its analytics division. Again, here’s the full quote from Deepak Advani [emphasis added]:
Predictive analytics gives government organizations worldwide a highly-sophisticated and intelligent source to create safer communities by identifying, predicting, responding to and preventing criminal activities. It gives the criminal justice system the ability to draw upon the wealth of data available to detect patterns, make reliable projections and then take the appropriate action in real time to combat crime and protect citizens.
IBM says that the Ministry of Justice in the United Kingdom—which has an impeccable record on not pre-judging its citizens—already uses this system to prevent criminal activities.
This turns our society upside down!
Our ‘Western’ society was built on the very principle all rights and freedoms are inherent in each individual: we broke free of the shackles of state and religion which claimed to ‘own’ its populations, where the only rights people had were those that State and Temple permitted them!
To make sure we were never enslaved again – to prevent the Government from choosing who has he right to exercise which freedoms and when….and who does not….we have built in mechanisms into our Constitutions, from Magna Carta on down, that limit the power of the government.
Yes – the whole point of our ‘Western’ constitutions is to protect us, the individual citizens, from the government.
From the government telling us what to do, what to believe, how to live and worship….
Yet here, the Florida government plans (and, apparently, the UK government already does – King John must be ROFL in his grave) have announced their plans to invade the thoughts of youth offenders, and set then jail based on their thought patterns!!!
And if you have any illusions that re-education camps are not prisons, ask Solzhenitsyn: he spent decades in a government-run re-education camp! Yes, in socialist Soviet Union, a person who was picked up for ‘being intoxicated in public’ was indeed sent – for his or her own good – into state-run re-education camps in Siberia… And the Soviet Union was not alone in their belief that government could ‘re-educate’ people in order to help them better fit into the society they had engineered…
I can’t believe this is actually happening!
And if you think that re-education camps in the US are being planned are being planned only for youth offenders – think again. Voices are speaking up about ‘re-education camps’ being planned for ALL they youth in the US, under the guise of ‘volunteerism’ (which, happens to pay a salary).
Yes. (When I was young, I had to join the young pioneers – prove I was ‘officially registered’ and was continuously ‘earning achievement stamps’ in my ‘pioneer passport….oh, the headaches I used to get!)
When things got too oppressive in Europe, people escaped to North America to win back their freedom. Which leaves me with the question: where do we run to now?
Thursday, 8th of April, 2010, the Superior Court of Ontario held an appeal hearing of the ‘Richard Warman vs. Connie Fournier, Mark Fournier and John Does’, often also referred to as the ‘Richard Warman vs. Free Dominion’ case and the ‘Richard Warman vs. internet privacy’ case.
But, let me start at the beginning. Let me stress that I have absolutely no legal training, so these are my personal observations and should in no way be considered to be anything other than those of a regular person trying to make sense of this case and its implications on our daily lives.
First, the facts:
The case was appealed. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic requested and were granted intervenor status.
So much for the ‘dry facts’!
More of what I have said about this hearing is listed on this page.
They narrative of my observations of this event started out in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner: fully aware of the importance of this case, this was my way of relieving some of the tension. However, now that I will be describing the proceedings themselves, my reporting will be as accurate as possible. Connie Fournier’s observations of these same proceedings can be found here and here.
When I last left off, the 3 judges had entered the courtroom, dispensed with another matter and invited all the lawyers present – for both sides in the action as well as the two intervening parties.
Describing positions as seen from the spectator benches in the courtroom, the introductions began on the right:
On behalf of the intervenor Canadian Civil Liberties (CCLA), there were
Representing the appellants, Connie and Mark Fournier, there was
On behalf of the intervenor Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), there was
On behalf of the complainant, Richard Warman, there were
Very interesting group of people!
The judges did not introduce themselves. However, these are their names (again, the order is from right to left, as observed if one had their back against the ‘main’ door):
I do not know the name of the Clerk of the Court or the Bailiff.
As I said in my earlier post, the spectators included David Fewer, as well as Connie Fournier, Mark Fournier, Guy Poirier, a young woman whom I presume to have been an aid to the Katz/Lewis team, an unidentified blond woman in a gray pantsuit and myself.
Surprisingly enough, these were all the people there!
When my narrative last left off, I had finally arrived!
(Connie Fournier’s excellent report is here and here.)
It seemed like a miracle, but, despite my bumbling and probably due to more luck than skill, I had found Courtroom #36 where the hearing of the appeal of the Richard Warman vs. the Free Dominion folks, Connie and Mark Fournier and their users, was being held. There were none of the throngs of reporters I had expected – perhaps their quest in finding this well-concealed hearing was less successful than mine.
After exchanging greetings with Mark and Connie, as well as Guy Piorier (a blog reader who also came to lend his support to the Fourniers), it was time to get oriented a little.
I was there in time – he courtroom was still locked! The hearing had been scheduled for 10:00 o’clock. So far, so good.
So, how much time was there before things got going? A quick glance at the clock just to the left of the courtroom door said it was…. 10:34.
10:34?!?!?
Ah – it was showing ‘real time’! Not the ‘we-stole-an-hour-from-you-and-you-can’t-do-anything-about-it’ time! OK – let’s get that adrenalin back under control….
10:45 – as the clock read: a huddle of black robes just outside the courtroom door. Yup – the door is still locked.
The air is positively crackling with anxious anticipation!
10:50 – as the clock read: doors opened and the lawyers – plus whom I presume to have been a support person to one of their ‘groups’ – and all the waiting spectators enter Courtroom #36.
Stepping into the courtroom was like taking a step backwards in time. By about an hour. The clock inside was set to the Daylight Savings Time.
OK – I am new at this ‘on the grounds, reporting’ thing, but, I seem to recollect that I am to give as many facts as I will have managed to collect. Here, then, is the full and complete list of spectators who entered the courtroom: Mark Fournier, Connie Fournier, Guy Poirier, David Fewer and, well, yours truly. Yes. That is it. In total.
Instead of fighting for a seat with throngs of other spectators, as was my fear, I now had a different dilemma with respect to finding a seat. Do I sit on the bride’s side, or the groom’s side?
Is referring to the sides as ‘bride’s’ and ‘groom’s’ disrespectful to the court?
That box in the middle – that is ‘the prisoners’ box’ and, apparently, it is disrespectful to refer to it as ‘the penalty box’. I know, because I asked.
Things did work themselves out. There were 3 sections of seats: one on each side and one in the middle, right behind the prisoners’ box. Mr. Fewer took a seat on the left (all the ‘side’ references I’ll make are as if you were to stand with the ‘main’ door immediately behind your back), towards the front. The young woman whom I presume to have been a support person to the ‘Warman’ lawyers sat a few rows behind him.
I followed Connie and Mark towards the front right, where we shared a row, while Mr. Poirier sat right behind us.
The lawyers resolved themselves into seats at a long table immediately in front of the prisoners’ box, with their backs to us, spectators. Their 6 chairs were facing forward, divided in the middle by a lectern they would speak from when making their submissions to the court (I think that is the proper term – if not, please excuse me….the sum of my ‘legal experience’ is watching ‘Jurisprudence’ on TV, so these are all strictly the observations of a legal amateur).
Immediately in front of the lawyers’ table, and slightly raised, was the Clerk’s table – he sat facing us. At the left side of the Clerk’s table sat another person.
10:02:10 – a deep hush descended on the courtroom. The atmosphere was so thick, you could not just ‘cut it with a knife’ – you could chip at it with an ice-pick! The only thing we could hear was the distant heartbeat of high-heeled pumps, drumming purposefully through the corridors of justice…
10:05:15 – another spectator wafted in. A young blond woman in a gray pantsuit, high-heeled pumps and a perplexing demeanour. She sat in the very middle of the ‘spectator area’, which took up roughly 2/3 of the area of the room.
I called her demeanour perplexing, and, to me, it was. It was not so much what she did – but how she did it. She sat there. Very, very deliberately, she avoided all eye-contact, looking either directly ahead or at her very nice shoes. If my shoes were that nice, I’d probably spend considerable time looking at them, too – but she did not look like she had the industrial dose of OCD that I do, so that is probably not saying much.
Perhaps she had a tooth-ache. She would come in at the last moment, then rush off, at the start of each break, so nobody could say hi to her (I would have liked to have). But, I am getting ahead of myself!
10:05:45 – announced and ushered in by the bailiff (who looked nothing like Bull Shannon), the 3 judges who would be hearing this appeal entered the courtroom.
They did look very official (in a good way). They wore black lawyers’ robes, but with a crisp, bright red sashes t top the off.
Upon taking their seats, the judge in the centre went over some correspondence from an appellant from a case that was put before the Fournier one, but where the appellant had mistakenly showed up the day before the proper date (perhaps the appellant got help form the information kiosk), so they agreed to hold that hearing over till the 10th of October, 2010.
At this point, the person sitting at the side of the Clerk’s table was excused.
Next, the judges invited everyone to introduce themselves….but, that shall be then next instalment in my report. And, as the real, serious stuff is about to start, I’ll try to minimize injecting humour to relieve the tension of this truly important legal event.
With Connie’s permission, here is how she saw, heard and understood the hearings of the ‘Warman vs FD John Doe Appeal’, as transcribed from her notes and posted here, on Free Dominion.
Part 1 is here. This is part 2.
The next person up was Tamir Israel representing the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC). He is a soft-spoken and intelligent young man and he, too, had a firm grasp on the issues at stake here.
He started by saying that the position of the CIPPIC was that anonymity should not be an absolute shield. (We agree with all of our intervenors in that regard, btw).
Tamir said that privacy, through the lens of anonymity, should be protected. He said that the online sphere has unique issues which force privacy issues to the forefront that weren’t visible before. He continued saying that the problem with the online sphere is that activities that used to take place in a more private setting are now occurring in a semi-private setting online. He said privacy is control over your personal information, and that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Tamir went on to say that anonymity is important for allowing people to do things they once did in private, like having conversations with friends, political speech etc., in a semi-private sphere.
Tamir hit a huge bullseye when he said that, in criminal cases, a warrant is required in order to get personal information, and that the warrant was only issued if there was reason to believe the person was guilty. He also said that information about anonymous posters reveal much more than identity.
One of the judges quickly jumped on this and agreed that there was a parallel between discovery in civil matters and a search warrant in criminal cases.
Tamir said that the position of the CIPPIC was that an intermediary must be convinced that there is wrongdoing. He said it is inherent in the adoption of an alias that there is an expectation of privacy. (Another bullseye!!)
Tamir said that Terms of Service on a website were insufficient to use as evidence that there was no expectation of privacy because the adoption of an alias shows otherwise.
* * *
Next, Tamir talked a bit about the process that the CIPPIC would recommend as a test in these cases.
As far as procedural steps go, if the intermediary is a Party in the action, they should disclose the existence of the information on the John Does. The plaintiff should take steps to try to identify them on his own.
There could be a Counsel for the John Doe if they do not wish to come forward (this, I think, would come out of the balancing that was discussed before). If the standard was a prima facie case, the Court could rule out Does whose comments did not meet defamation standards.
Tamir noted that if a John Doe was outed for the purposes of a defamation suit, the case went to Court and the plaintiff lost, the damage would already be done to the John Doe. He suggested that three things should be considered:
– the strength of the claim
– the gravity of the defamation
– the breadth of the readership
He said that identity is not relevant to assessment of whether or not a comment is defamatory.
Tamir said that an intermediary should use readily available tools to notify the Does that they are being targeted with a lawsuit. Possible tools would be private messages or emails, and that a 20 day limit should be set for this notification.
Tamir stated clearly that the identification between a screen name and a real name is the link that the privacy refers to. It is the context in which they are being disclosed that makes the name private. He stressed that there is an expectation of privacy between a name and a username.
* * *
Tamir Israel was finished his submissions, and it was on to James Katz representing Richard Warman.
Katz seemed pretty relaxed and ready for his turn as we waited for the judges to return.
Katz started out by saying that he disagrees with the use of the BMG case and the Irwin Toy case as examples in this case because they applied to third parties (ie the people with the information were not being sued).
Immediately, a judge asked him about the case that Wendy made about the potential for abuse where a plaintiff would simply sue the information holder, too, to get around having the prove a prima facie case. Another judge asked why there should be a test in cases where the information comes from third parties, but not when the information holder is a party in the case. They asked him if he saw a distinction in principle that would justify the different standards.
Katz said that he didn’t see a distinction in principle.
At this point, Katz started talking about how what Warman was requesting was a different KIND of information. I, honestly, wasn’t really sure what he was trying to say, and I don’t really think the judges were either because they looked a bit puzzled.
One distinction that Katz was making was that an IP address, by itself, would not lead directly to the Does, and that a prima facie case would be required at the next level when they wanted subscriber information from the internet service providers.
A judge said, “Your argument turns on the Court being satisfied that individuals cannot be identified directly by this information.”
Katz replied that the “nature” of Free Dominion makes him believe that the emails wouldn’t identify them because they want to hide behind these identities and they would be “pretty good at covering their tracks”.
* * *
I forgot to mention that Katz started his statement by reading a list of names Warman was called by our members. “Thug, Nazi, brownshirt…”, and some that are too awful to even mention.
* * *
Katz cited a case called Caro Energy Limited. He said that an IP address is a tool that can be used by a third party to identify a computer. A judge jumped in to say that nobody was arguing that this information was relevant.
Another judge, again, brought up the point that email addresses could result in directly identifying Does. Katz said that Warman would prove a prima facie case for the third parties in regard to the IP addresses. He says that the rules for Simplified Procedure state that info that is not privileged should be produced and that Judge Kershman looked at privacy considerations when he made his ruling on the motion. Katz cited the Wilson case that said there was no expectation of privacy with an IP address. A judge said that, in the Wilson case, the Does consented to the release of their information and that our John Does chose to be anonymous.
At this point, Katz brought out the FD user agreement and read the part that states that if you break the law we won’t protect you and you are on your own. I guess because it hasn’t been proven that any of the Does have broken the law, this line of thought didn’t really go anywhere and it was dropped quite quickly.
A judge asked Katz if the motions judge erred in saying that relevance and privilege are all that is important in deciding if information should be disclosed.
Another judge quoted Kershman where he talks about Irwin Toy in his ruling. The judge asks Katz, “Isn’t that a rejection of the privacy issue?”
A different judge said that the Kershman ruling appears to be a conclusion of law, and that his decision regarding privacy did not seem to be related to specific evidence before him.
A judge remarks that Kershman appears to have based his decision on Wilson because it was more current.
When asked by a judge if he felt that Kershman had made an error in law, Katz said he didn’t think so.
Katz concluded his submissions by stating that Warman would be willing to attempt to meet a test if the judges rule that a test needs to be met. He said Warman is very serious about protecting his reputation.
* * *
After Katz finished his submissions, the judges gave our side the chance to respond.
Tamir Israel kicked it off by saying that PIPEDA rules say that IP addresses ARE identifiers and need to be protected as such. He used the example of a social insurance number. The number itself can’t lead you directly to a person, but, using that number, you can get all kinds of information about the person.
He reiterated that a prima facie case can be made without knowing the identity of the Doe. Issues such as malice would not been to be proven at this stage.
Tamir finished by arguing for a prima facie case to be the standard with a balancing of interests afterward.
Wendy then took to the podium again and talked about Section 8 rights. She said there had to be a consideration of the totality of the situation, and she pointed out that there was consent from the Does in Wilson, it didn’t really relate to our case. Wendy said that it is important to remember that a test must be applied to make sure privacy issues are considered. She said that a fair reading of the decision in our motion shows he felt the Simplified Procedure rules were absolute and that there was no affirmation of freedom of expression as a Charter Right. She continued, pointing out that, on BMG, Kershman simply said that the rules were different for third parties.
Finally, Wendy read from the Kershman ruling where he said that the plaintiff is an anti-hate speech advocate, and defendants whose “website is so controversial that it is blocked to employees of the Ontario Public Service.” Wendy said that Kershman is being disapproving of the speech on FD. She said that he is saying that this is controversial speech, so that is a reason to reject…REJECT the Charter issues. She finished up by saying that if Kershman did consider it, he was wrong in law.
Barbara chose to let Wendy’s powerful last words wrap up our case for us, so we were done.
At this point, the judges asked us to stick around for 15 minutes because they wanted to talk and then come back and maybe ask some questions.
* * *
After the recess, the judges came back and they had two questions. They wanted the parties to agree on costs, and it was agreed that the losing Party would pay $10,000 to the winner.
Then, they asked an interesting question.
The judges wanted to know, because there is a prima facie test when someone requests information from a third party, how you would prevent duplication if you added another test at the “lower level”. (For example, if they had to pass a test to get the IPs from us, then had to pass it again to get the subscriber information for those IPs from Bell).
Wendy said that it is wrong to assume that there would always be a second step. After the first step, the John Does could be identified though their emails. She said that if there was another application for information, if there is consistency in law, they could simply pull up the first motion and make a few changes and submit it again for the new information. The costs would be minimal. She also noted that ISPs don’t usually oppose motions for information if they meet the BMG test. In any case, Wendy said, the cost is small compared to the rights at stake.
Tamir got up to say, also, that the Court can incorporate the need for ISPs to disclose subscriber information into the first order so that the same order can be used at both levels.
With that, we were done!
This is it – in Connie’s own words!
While many of my observations were similar, there were several points I saw/heard/understood quite differently. I apologize for how long it is taking me to write up my take on this, but, I am a slow thinker, slow writer and it is taking me forever to decipher my handwriting in the 48 pages of notes I took. So, please, bear with me – my version of the event is coming ‘soon’!
In Canada, we have freedom of speech!
At least, that is what our Constitution says….though many bureaucrats, apartchiks and pseudo-activists would like us to believe otherwise. Don’t let them fool you!
…because each and every one of us has ‘the right to BE OFFENDED’ !!!
Why?
‘Being offended’ is a very human, emotional, natural reaction!
Nobody, truly nobody, has the right to dictate to you what you may – or may not – be offended by!
However, if we permit the government to silence speech that ‘offends’ some people, it paves the road for the government to not only regulate speech, but to also dictate what we MAY – or MAY NOT – be offended by!
Yes – if we permit the government to ban speech which ‘offends’ – or, as the abominable Section 13 puts it, ‘IS LIKELY TO OFFEND’ – we are, in a very real sense, permitting the government to regulate both our speech and our emotional reactions to ‘stuff’!
Think about it – it is the logical extension: if the government regulates speech and ‘protects’ you from anything ‘bad’ which ‘might be likely to’ generate negative feelings of any kind – then you no longer have the right to ‘be offended’ by this ‘sanitized’ speech…. After all, it has been ‘filtered’ in the most rigorous manner to remove all ‘offensive’ things – so, if it is spoken, it cannot possibly cause you to react in a negative manner, to cause negative feelings in you!
If the message is ‘fine’ (approved), and you still react negatively to it, feel bad or – get offended by it – the there has GOT to be something wrong with YOU!
….nothing a re-education camp ‘sensitivity training’ could not fix!
All ‘pubic entertainment’ – as well as ‘political discourse’ – might just be limited to ‘acts’ like this:
P.S. – This is NOT a diss at the Arrogant Worms – they have enough ‘bits’ that would also be banned. This one simply demonstrates ‘the limits’ of my point…
On April 8, 2010 in Ottawa a Divisional Court Justice will hear an appeal of a disclosure ruling in the Richard Warman vs The Fourniers and John Does 1-8.civil case. At issue is whether the Fourniers, operators of the Free Dominion website, should be compelled to disclose confidential information about the website’s members to the plaintiff, Richard Warman. Last year Superior Court Justice Stanly Kershman ruled for the plaitiff in a motion he brought forth seeking information he hopes to use to identify the John Does who posted anonymously in Free Dominion’s political discussion forum. Four of the eight John Does have already been identified by the plaintiff and have been added to the underlying defamation suit brought forth by Warman.
The defamation case itself will by necessity bring forth a number of public interest issues such as freedom of speech, political commentary and opinion but it will also venture into several areas where our laws are outdated by internet communications. The internet has given us a means to communicate that was inconceivable when our current defamation laws were written and those laws are now in need of legislative upgrades. Until those legal updates are made though we will have to fight for our internet anonymity and personal privacy in the courts.
This appeal of the disclosure ruling of Kershman is more important than the case from which it grew. There are now privacy issues at stake that didn’t previously exist. Outing someone’s internet alias can have far-reaching effects that should not be on the table in a minor civil squabble. Because of the serious privacy issues surrounding this appeal of Kershman’s disclosure ruling, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic will be intervening. This is good news for those on the freedom side of the debate.
Nothing will bring justice in our courts and action in our parliament like public interest and participation in these cases. If you are near Ottawa and can get the time to go to the courthouse on Elgin Street please do so on April 8, 2010. This is an important battle in the ongoing contest to protect our freedom and it should be witnessed by the public.
See you there!
Apparently, the time has not yet been set – but the Fourniers will be at the Courthouse by 9 am.
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 