The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change....
By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world's future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind. Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man's control.
Congrats! This was well-deserved.
Meanwhile, there's some curiously-timed news kicking about that some judge cited nine errors with Al Gore's inconvenient truth.
The judge did not find that there were nine errors!
The judge identified nine issues raised by a plaintiff, who was trying to prevent the documentary from being shown in schools.
Wayne Crookes' lawsuit against Yahoo has been dismissed. You may recall that I am a defendant in one of his cases.
Michael Geist covered it the other day, and now CBC has it up on their website.
I have the actual ruling.
Now, Crookes has many lawsuits out there, and this is just a section of one of them, albeit one of the more significant.
What the judge found, in granting a motion by Yahoo, was that there was no evidence that a third party in BC actually saw any of the material Crookes claims to be libelous. In making this positive ruling, the judge recognized that the Yahoo group in question (GPC-Members) was a closed, private group, the contents of which are not visible to non-members. As such, without evidence that a BC-based subscriber read the material, Crookes had no case to bring the suit in BC.
What else I found interesting was something else the judge had to say, in section 16. You'll need to read some sections beforehand to get the gist:
[12] On August 4, 2006, Mr. Crookes emailed Yahoo about three postings on the GPC-Members website that defamed him and demanded that Yahoo remove these postings. That same day, following an exchange of emails and Mr. Crookes providing Yahoo with the necessary, detailed information required by Yahoo to deal with Mr. Crookes' concerns, a copy of the full headers and the message, Yahoo removed the postings. Yahoo asked Mr. Crookes to notify it of any further questionable content he found in Yahoo! Groups. Mr. Crookes was satisfied with Yahoo's prompt response and thanked Yahoo for its assistance.
[13] The statement of claim alleges that later in August 2006 the impugned postings were reposted with other allegedly defamatory material. Instead of following his previously successful method of complaint by email, Mr. Crookes claims that on December 8, 2006, he had his lawyer send a "legal letter" by fax and courier addressed to "Sir/Madam" at Yahoo! Inc. Mr. Crookes' counsel complained that Mr. Crookes "has not received your ongoing diligence in making certain that this website does not either repost the libellous comments or post equally venomous remarks". Mr. Crookes' counsel requested Yahoo "shut down this site and in its place, post an apology for the libellous comments made about him, which the moderators have, to date either reposted, ignored, and sometimes even republished with commentary". The letter did not provide the information that Yahoo had previously told Mr. Crookes it needed in order to take steps to deal with questionable material; that is, a copy of the full headers and the impugned messages.
[14] A receipt of confirmation was requested in the letter. There was no receipt of confirmation. No effort was made by Mr. Crookes or his lawyer to ascertain if Yahoo received the letter.
[15] Yahoo claims it has been unable to locate this letter in its correspondence records. In addition, no effort was made to ascertain the appropriate individual, or even the appropriate department, who should receive such a letter. No effort was made to correspond with Yahoo by email, as Mr. Crookes had done, successfully, in the past. Instead of following up with Yahoo, Mr. Crookes commenced this action against Yahoo on March 2, 2007.
[16] Plaintiffs' counsel argues knowledge can be imputed to Yahoo based on counsel's letter which was faxed, and then couriered and signed for by "K. Kerins". However, the manner in which counsel contacted Yahoo, having regard to Mr. Crookes' prior email contact with Yahoo, which was successful in having the impugned postings removed efficiently, raises suspicions and concerns.
We'll see if he appeals. He has less than 30 days now to do so.
I'll save my further comments until after that deadline.
-- Posted By Mark Francis to Section 15 at 9/07/2007 10:45:00 PM
The world's most expensive and bloodiest experiment in imposed democracy is on the skids, says a formal Congressional Research Report, secured by Raw Story from the Daily News.
"My assessment is that because of the number and breadth of parties boycotting the cabinet, the Iraqi government is in essential collapse," Kenneth Katzman, the author of the report, said, according to Meek. "That argues against any real prospects for political reconciliation."
(Meek wrote the piece for the Daily News.)
Without a secure political climate, any military successes will not last. Which is not to say that the report is critical of the idea that there are currently any military successes.
Bush got his way, and he has failed.
*Worst. President. Ever.*
-- Posted By Mark Francis to Section 15 at 9/07/2007 12:33:00 PM
CBC had the libel chill news story (starring moi among others) removed from YouTube (but left thousands of other CBC videos there); however, the piece has now been posted on CBC's site.
Ontario's Grenville Christian College was a place where children were "emotionally, spiritually and sometimes physically [abused]" says a piece in today's Globe and Mail:
Joan Childs, who worked at the school for more than 30 years, posted a public apology on an Internet message board that former students have been using for more than a year to talk about what they experienced and suffered.
"What was done to people at GCC was very wrong," Ms. Childs wrote. "I was very wrong. And I am so sorry for all the hurt that was caused to each of you by me and by all of us in positions of leadership."
Former students have described a bizarre environment where they were hauled from their beds in the middle of the night to be harangued for hours by staff at so-called light sessions about being sinners.
Read the piece for more info.
What really caught my eye was a related piece, Brockville's local paper was advised not to publish abuse allegations which shockingly tells us that the local Brockville newspaper knew of these abuses, and had a story ready to print about it 20 years ago, but pulled back when witnesses suddenly retracted permission to use their names. At the exact same time, the newspaper received a letter from a major Toronto law firm threatening libel action if the article was printed.
So the story was never published.
Our libel laws place the burden of proof on the defendant, and assume that any defamation causes damage. The plaintiff merely has to claim that the published allegations are false, and it's up to the defendant to prove otherwise. Without the people willing to come forward -- and one wonders given the timing of things if there wasn't a connection between the witnesses withdrawing and the libel chill letter arriving -- the paper had little choice but to not publish.
And so the abuse went on for years more.
Many other Western jurisdictions have since reformed these ancient laws to properly place the onus upon the plaintiff, and to require proof of damage. All, except Canada, have reformed libel law to grant special protection for those commenting on matters of public interest. Some jurisdictions, like California and 23 other US states, have anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) provisions allowing for vexatious or nuisance libel lawsuits to be easily thrown out and the plaintiffs penalized.
Quebec is currently considering updating their Code of Civil Procedure to penalize those launching anti-SLAPP suits (see here). New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are currently considering such laws as well. (I will be writing about all this soon enough).
Had such protection been around 20 years ago, would the abuse have continued? Would the witnesses have been less afraid to come forward?
Anti-SLAPP provisions need to be in place in every province in Canada.
Many defendants, including myself, are currently fighting libel claims filed in British Columbia by Wayne Crookes. You can read more about it here, and visit LibelChill.ca (still under development) for more.
-- Posted By Mark Francis to Section 15 at 9/01/2007 03:35:00 PM
Ever criticize a politician in writing? How about a backroom political operator? A CEO? Or even a company's shoddy products? Canada stands alone in the Western democratic world in that it still allows public persons and corporations to use libel law to silence their fair critics. The result is often libel chill, as the CBC piece that ran last night on The National, featuring among others myself and Kate Holloway, details.
Worse, our courts are still unclear how to apply libel law to the Internet.
As I've written about before, (see here) I'm being sued by Green Party of Canada creditor and former campaign manager Wayne Crookes over links and articles other people wrote which I had the misfortune of reposting in a Yahoo Group forum. During the Green Party of Canada's 2006 internal election I kept a wiki which had a link to a candidate's web page, which had on it somewhere a link to a wiki which had on it somewhere some content Crookes objects too (I still don't know what!). For this, he is also suing me, though, to date, he's not sued the candidate.
If Wayne Crookes (the plaintiff) gets his way, entire sites could be forced offline simply for linking to another site which somewhere on it has content someone claims is libelous.
Crookes is also using Wikipedia and (ironically) the OpenPolitics.ca wiki. For a great piece about the OpenPolitics case, see fellow ProgBlogger Chris Tindal's excellent The Silliness of Suing a Wiki which is a piece explaining why suing a wiki is ridiculous.
Crookes responded by suing that author as well. Read it and see if you can figure out what is libelous.
Done? According to Crookes, nothing written in that piece is libelous -- except it has some links he doesn't want published.
And now, for linking to it, he can sue me (again!) as well. And if you link to this post, you can now get sued.
Or so he argues.
What these lawsuits place at risk is nothing less than net democracy in Canada. By insisting that political writings no more unusual than what we all read daily on blogs, forums and wikis are to be considered libelous, and by succeeding in getting defendants to remove material (and in one case removing an entire blog over one post and some comments) without even a court order or finding, and for claiming that hyperlinks — even over multiple jumps — are to be considered as disseminating alleged libel, Crookes' lawsuits are attacking the very roots of our online community. There are issues here which our courts have yet to decide on, and unless we can fund and fight these lawsuits, the courts may rule his way, establishing a precedent which may not only chill the Canadian Internet, but freeze it.
What we want is for political writing to be specially protected from such lawsuits, as it is in countries like New Zealand, Australia and the UK. We want right-of-reply recognized as a remedy to defamation. We want the reverse-onus provision (guilty until proven innocent!) with regards to libel eliminated. And we want to see penalties applied to those who try to use libel law to silence dissent, such as the anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) provision in use in California, which allows judges to dismiss qualifying cases early in the litigation process.
We want to be able to publicly question those in power without chill without fear.
Political writings should not be held merely on par with other expressions. Political writings are what have granted us our very freedoms, and will continue to preserve them as long as they flourish. Unprecedented in history, citizens can now publish their political opinions and inquiries online. We can now be freer than ever before; however, Canada's libel laws can and likely will make these most important expressions a liability to the corporations hosting the material, and our political opinions subject to coercion from the powerful. We need to change these laws, or lie down and be the peasants they say we are.
So Donate!
To defend ourselves, we badly need money. Over at LibelChill.ca you can donate to our defense fund through Paypal. Please give generously. Libel lawsuits are very expensive and as we are fighting several at once, we are looking at an initial price tag of up to $100,000. If you value your online expression, you need to donate!
If you run a blog, there are promotional banners you can place on your blog here. (Feel free to design something better -- just let me know.) The CBC video is available on YouTube here.
We need your help. And you need us to help establish and preserve your online rights.
I leave you with the words of an American defendant, David Weekly, CEO of PBwiki.com:
I don't think there's a realistic option for companies to actively monitor the content that they host. My company of six people publishes over two million unique pages of user-provided information. A rather simpler solution for ISPs, if this trial goes the wrong way, would be to simply firewall Canada to prevent Canadians from accessing websites with consumer media. That's the only option our company could afford to undertake. (We're also being sued by Crookes.) It'd be like the Great Firewall of China, but in reverse.
If you don't know my private email, and want to contact me, either leave a message below (and if you don't want the message posted, tell me), or reach me at libelchillinfo (AT) gmail.com.
-- Posted By Mark Francis to Section 15 at 8/17/2007 10:45:00 AM
