Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Blogger Breaches Canadian Publication Ban
nnet writes "The Toronto Sun is reporting that a U.S. blogger has been breaching a Canadian publication ban on AdScam. While The Sun hasn't given the URL for the blog itself, in fear of a contempt of court charge, this isn't the first time an American has breached a Canadian publication ban according to the article." The Sun story, though, does give a nice title for which to search, and this quickly yields the story in question.
How quaint.
sulli
RTFJ.
How quaint.
Canada takes quite seriously the concept of making sure that suspects receive a fair trial. When the publication of evidence in advance of the trial would make it impossible for someone to receive a fair trial, a publication ban is entirely reasonable.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Disclaimer: I'm Canadian.
Yes, there is a publication ban. However, Canadian courts have no jurisdiction outside of Canada's borders. Just as US courts have no pull inside of Canada's borders.
If there was a publication ban on a case in the states - Canadians could feel free to ignore it.
However, if this is a Canadian posting on a US blog site... he should be prepared to spend some time in jail.
BlackNova Traders
...more likely, 'attention whore'.
The gist of the article is "i know a guy who told me what the secret testimony was". Most likely Gomery banned the publication of this information on the basis that it was unsubstantiated in court, and could be damaging to the Liberals even if untrue. For Slashdotters not familiar with the case, Gomery has been exceedingly level handed and fair and in fact if anything is more likely biased against the Liberals than not.
If all of this DOES turn out to be true I wouldn't be surprised, given that the advertisement scandal gets deeper and deeper every day, but I don't think this blogger amounts to much.
Before everyone starts yelling "too bad Canadians don't have the 4th amendment!" blah blah blah, just ask yourself how you'll feel when the next multiple-murderer gets off in the US due to jury tampering because of a Canadian publication.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
What defines the difference between a blogger and a journalist? The fact a journalist is hired by a company? Why trust a company over an individual? In this case, people wouldn't have known if all we had for news were "mainstream journalists."
Mainstream journalists work for businesses. Their only incentive to be truthful is business and reputation. For bloggers, it's mostly just reputation.
Yes, a publication ban on an event open to the public. Not quaint, but rather an indication of the vast differences between Canada and the US.
Here in Canada, a fair amount of the law relies on common sense and good will. The intent of these publication bans is to ensure the accused gets a fair trial. This is essentially the judge saying to the press, "Look, if the whole world hears this testimony before the trial gets fully underway and everything can be put into a proper context, it will be really hard to get a reasonably impartial jury so this person gets a fair trial." They know very well that it's impossible to guarantee it won't come out, but Canadian journalists typically respect it.
What's more important? Having one newspaper scoop another in an attempt to splash the headlines with more sensationalism? Or having an accused person get a fair trial?
Note that this isn't censorship or a closed trial or any of that nonsense. You can physically go down and sit in the courtroom if you really want to (and lots of the public do). Sometimes conflicting rights have to be balanced, and most Canadians that I know feel that, in this case, the right of the accused to receive a fair trial outweigh the rights of media to publish this stuff immediately.
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
Colby Cosh has a very interesting post on this issue (despite being a Canuck, and subject to the ban.) Sample:
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
You think this is the reason why Liberals keep winning elections?
Liberals win elections because they at least are a semi-good government for Canada. We had a balanced/surplus budget for 8 years in a row now. Canada's national debt is down to about 550 billion (50% GDP) and dropping. US, with their "conservative" government, the federal debt is closer to 7.5 trillion (75% GDP) and growing fast.
To me, balanced budget/surpluses, taxes that are not going up and a steady economy mean a good government. If there is corruption, then those people need to be brought to justice. Period.
Anyway, under the last conservative governemnt, we ended up with
The only good thing I can remember the conservatives brought in was NAFTA.
Oh, and let's not forget about the kickbacks Malroney got over Airbus, and then some more for suing the gov't for libel. Oh wait, Malroney is innocent - it is only the liberals that can be corrupted, right?
All governments will have members that will funnel money. It is up to the judiciary to bring those few to justice. But this is no excuse to bring down a good government in favour of some Republican-wanna-bes fanatics (no offence or anything :).
Never? It will *NEVER* work? My, that's a bold statement.
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
-- Arthur C. Clarke
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
In other news, Internet news source http://www.slashdot.org/ Breaches Canadian Publication Ban.
Here in America, the right of the accused to receive a fair trial depends on the rights of media to publish this stuff immediately. It never occurred to me that someone would think that the government's ability to keep secret the court proceedings against its citizens is a Good Thing. Interesting.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
A somewhat similar thing happened during the CDN media blackout of the trial of the infamous Carla Homolka. There was a complete media blackout in Canada, and suddenly a newsgroup which Paul Vixie had newgrouped for me back when I was feeling a bit blue (alt.fan.shedevil) was taken over by a bunch of Canadians desparate for news of what was going on, and a place to talk about it, and which was beyond the reach of the CDN authorities. Wow..it's still archived in Google groups!: http://aunty-spam.com/ref/carla-homka-alt.fan.shed evil (URL redirected because the Google url is so darned long.)
BMD (shield) might work, but then "the enemy" just needs to switch to a cruise missile or similar. I'm not aware of any physical laws that would prevent "the enemy" from building a cruise missile, nor am I aware of any physical laws in smuggling and launching them from anywhere within the US. Crap - it'd be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper than building a ballistic missile.
BMD (shield) isn't dumb because it won't work, but because it's just plain dumb.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Speaking as a Canadian, this is OLD news if you've read between the lines for the last few years.
We already knew there was a kickback scheme. We already knew the minister of Public Works had been dismissed in disgrace from cabinet ("there's something rotten in the state of Denmark" was the running joke several years ago when he was suddenly assigned as ambassidor). And Quebec politics have always been a mess - it's a relic of history slowly giving way to the modern world in fits and spurts.
The sad irony is that Paul Martin (the PM, who took over after all this happened) will likely get slammed across the blogosphere over this despite being the person who has most aggressively sought to shake up the politics of his party - he's the one who called the inquiry in the first place when he could have easily brushed it under the carpet and quietly denied everything. The media and opposition are "shocked" only in the Casa Blanca sense of the word.
So I'm left with a big "so what" reaction to this blog. Yes, there was a massive fraud, but the judge is not trying to hide the truth, he's trying to preserve the fairness of the upcoming criminal trials.
I'm not aware of any physical laws that would prevent "the enemy" from building a cruise missile, nor am I aware of any physical laws in smuggling and launching them from anywhere within the US.
I love this argument. So in your opinion, an enemy will either:
- smuggle nuclear weapons -- not just one, but dozens -- into the United States during peacetime, knowing that the discovery of even one will be tantamount to a declaration of war; and somehow maintain secret absolute command and control over those weapons within the territory of the United States; or
- somehow smuggle dozens of nuclear weapons into the United States during a crisis or during wartime.
Furthermore, with existing technology, we know how to knock down subsonic, low-altitude aircraft (which is what cruise missiles are). We don't yet know how to take out ballistic missiles, which is why BMD research is compelling.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
A few years ago, several US papers covered a Canadian trial in defiance of a Canadian publication ban. That trial was a sensational double rape-murder, i.e. was interesting enough to defy the publication ban.
Check out http://www.sitemeter.com/default.asp?action=stats& site=s16captainsquarters&report=15
and you'll see the last ten visitors - I'm showing the first 9 are Canadian.
- sympatico.ca
- cgocable.net
- sympatico.ca
- shawcable.net
- telus.net
- videotron.ca
- vif.net
- cgocable.net
- shawcable.net
Sympatico, Shaw, Telus,.Videotron, Vif, Cogeco - all Canadian ISPs.So, still want to claim that people are too lazy to search for the story? People are PISSED!
Anything that slows down the transparency in government, or the free telling of the occurrences in government, is in essence, is censorship.
This just happens to be time censorship.
In America, there would have been cameras in the meetings and conversation all over the country. All this does is not make any public videotape available to those that would like to know, and helps minimize the impact and importance to the public.
Man, every time I screwed up, I would love to make everyone talk about this later so I could have enough time to set up alibis and work out counterarguments. Also, I would like for there to be no cameras, so in a short while, everyone would have nothing to see. Especially when the wanted to see my real face twisting to the lies and bad things I did.
*Poof* "It was all a dream, and happened long ago, and no one cared about it then, so why now?"