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Publication Bans In A Borderless World
slantyyz writes "Wired has a story on a publication ban imposed by a Canadian court on the Canadian media in a well-publicized serial murder case. Now this ban doesn't apply to foreign media per se, but given the borderless nature of the Internet, it leads one to wonder about the efficacy of such a ban. Canadians clearly have access to the American media channels online. The last major publication ban occurred in the early nineties with another Canadian serial murder case involving Paul Bernardo. It was effective to the point that the Internet was still a young medium, but even then, there were a few newsgroups created that were dedicated to spreading rumours about the ongoing trial."
The bottom line is that the internet thrives on freedom and has come to a point where it's nearly impossible to restrict. That's a good thing, in my opinion.
I live in Israel and we had a similiar case. About half a year ago there was a terrorist attack on a unit of soldiers and the heads of state (or some other decision maker) decdied that no one is allowed to know any details of the case so that the families of the dead wouldn't find out before the official notice was made. Although people tried to spread the news using the Internet (because the TV networks and radio channeled only kept repeating "At this stage we are not allowed to disclose any more information") but what happened is that the big news sites were contacted by the goverment and kept everything queit and concurrently the Israeil Inteligence Agencies "Quited Down" various small sites and public news site or forums that tried to publish details. Although never officialy admitted the Israeli Intelligence just DOSed a few servers to keep everything quite. So the question in how important is it that the information be kept secret
God made the natural numbers; all else is the work of man - Kronecker
News is what you get from disinerested third parties who are free to investigate and report news.
Rumors is what you get when disinterested third parties are not alowed to investigate or report news.
Rumors are not substitutes for news. They can never be trusted and are always a sign of tyranical control. When rumors are more reliable than news, no one can be sure of anything. That's why the US has a first amendment. It's degradation is a sign of enslavement.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
are there any studies that can claim to show that pre-trial publicity can actually bias a jury one way or another? Or is the belief that it (pre-trial publicity) may impinge on someone's "right to a fair trial" based solely on principle and reason rather than evidence? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
I remember back when the Bernardo case was going on, people were making trips into the US to get Wired magazine.
It was banned in Canada because it talked about the publication ban, and just happened to mention that one of the banned pieces of information was that homolka pled guilty.
It was quite funny, customs set a limit on the number of copies of Wired you could bring across the border. They generally treated it as a controlled substance.
Wired probably sold more copies to Canadians that month than any other time before then, which made the whole ban ineffective. I had no trouble getting my hands an a copy from a 'dealer' at school
Jason
ProfQuotes
"Wow, did you know there is a WHOLE country just north of us?"
Considering I have to go to the NPR/BBC to get any sort of non-corporate news, I think that Canada is safe from learning anything about themselves from the U.S. media.
China on the other hand....
Being a Canadian citizen I feel that we are within our rights to order a media ban on publication within this country. While it is obvious we can't enforce that ban on the Internet, we can easily ban foreign media from the courtroom if they flaunt our request to not print.
Having said that, I think the media ban in and of itself is not feasable. It is designed to avoid polluting the jury pool (something that may have been done by post-arrest police leaks in the beltway sniper case), but an information vacuum is filled with rumour. I remember being in first year university where some of my floormates were from the St. Catherines area (southern Ontario), who knew someone, who knew someone who was a cop who viewed the Bernardo tapes. The crap that people heard through the 'broken telephone' was a lot worse than what turned out to be the case (although the reality was god-awful in its own right). The jury pool for Bernardo was destroyed anyway by everyone nattering about rumours, so you have to ask if it was worth it.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Perhaps they're hoping that the media will just respect the wishes of the court, rather than trying to force the issue through technology?
Note: there is no ban on the public -being- there, so this isn't a case of a closed trial. This isn't a ban on people talking about it -- just a ban on media publication. The rules are in place simply to give a fair trial.
In Canada, a criminal suspect's right to a fair, untainted trial trumps the right of the media to descend upon the courtroom like a pack of rabid wolves. This is a murder trial, not public entertainment (no matter what the media would have you believe).
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
This man has a right to a fair trial. "Innocent until proven guilty" is still a way of life here in Canada, unlike in the US media where it's "He's a murderer, string him up". For examples, see Gary Condid.
This is the pre-trial phase, and in order to ensure there is a fair and unbiased populace from which to draw jurors, there is a ban on publication of evidence until trial time. This is quite normal here.
Canada has it's own laws, our Judges don't cave in to American Media. The US media has a choice - don't publish details, or be barred from the court room.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Ban the foreign press, make all spectators sign a legally binding gag order. Make sure these contracts are binding across borders.
In a more perfect world, journalists would respect the wishes of the court and it would be a non issue.
There's a reason why camera's aren't allowed in a Canadian court, and judges issue publication bans. It taints the outcome of the trial. Now of course journalists would have you believe that "freedom of the press" trumps the "right to a fair trial", but it's simply not true.
The Bernardo case hits close to home, one of the girls bodies was dumped not more than about 10k from where I lived at the time. (I can't remember if it was Leslie Mohaffe or Kristen French) I remember the paranoia, the searching for the cream-colored Camaro, something I haven't experience again until just recently with the DC area sniper's spree ('cuz I live near DC now).
Anyways, there really was enough media exposure on the trial. I followed it in the paper and on the news every day.
Paul and his wife Karla Homolka videotaped their rape, torture and murder of the girls. These tapes were shown in court, and the judge ruled that the contents of the tapes were never to leave the courtroom. The reasons were obvious enough. The public is not served at all by details about how these girls were raped, humiliated and murdered.
One of the American TV tabloids of the time (A Current Affair?) aired excruciating details in one of their little shock pieces. It frankly pissed a lot of people off. There was no reason to do it, except to once again exploit the victims for a few ratings points.
Anyways, I digress.
Keeping the press out of the courtroom is a good idea, IMO. The 3 ring circus' that plays out in big American trials is an absolute joke. I'm absolutely convinced OJ would have been convicted in a Canadian court.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I recall back during the 1997 Federal Elections, there was a small, but valid issue with blacking out election results because of the internet. Because of the timezones, the polls in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were closed and estimated while the ones in British Columbia were still open. Without blacking these results out it can cause apathy among voters for the winning party and impetous for potential voters for the losing parties. This is enough to sway the vote to the minority party.
During this election, many of my friends were in IRC channels full of hundreds of people (not enough to sway the vote federally, but it could have effected a riding) on either coast talking about the results. Now with Candians checking American or British papers, it's on a scale not known before.
There are going to be more and more issues like this, but this is what happens when you empower the public in the way that the internet has. I for one will take the freedom the internet has given back to us and fight attempts at clamping down on it, even when i works against a case of individual right such as this, and voter's rights such as the election example given. We've been given somethng we've never had before and taken back a lot of freedom in the last few years. We can let it be pushed back like so many other freedoms we've lost.
-no broken link
CBC has a good article that explains how publication bans work in Canada.
For another example, look at OJ's absolute joke of a trial. This was the opposite effect. It became the "OJ" show, and everyone - jurors included - couldn't wait for the 'happy ending'.
Does "freedom of the press" trump the "right to a fair and expedient trial"?
That isnt even the issue. The details of the trial are made public, just not while the trial is in session.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I have no idea why the general public and indeed, the media have such a blatant misunderstanding of judicial publication ban orders. The ban is a ban on media reporting while the trial is in progress and possibly until such time as the appeals are exhausted. The complete, entire purpose of the ban is to minimize contamination of the jury pool.
Guess what happens when the trial is over?
That's right - you're allowed to report on the trial! The transcripts are made public! Hell, CBC even made a TV movie out of the case. Since the media has lost it's chance to unfairly bias the public at this point, they rarely bother to report on it after the fact though.
So take your sacrimonious attitude and apply it to those first generation Americans who are being held in US prisons without charges or trial just for registering the country of their birth.
"Shut up" often leads to [fierce] conversation.
Try drilling a hole to a wall and write "don't peek thru..." above it. 8)
Rebels.
love slashdot. populate it. use it. abuse it. hate it. kill it. miss it. stop following links, they only kill servers.
Judge David Stone's stern warning to three foreign reporters: Honor the publication ban or risk being barred from the courtroom. So all that is being said is that, if these reporters publish, they can be barred, in Canada, from a Canada courtroom. He's hardly trying to overreach his authority.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This is typically done in Canada and ensures a fairer trial. I'm often surprised and sickened at the tabloid quality of the "unbiased" american (television) media. Everything turns into a circus. Well, sorry Canadians try to put the right to a fair trial above televison ratings.
After the case is over, we(anyone) will have full access to the details of the case, and the unauthorized bios, tv specials, etc will come flying out with every little sordid detail.
But for now let's let the case be tried without the play-by-play on every freaking media outlet, with their own special little catch phrase, bi-line and "Pig-Man Hooker Serial Killer" graphic.
Yes, it will be hard(impossible) in a borderless internet media world to "ban" this. But at least the internet media is far less in your face than television, ie. it has to be sought out, it wont accidently be overheard by a juror flipping through tv channels. Makes sense to me.
then the public's right to know immediatly.
I am a ex-pat Canadian living in the SF Bay area. One thing that often has irked me is the release of 'facts' in regard to a criminal investigation/case before the accused is put to trial or even arrested. It is often assumed that the public's right to know and the ability of a free press to report is based on the giving the public the 'information' the fastest. Somehow, the press's rush to publicize anything that is found in a criminal trial is deemed more important then the accused right to a fair trial and the freedom from vigililantism that can come from the premature release of 'facts'. Actually given the use of the press by police agencies in the US to 'leak' information regarding an investigation that soils the reputation of the innocent (Richard Jewell), this speed of information disemination actually harms the operation of a free society.
In Canada, it is reasonably assured that the police won't release ANY information regarding an on-going investigation before that information can be presented at trial. So it should be. In Canada, the judiciary often limits what the press can write about only during a limited finite period. Again, so it should be, as long as someone's life is at stake in a proceding, we as a public, can wait for the gossip.
As well, since this example from Canada is in the pre-trial phase a simple US approximization is the Grand Jury, who's proceding ares are often secret forever.
I say to the court, throw out the foriegn correspondants, let the public wait to hear the juicy gossip from the court room! To the people who deam this a infrigment on their rights, wait until you are accused and tried in the press! Ask then where your rights of 'innocent until proven guilty' are and see how much work it is for you to prove your innocence for the rest of your life!
Why oh why do we need to know NOW? Let the officers tell us in their own words what happened when they can be cross examined by the accused!
As the US enforces the 'Patriot Act' and its ilk we will see how prominatly the false accusations will be printed and how hidden the retractments.
It's is important to remember the judge who ruled, allowing media in to the court did so full well knowing about the internet and the publication violations that occured in the Paul Bernado case. The Media was allowed in anyway, he didn't have to let them in. It would be in the media's best interest to temper their desire to publish details until such time as the ban is lifted, if ever.
I admit as a Canadian I violated the ban and read publications about Paul Bernado. I read the detailed court proceedings. I wish I never had. Steven King could never have dreamed up the horrors that those 2 girls lived and ultimatly died during. Bernado (and his wife) are truly scum of the earth. That publication ban was in place because the judge (rightly so) beleived the testomony and video footage should never be seen in public. The results would damage the victims familys further. Remebering they had to watch the video of their little girls dying...Something you have no need or right to know/see.
Robert Picton is suspected of killing 55+ women (the count grows higher weekly it seems). 15 have evidence enough to prove to go to trial. The Police have been sifting through dirt looking for small bone fragments, so they can find more victims to charge him with. The victim's families would like to get answers to their loved ones disappearance. They want closure. This can be jeporidised by a tainted jury.
The judge is not trying to be difficult, most people were surprised that the media was allowed at all. But if media breaks that ban, all media will be removed from the court. It is the judge's trial, and the media has no right to be in there. But Pickton does have the right to a fair trial. So the media should be on their best behaviour.
I covered this story yesterday (Sunday US-time) in my daily interent commentary and also highlighted the crazy situation taking place in Europe right now.
It seems that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has succeeded in obtaining a injuction from a Hamburg court that forbids a UK newspaper from pubilshing details about an alleged extramarital affair.
The UK newspaper have basically thumbed their nose at the order, as did another UK paper which went a step further and published not just in print but on the Web as well.
My column on this matter can be found here if anyone's interested. Check out today's edition as well: When Microsoft Owns Your ISP
This case has already gotten a tremendous amount of publicity. For those who don't know, awhile back TONS of prostitutes went missing in that B.C. area, and after an investigation, the cops found alot of corpses in this pig farm. After the media circus kicked in, the judge put a ban on it, much like the Bernardo case. However, during the Bernardo case, alot of facts from the case still slipped out, and after the case was complete, everybody knew what happened anyways. On a side note, the Bernardo case is perhaps one of the most bungled cases, outside of the OJ Simpson case...
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
i know that censorship is bad, however there are some cases where it is valid and there is a need for it. one of these prime examples is when someone's right to a fair trial is at stake.
i am canadian and i don't think that it's an overly bad idea to censor like that until the trial starts, they are only banning the media until the trial begins, if i'm not wrong the same thing happened with the oj trial or at least they tried to stop it. i remember it being a big issue cause of all the media coverage that they moved the trial because they couldn't find an impartial jury and the same with the rodney king trial.
don't get me wrong i'd love to see that guy go to jail for a long time, same thing with paul bernado. i know that the crown, the government's lawyers, wants to see him locked up just as much as the rest of us do. they just want to make sure that he gets a fair trial so he can be locked up and the key tossed away, would you really like a person like that to be set free cause of an impartial jury?
as for the reporters, well if they really want they can remove their work visa and they have to leave the country, it's a priviledge for them to be here, not a right.
i know of a few other times the american government censors information. just go through the yro of this website and i'm sure you'll find several articles dealing with it. or how about looking through the jfk files and such, notice the liberal use of the black magic marker on the documents or all the stuff after sept 11.
so don't go jumping down canada's back when they are just trying to get the guy locked up and the key tosses away. we're just going through all the steps our legal process deams neccessary for a fair and impartial trial.
Many Canadien population centers (Toronto, Montreal) are well within range of USA radio and TV broadcasts. I live in Vermont and frequently enjoy the high-quality classic rock programming on CHOM FM and the hilarious BBC comedies on CBC.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Dude,
As a Vancouverite following this case, these are the facts:
According to the judge, the American media can full-well report everything, provided it is in their own country. US news feeds into BC/Canada are blacked-out, but if you pick up feeds from US satellite or over the airwaves, you too can watch the US media report on this trial.
This is simply a means to a fair trial and an untainted jury, not directed at controlling the media, per-se.
The legal and social implications are separate things here.
In my opinion, the situation here in the "land of Freedom" is worse. Banning pre-trial publicity is one thing. Preventing a defendant from using his chosen defense is another and far worse thing.
A sad example is the case of the late author Peter McWilliams, who was charged with conspiracy to grow marijuana. He was charged under federal statutes, because the state of California had legalized the growing of marijuana for medical purposes. McWilliams was therefore under the impression that he would be permitted to do so. His publishing company gave an advance to another medical marijuana activist, for the purpose of writing a book on the subject of medical marijuana. The activist rented a big house and filled it with different strains of marijuana, ostensibly to experiment with different strains and their efficacy for different conditions. Though McWilliams himself did not grow any pot, he was arrested and indicted for conspiracy to manufacture a controlled substance, because of the advance.
Now the story becomes pretty ugly. The prosecutors petitioned the court to prohibit McWilliams from mentioning anything about medical uses of marijuana, and the judge granted the motion. This effectively prevented McWilliams from making any defense at all. Since he was a medical marijuana user himself (he had AIDS and cancer) the injustice of this seems even more unAmerican.
Because he was prevented from offering the only defense he had, he was obliged to accept a plea bargain, and he was hoping to get house arrest. Though at the time of his indictment, he was in fairly good shape, with a low viral load and his cancer in remission, he was denied the use of marijuana as a condition of his bail (he was frequently tested). The medication that had kept him alive caused severe nausea, which he had treated by smoking pot. He was able to make bail (being such a dangerous criminal) only because his mother and other family put up their houses to guarantee his adherence to the terms of his bail. He was told that his mother would lose her house if he were to be caught smoking pot, so he abstained. His condition rapidly deteriorated, and he died before he received his sentence. Readers of this forum might find McWilliams' work of interest because he adhered to the free information ethic-- making his books available online for free. My favorite book of his is Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do.
History seems to be repeating itself. Long-time drug policy activist Ed Rosenthal has been indicted on similar charges and like McWilliams, has been informed that he will also not be allowed to mention medical marijuana in his defense.
Contrast this ferocious adherence to the official line here in America with a similar situation in Canada. There a judge ruled that the blanket prohibition of marijuana is illegal because it made no provision for those who felt they had a medical need for the drug.
Much of this dismal contrast in the fairness of the two country's judicial proceeding derives from America's size. It has become too big for democracy; the government's power is unchallengeable. In Canada, it's still possible for the people to influence their government.
If any of you out there think this is wrong, you guys are thick-headed. This publication ban is intended to protect what is left of the integrity of this trial. It is bad enough that the public is generally skewed towards the accused even though, through a slim-chance nonetheless, that he might be innocent.The trial should always take precedence over the journalists as the journalists are much more powerful in skewing the public than the lawyers, etc. To say a journalist should have the right to put whatever he/she wants out is completely wrong.
It is not "about a British Columbian pig farmer who murdered...".
It is about a British Columbian pig farmer who *IS ACCUSED* of murdering...
There's a big difference between the two statements, the article you linked used the correct one, you ignored the assumption of innocence, which is probably the most important concept in a fair justice system.
The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is a shame that we must continue to use a worthless system because it was good a thousand years ago...I desire to tamper with the jury law. I wish to so alter it as to put a premium on intelligence and character, and close the jury box against idiots, blacklegs, and people who do not read newspapers. But no doubt I shall be defeated--every effort I make to save the country "misses fire."
- Mark Twain Roughing It
There's a very good article in today's New Zealand Herald which provides a legal-professional's point of view.
The writer is a (former?) judge and part-time lecturer in law and IT at the University of Auckland.
Richard Jewell brought it all on himself by committing a very suspicious crime in regards to the bombing incident: he stole evidence from the crime scene and hid it in his house. He willingly chose to commit criminal activity in regards to the case; no wonder he opened himself up to worse suspicion.
Excuse me, this is the first I've ever heard about this. What did he steal then? How did the stealing of evidence relate to him being the bomber? The press latched onto Jewell because the police leaked he was a suspect. Jewell has won almost every lawsuit he has filed against the media. But think of how a mere $500k judgement against NBC compares to the hundreds of millions up for game in the TV News business.
Really, it is so it shouldn't be. There is nothing the government should do that it should keep hidden from us. If you don't like it, don't read it. If the judiciary does not like what a newspaper prints, it does not have to buy it.
Here you raise a straw man, this isn't something the government is doing on its own, its doing something to someone. Its not the governments rights that are being protected by a publication ban it is that person's. Its not your rights that are being violated, its you being inconvienced to hear the details later.
In a republic, the rights of the individual outweigh the rights of the public. That is why YOUR tax returns are secret and why people fight for privacy in their dealings with the government. The investigation of a crime is not a public event until the trial!
Even then, in many cases regarding minors, the happenings at trial are kept secret to protect those accused.
There is a fine line between the protection you as a citizen get by your trial being public and from the harm that is caused by it. If the press wasn't so keen to publish the acusations and not the results of trial, AND if the public wasn't soo facinated by gossip, then there wouldn't need to be any publication bans. But, the public is fancinated, the media feeds it and feeds from it, but the publics WANT does not make it a Public RIGHT.
What Canada is doing is simply favouring the rights of the individual over the WANTS of the public. The public is gaining nothing in learning the juicy tidbits now rather then later, but to the person who's being acused that time frame is vital.
This is a strawman argument. What I describe isn't a "further reduction of rights". What is currently occuring is a traditional compromise between the rights of the media to report the "news", and the rights of the defendant to a fair trial. Take your pick. But I, as a Canadian citizen, would prefer the courts choose the rights of the defendant over the rights of the media.
Reporters Without Borders worldwide press freedom index
Does anyone else notice that the scores seem to correlate with distance from the north pole? I've also noticed that the UN "best countries to live in" list often shows the same tendency.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
The ban does not apply to all information about this case whatsoever.
It only applies to information gleaned from inside of his courtroom. As such it really only applies to (would-be) reporters who step into his courtroom to listen to the hearing -- and then only until the trial is over, or the evidence comes out in full court.
In other words, it's completely legal for me to tell you that Picton is accused of luring women (mostly prostitutes and/or drug users) to his pig farm where they were tortured, (probably) raped, killed and then stuffed through a meat grinder (or something similar), with their ground-up remains possibly being fed to his pigs before being spread around his farm.
I can tell you that, even though I live in Vancouver, because the information I have was gleaned via non-court sources. The minute I step into the courtroom, however, anything that I learn in there is Not-For-Publication. The internet just happens to be one of the methods by which I'm not allowed to publish that information. This would include sending it to my news editor in The States who then puts it onto an Internet site. If I glean information from somebody inside the courtroom, I'm similarly bound to non-disclosure (or my source is, at least, bound to ensure that I don't then publish it).
To give you an idea as to just how personal this 'personal jurisdiction' is: The judge specifically named some reporters in the room at the time who he considered to be problematic.
".... you have been warned"
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
The case is in the pre-trial phase, and this is where the prosecution presents all their evidence to the judge to determine if there is enough evidence to go to trial. this means only one side of the story is being told. Pickton doesn't get to defend himself at this point. If the media covered this, then the jury pool would be tainted because most people would take this as fact. Simple as that, and i think it's very good.