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Canada's Wayne Crookes Sues the Net
newtley writes "Wayne Crookes, the Green Party of Canada's ex-financier, is in effect trying to sue the Internet. He's going after the Wikipedia, Google, and openpolitics.ca (run up by federal Green Party activist Michael Pilling) claiming he's suffered, 'an immense amount of frustration and emotional distress' over postings. Some 15 others may also have been targeted. "Mr. Crookes seems to be 'trying to unwrite history,' Pilling says. 'He was a central figure in the growth of the Green Party. His actions were highly controversial and if we have freedom of speech in this country, people should be allowed to talk about them.'" Newtley adds in a posting submitted 121 minutes later: "Literally 15 minutes after I posted [the foregoing], there was a knock on my door. It was a writ server telling me I, too, have been named in a lawsuit launched by Wayne Crookes..."
Hmmm... And I suppose he will sue mother nature for global warming
Nominative determinism?
--jeffk++
ipv6 is my vpn
How much better the political climate is in Canada than in the US.
The submitter of this post is in a position of conflict of interest and appears to be using SlashDot as a means to denigrate the individual behind the lawsuit. As it is clear from newtley's post, newtley himself is highly been involved in whatever shenanigans that are going on here. It is unfortunate and dishonest that newtley is using this forum as a platform to smear his opponent. Just from newtley's egregious behavior here, I can imagine that aspects of this case have more merit that he is portraying.
Will also sue all of us users, who know the truth?
This should fall under 'its funny'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is your personal crusade against the internet an public analogy for underlying coprophilia?
AC -- from the asking for it department.
247 lawsuits filed against a Mr. Anonymous Coward for postings causing "immense amounts of frustration and emotional distress".
So tahts why slashdot was down earlier today, they were erasing all the evidence.
"oops, harddrive crash... nothing to see here judge"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Things like this help us remember why we have the right to free speech. It's because of people trying to remove our right to speak out against them, just like is happening here.
:-)
It's sometimes difficult for young'uns to remember that the internet, in it's populer worldwide usage form at least, is still very young. A great many people, organisations and countries were caught off guard by the freedom it gave for comment, and are still trying to remove that freedom.
Their efforts are going to fail, but not because of any moral or ethical issue, simply because of evolutionary principles. The internet is evolving faster then it can be censored. If, and this I doubt, but if they manage to censor all the current expression methods on the internet, more will be created to fill the gaps, and more. It's a fight that can't be won.
The only thing we need worry about is whether 4chan becomes the dominant player in the free expression market
I had never heard of this guy before. Now I have heard of him and I think he's an idiot. He has found an amazingly effective way to destroy his own reputation.
"Wikipedia, Google, and openpolitics.ca" plus "Some 15 others" hardly equals "The Internet."
Gee whiz, first we had the horrid realization that copyright law extends to things posted on-line (remember the days when people tried to argue that the Internet wasn't covered by copyright laws??), and now we're finding that laws related to libel, slander etc also extend to the digital realm.
Heaven help us. can't build anything that exists outside of the legal and cultural systems??
Three Squirrels
If he tries to sue enough people, then they could band together and countersue as a class action suit. (assuming Canada has class-action lawsuits)
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
It's hard to win a libel case in Canada (unlike the UK), especially if you're a public figure.
Further, not all these organziations have operations in Canada. Even if you win, enforcement might be difficult.
This also shows that the Green Party has the same petty infighting as other political parties.
Remember, this is Canada we are talking about, where, for a short while, it was illegal to name a cow with a human name all because a mid-level functionary, and hyper-sensitive twit shared the same name as a state owned cow.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
They are green.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
As of a few days ago, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Crookes is a generic biography page. It's also protected.
The January and September versions have some meat on them. Whether they are accurate or not, who knows?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The Kook of the Month [mind your eyes at that site] award ought to be revived...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I think this Canuck is abusing his citizenship. See if this were in the USA, a bunch of guys in black suits could "take care of him". Up here in freezerville we have to put up with his ignorance and helplessly watch as he makes our country look just as bad as every other.
Sadly I forget who said this, but in a public debate one politician told another: "If you can't handle the heat, get out of the press room!" Indeed, when one chooses a life that consists of selling your opinions to an entire nation, you'd better have one hell of a spine! This guy clearly doesn't. The good thing is he probably won't be sticking around much longer after this bullshit passes over. Everybody's got dirt, and if there's one thing the press and political parties are good at, it's humiliating people with the (carefully spun) truth.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
In fact, the very definition you gave is one description of anarchy, that is, you are free to do what you want so long as you don't take someone elses freedom.
An-archy - without rulers, not without rules.
Is there a public figure rule in Canadian law?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
If it was not so damn scary... There are a lot of people out there that seem determined to stop all free speech at any cost. I rate this clown right up there with Jack Thompson.
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
Yeah, when will people learn? The internet isn't something you can sue. It isn't a plaintiff. It's a series of tubes.
I know I'll get a bashing with thet modbat for that, but there is a limit to free speech. It is when my speaking is slander. Saying "Crookes is a crook" just 'cause I don't like him would constitute that.
Note that I'm neither saying that he has a case for slander, nor that he doesn't. I cannot decide this. I have read TFA, and now I know one side of the story. Judging it from that would be similar to politicians making laws after hearing the lobbyists. And I tend to think of myself being above politicians in my ways of finding the "truth".
People today tend to believe whatever story they hear first. The side that gets the most limelight is right, no matter what truth actually looks like. Thus I'd be wary of declaring the freedom of speech a right that surpasses anything else, that can backfire horribly. I would not want to find out that someone with good net coverage and a blog read by a (for me) important user group starts a slander campaign against me and I couldn't do anything against it because it is protected by the freedom of speech.
He may have a case, he may try to suitbully, I don't know. And I kinda don't feel like I can make that decision based on reading only one side of the story.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
*breath*
ahahahahahhahahaahahahahhahahahaahahahahaha
there is one thing that man has to learn about the internet:
anonymous does not forgive
A stupid woman named Deborah Pierini Cidade de Sá sued Google and won because it linked to a page that showed top searches in a month. On these top searches were her name and the name of a famous prostitute (Bruna Surfistinha).
Mrs. de Sá won in this first instance the equivalent of 10,800 times our minimum wage!
Speaking of Emotional Distress, is it a coincidence that this is being posted right after the story about goatse.cx being up for sale?
I think not.
my question is: where did this dumbass manage to find a lawyer that is also big enough of a dumbass to think this might actually be a success?
All I can say is that Al Gore better get a good lawyer....
Maybe all 247 of those lawsuits will be demanding /. for the IP addresses of each "Mr. Anonymous Coward".
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
The USA is one place where truth is an absolute defense to a charge of libel. In the UK, it is not.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
What about pistachios?
If he doesn't want to suffer s suffered from 'an immense amount of frustration and emotional distress' over postings, then he is a bit of a slow learner. He should stayed away from politics in the first place. I wonder if the Green Party doesn't call him back soon. His actions will not be in favour of the Green Party. He will be told by his own people very soon that he acts as a Don Quichot fighting windmills. People cannot be moved away from networking and sharing ideas or information. The users of the net have brought down political parties and whole industries.
It's a fine example of the Streisand Effect in action.
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
I'm suing calculus, for undue mental distress.
A lawyer can face sanctions for really wasting the court's time.
Certainly a lawyer is going to be known in legal circles for bringing cases that have no hope. This is going to mean less respect and less credibility.
So a lawyer has some interest in telling a client they have no hope of winning and their proposed lawsuit is stupid.
(Posting here in case the Wikipedia gods decide to bend over and completely expunge it, somehow... This is all GFDL material.)
Lender to Green Parties
He is best known for his involvement in the Green Party of British Columbia, to which he donated substantial funds in 2001, and the Green Party of Canada, to which he lent nearly $440,000 in 2003-4. It was his activities as that party's major creditor that brought him to the public eye.
Theories began in 2001 about Crookes' motives, with some persons claiming his intent was to "split votes" and elected the BC Liberal Party. Crookes quickly suppressed such suggestions, notably at rabble.ca, a left-wing political chat site, whose publisher Judy Rebick published a boilerplate apology to Crookes, who was otherwise generally successful at avoiding media scrutiny until 2005-6.
Wayne Crookes
Control of the Green Party of Canada
In return for this, "Mr. Crookes was also appointed to a newly- created Green party election readiness committee -- an appointment that rubbed many Greens the wrong way", according to a May 2006 article in the Ottawa Citizen.
After raising concerns about "having a rich guy buy his way into a position of power", Gretchen Schwarz, the Party's Chair, a sentiment she claimed was shared by "a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Greens", "she and five other members of the executive council resigned in 2003." She later complained that financial statements prepared by Chief Agent John Anderson had not ever been made available to the party's elected Council. During the Canadian federal election, 2006, this and other criticisms of Jim Harris' financial relationships and reporting during the period in which the party was repaying Crookes prompted the party to file a number of lawsuits and accuse several critics of lying to alter the outcome of an election, a crime in Canada. After the election, the suits were apparently dropped, [http://openpolitics.ca/GPC+whistleblower+crisis,+ 2006 which were taken by some as proof of their original political motivation].
Though he had resigned as head of the GPC's Management Committee, just before that election, it was widely believed that Crookes' personal penchant for libel actions had influenced the party to take these actions.
During 2005, the party had undergone another crisis very similar to 2003, and this was also widely attributed to Crookes' influence. During the Canadian federal election, 2004, Crookes had served as national campaign manager. Afterwards, he continued to lend the party bridge funds until public funding was received.
He was very involved in operational matters, approved spending proposals personally, and was called "Uncle Wayne" in Council meetings by John Anderson, the party's chief agent, according to Elio Di Iorio.
His influence grew as staff were hired, some of which had originally reported to Crookes during the 2004 election. There were tensions with volunteers and especially with those who working on policy research, who saw the staff as sometimes usurping political work. In January 2005, elected Fundraising Chair Kathryn Holloway came into conflict with Debbie Hartley, who had Crookes' trust and had replaced him as head of the election readiness and campaign team, a conflicted body which included both staff and the Council that they in theory reported to. Holloway was "suspended" from the Council, an unprecedented action with no precedent in the party's constitution. This triggered another set of events usually called the GPC Council Crisis.
Protests about Holloway's treatment grew, and analysis of it was published in party forums. In early February 2005, a memo from Crookes, who had formally withdrawn from the election readiness committee now controlled by Debbie Hartley, was forwarded by Hartley to other insiders. It claimed that "dysfunctional" officers were "driving out the talented", an ominous claim from the party's major creditor.
The very next day, the Green Party of Canada Living Platf
As you have probably discovered by now, the Internet is a consequence-free zone. I can post anything I want about you or anyone else and it will never, ever come back to bite me.
This article is about a guy suing Wikipedia because they can't get at the original posters. If Wikipedia doesn't have a legal disclamer already, I'd be surprised. No, they aren't responsible for material contributed by others. Neither is Slashdot. And since the posting isn't identifiable, it is free game to say or do anything.
If the Internet wasn't so anonymous and free you wouldn't have half the spam and phishing that goes on. Maybe none of the phishing. Would you like to be the child of the spammer that advertises penis patches the day it became known in school? So we have the anonymous nature of the Internet to thank for the very freedoms we cherish. Also, the amount of money made using the Internet wouldn't be as much without this anonymous nature so there is big money behind keeping it every bit as anonymous as it is.
Since you have been attacked, you know how it works. Yes, you get frustrated but you then find out there isn't anything you can do about it. If someone decides to wreck your life, well you shouldn't have pissed them off. If they are a dangerous nutjob, this goes double - don't piss off dangerous nutjobs with Internet access.
The best thing is there are plenty of people that believe everything they read on the Internet. This makes it really nice when someone publically attacks you because you discover there is now a crowd of people that is on their side and against you.
Again, the Internet is a community. Have some community spirit. Don't piss people off. Be well liked. Or else.
Yes, you will get sued first.
Perhaps the poor fellow has been out of the news longer than he wished.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
IANACL, but scroll a bit further down in the Canadian statutes. Truth is a defense in Canada under certain circumstances.
When truth a defence
311. No person shall be deemed to publish a defamatory libel where he proves that the publication of the defamatory matter in the manner in which it was published was for the public benefit at the time when it was published and that the matter itself was true.
It does not seem unreasonable that you can't just go outing private citizens for their embarrassing hobby in a public forum. However, this Wayne Crookes sounds like a public figure, so those being sued may be able to argue that what they were publishing was for the public benefit (e.g., debating the merits of his contributions to the Green Party) and were true.
People who oppose calculus oppose integration. people who oppose integration are racist. Nazi's are racist so I conclude that since you don't like calculus you are a Nazi who cant differentiate themselves from the crowd.
shit, I'm going to be sued =(
Maybe it's just that guy that was going to insult everyone in the universe in alphabetical order that finally gave up and settled with suing everyone on the net instead...
Once again, it becomes quite evident why the Green Party has yet to have any MPs elected...
Sadly, it's not even something new. I've been under a distinct impression lately that there are a lot more Slashdot articles which are blatant heavy-handed PR, than anything even remotely resembling news. This one only stands out by not even trying to disguise the blatant conflict of interest, but otherwise is no different from any other of the "news" directly telling you "X is wrong. X is doing evil stuff. Your very rights/future/whatever depend on joining in the anti-X crusade _now_."
Now I'm not necessarily saying it's an actual corporate PR department. Those tend to be more subtle than that. Maybe it's just individuals with some axe to grind, or persecution syndrome, or whatever. But nevertheless, regularly something just has to come up that's so one-sided and distorted, and stops just short of saying "join in shouting slogans against X _now_ or you're a loser", that it's not even funny any more.
Or maybe it is corporate and political PR after all. These guys are expert at masquerading and astroturfing as whatever they want to, from scientist to high school kid. I don't see why they couldn't sound like a dysfunctional geek on a crusade, if they wanted to.
At any rate, it's getting tiresome. I'm all for being informed about news or dangerous precedents, but being outright told what to think and in whose crusade to join, is just leaving a bad taste.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If he continues to sue people of nothing (and loosing) he is going to run out of money. But that is fine with me. After all, I think he needs to be unplugged from the internet. Since it is quite obvious that he cannot take the heat of being public figure.
Suing people/companies for emotional stress is a lawyers slang over that the person in question seriously needs to make a lot of money right away. The fastest way to do so is by using everything and everyone and hopeing that he wins every time.
Now I just hope that he gets sued into oblivion.
Wikipedia having lots of money? Get out of here. Tell me where this money is. I can't seem to find it. While it's true that Wikipedia has paid for a lot of servers, these servers have been donated by mostly individuals. The money used to pay for them was not earned as a result of profit; the Wikimedia Foundation is a not-for-profit. It's also true that Wikimedia has regular fundraisers that generate a lot of money, but it's untrue that this immediately means there's an excess of cash that can be used to fund things such as this lawsuit. There are certainly cash reserves, but they are not plentiful. It's meant predominantly for the financing of the servers.
Naturally, this posting must cause him some distress. So he must be suing slashdot next.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I wonder how much the lack of ethics and morals of the SCO people, impacted the logic for this lawsuit.
I think I saw that movie... the crooks won.
I could see where a politician would be very upset, enough to sue. Because the Internet is putting out so much information about the person it is effectively trashing their prospects of writing cutting edge memoirs. And would also diminish book sales by inducing "Public Tiredness" toward the individual politician. These are definitely damaging a politician's post-Public Office book sales {$$$$$.cc} prospects.
/.'ers watching my back.
Shameless Plug >>> For those good readers of SlashDot who have told me how atrocious my web pages are, I re-wrote my enginewow page yesterday (April 22, 2007) and moved the pictures closer to the top of the page {helps hold surfers}, including one real nice new pic showing the Newcomen engine of 1705+1712 (+ link). The previous page was re-named http://www.newpath4.com/enginewow2003.htm . I have appreciated your constructive criticism and besides, you were right. Pressing onward then,
Industrial Age 2 + How-to Stop Malignant Cancers.
> The idea that anonymous users exist on the net is an excuse to publish libel is nonsense.
> If you run a message board [or equiv] you should be held liable for any and ALL anonymous postings.
> After all, you're the one who is publishing it. I think it's reasonable that people moderate their
> websites such that libelous content is not widely distributed.
Do you believe that the postal office should be held liable "for any and ALL" anonymous mail?
Do you believe that the phone company should be held liable "for any and ALL" anonymous calls?
If not, please explain the difference.
He has all kinds of lawsuits! See http://uncrooked.pbwiki.com/ he has soooed little people like this http://section15.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-am-being-s ued-by-wayne-crookes.html
he got very involved in politics, and made many mistakes. People write things about him. They do not say that he eats babies, they say that he made mistakes that hurt the Green Party.
Like what he is doing now.
Instead of saving the earth, all these green people have to find money for lawyers, and spend time fighting the silly libel laws of Canada.
In Canada, with libel you are guilty until proven innocent, and there are no penalities for bozos with lots of bucks who try to make people apologize for telling the truth.
he is soooing this little worm for writing this:
http://greencompostheap.blogspot.com/2006/08/blow- it-out-your-tailpipe.html
and yet it is all true!
You do not want people to be able to soooee you in British Columbia under their really old libel laws, do you? You do not have to live there to be soooeed.
It could be that the real motive here is for Crookes, whose business West Coast Title Search actually serves writs, and his lawyer, Bob Kasting, who obviously is willing to file quite thin lawsuits, and their associate Dermod Travis, a public relations spin doctor, to make a brand new business.
Suing anyone insulted on the Internet from BC, whereupon Crookes serves the writ, Kasting files the suit, and Travis writes the press releases. Even if they can't collect a cent on this particular round, they could make tidy sums by perfecting the technique.
That is, if countersuits do not immediately and utterly destroy all three of this "gang of Crookes".
"The idea that anonymous users exist on the net is an excuse to publish libel is nonsense. If you run a message board [or equiv] you should be held liable for any and ALL anonymous postings. "
This has nothing to do with political opinions, which is what is at issue in these Crookes cases. The term "gang of Crookes" referred only to the behavior of persons in the context of a political party, it was never even intended to apply to their businesses, or persons, in its original usage.
Accordingly it's protected political speech anywhere, even in Canada. The chance of any criminal conviction based on such political opinions is nil.
There are a few morons arguing that the right to political speech justifies also death threats, k-porn, publishing lies to get people into a panic, and so on. It doesn't. But the need to keep those things out of public sight does nothing to answer to the need to keep political speech free and even anonymous.
If you don't believe that, you've just sold us all out to dictators, current and future, who'll use BC libel suits to get your IP number and then figure out who you are. That's the real danger of this Crookes guy.
BHouston continues to use the US definition of "libel, the spreading of false information that is designed to cause harm to a person's reputation".
i cle&articleid=371&rssid=4
This is neither the English common law nor the operative BC definition in the Crookes cases. Accordingly all his "analysis" has been wrong so far, and allowing it to be modified "+5, insightful" is extremely misleading.
In BC and anywhere else deriving its law from English common law, spreading TRUE statements CAN be found to be libellous. Accordingly all the rest of his statements and legal views are completely WRONG and should disappear to avoid misleading others.
The real issue here is not "libel", by whatever definition, but whether political critics of power figures can remain anonymous when they are criticizing only political acts. If you don't believe they can, you don't believe in secret ballots or heckling at political rallies either. And you want every dissident in North Korea, Iran, China or Russia handed over to their oppressors just for the price of a BC libel suit, which will be happily filed by Bob Kasting and served by Wayne Crookes' company West Coast Title Search (yes they do this!), as Dermod Travis speaks out on your behalf to the global press. As the chocolate ration drops and Travis claims it's been "raised" for y'all.
You do NOT want the Canadian definition of libel spread all over the net.
http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/libel3.html
http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_libel
The same guy filed all the cases. His name is Robert Kasting (or "Bob") and he certainly is offering his client very very different advice than Canada's leading law firms, which strongly discourage this sort of thing.
For reasons that should be obvious, given this thread.
It's still relatively easy to find lots of links relevant to Wayne Crookes and the "gang of Crookes" controversy. Here's one account by Chris Tindal:
http://www.christindal.ca/2006/08/07/the-silliness -of-suing-a-wiki/
And here's the original account of the party internal events which may disappear anytime. Crookes is only directly mentioned in a small part of it but possibly because of his central financial role is implicitly understood by many people to be implicated in all of it:
http://openpolitics.ca/GPC+Council+Crisis
A lawyer named Rob Hyndman admits being chilled and deleting a comment he calls "very well argued, and passionately made, and in a world that made sense would in unedited form clearly be legitimate and necessary political commentary":
http://www.robhyndman.com/2007/04/21/comment-edite d-because-of-libel-chill/
(if anyone can dig the original out of a cache and post it here outside of Canada that might be useful)
For those of you who still don't understand why BC libel is not US libel, here's what Dan Burnett, a lawyer now involved in the cases, says about it:
http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=arti cle&articleid=371&rssid=4
And here are a pile more links from blog aggregators. Find more using
http://technorati.com/search/Wayne+Crookes
http://technorati.com/search/gang+of+Crookes
and similar searches on digg, deli.cio.us and so on. Plus the WTF entries.
This seems to be a complete version of the original Wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wayne_Cr ookes&oldid=99714811
Here's a copy of an Ottawa Citizen article proving that major party figures said Crookes "bought" the party and that it had "sold out" to him. Amusing:
http://www.egyptiangreens.com/docs/general/index.p hp?eh=newhit&subjectid=5135&subcategoryid=270&cate goryid=37
Other links on the relevant matters from the blogs include
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/open_politics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/online_journalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/radical_transparency
articles
http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Talk:Wayne_Crookes (really interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wayne_Cr ookes&oldid=85159885
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wayne_Cr ookes&oldid=99714811
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:BShgcqxTpzsJ: openpolitics.ca/Gang%2Bof%2BCrookes%3FPHPSESSID%3D b13d6821b09286ced373730fb33468a6+openpolitics.ca+g
...a "lawful justification or excuse." It's hard to argue that it isn't, given that politicians make laws and political parties choose who gets to run for office. This fellow Crookes is apparently still very much involved with the Green Parties of BC and of Canada, and has very often stated his opinion of his critics to them apparently. If he left the political scene entirely, and stayed away, he'd probably have more rights than otherwise. If he remains, though, it's hard to imagine his critics leaving off at all.
s -of-suing-a-wiki/
p hp?eh=newhit&subjectid=5135&subcategoryid=270&cate goryid=37
His critics basically accuse the guy and his allies of entirely subverting the party's constitution and internal officer responsibilities, including firing people the elected officers wanted to keep.
http://openpolitics.ca/GPC+Council+Crisis
These are very serious allegations since Canadian parties get tax money and since members expect parties to behave according to their constitutions. By never responding to these claims in detail, and continuing to associate with all the same people, this guy Crookes could be said to have failed to acknowledge any criticism, and to have given up even his chance to respond.
This blog entry by current Green candidate Chris Tindal explains some of the issues involved:
http://www.christindal.ca/2006/08/07/the-sillines
What's particularly oppressive about suing these reporters is that the comments they report were not that original. An Ottawa Citizen article quotes former leader Joan Russow and former chair Gretchen Schwarz as saying that the party "sold out" to him and was "bought" by him. http://www.egyptiangreens.com/docs/general/index.
The harsh and negative opinion of Crookes was shared by the majority in the party itself. After Crookes left, most of his allies were fired apparently. Some of his harshest critics were elected to officer posts even after they resigned in the Crookes era. So this is not a fringe group complaining, it's central people in the party. The idea that he could silence them all is ridiculous.
As for "exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person" politics in Canada is not that different from the US. As long as someone's actively involved in trying to take power they get pretty much abused non-stop with "attack ads" and that sort of thing. There's no chance that any degree of venom in politics constitutes a crime, though people can and do get sued when they lie or make outrageous claims.
However, the outrageousness of this situation seems to be the consequences of Mr. Crookes winning: total lack of anonymity and BC libel standards to apply to the entire Internet no matter how vital the public interest of the subject matter. Basically a gigantic chilll descending on politics itself.
Having read the briefs available at
http://uncrooked.pbwiki.com/
here's a non-lawyer's opinion.
First, many of the demands are ridiculous, such as lengthy apologies for changing small bits of articles almost no one seems to have read (until Mr. Crookes himself drew attention to them), and demanding that google return nothing when "gang of Crookes" is entered in a search engine. This despite the fact that major newspapers carried the story and used that phrase. So evidently THEY do not believe that using it to refer to Mr. Crookes' political allies is defamatory.
Second, this is certainly SLAPP as understood in the US, so the first thing google and yahoo should do is apply for a change of venue and countersue (for triple damages). It's not the defendant's ability to pay lawyers that defines a SLAPP so much as the suit being "against public participation", that is, political statements, by the individuals. Every statement listed in the suits regards Crookes' behaviour in the party not in his business.
Another factor that makes a SLAPP "strategic" is usually the timing. Elizabeth May, whose faction in the Green Party opposed the David Chernushenko faction Crookes supported strongly, had just announced a major deal with the Liberal Party of Canada. The suits were filed interestingly just after, distracting attention and reducing ability of May allies to support her in that controversial move. You can read more about this in blog posts:
http://technorati.com/tag/Wayne+Crookes
Third, the defendants are in fact mostly individuals. Have a look at this, which lists all the defendants (in an awesome logo!):
http://p2pnet.net/story/12037
They're mostly individuals. The companies seem to have been targetted to gain more information and incriminating information against the individuals.
Fourth, the goal here seems not to get money so much as information useful to suppress dissent. This seems to be a classic attempt to leverage political information out of a corporation, the way Yahoo was coerced into providing data on dissidents in China. Canada is no better than China in this regard since it allows people to be sued for "libel" despite the statements being both political and true.
What's more, the individuals all have a track record of being involved in actual political debates, many as candidates for the Green Party of Canada itself. This is clearly a politically-motivated suit by Mr. Crookes and his "gang". The Green Party of Canada under his mentorship or influence (while Dermod Travis was there) filed two similar politically-motivated suits against Gretchen Schwarz and Matthew Pollesel, which were dropped as soon as the 2006 election was over.
This certainly would be considered a SLAPP suit in the US. In California, it would expose Mr. Crookes and his "gang of Crookes" to triple damages in a countersuit. After all, he's called very large publicly traded companies "reckless" and unconcerned about enabling harassment (i.e. spreading truth).
Given that people use search engines precisely to get true information, and given that yahoo for instance would be placed in an impossible position if it had to obey demands from foreign courts for information that exposes it to lawsuits under the US Alien Tort Claims Act, yahoo probably has no choice but to respond strongly to discourage this kind of nuisance lawsuit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wayne_Cr ookes&oldid=59182178
Wayne Crookes is a businessman in Vancouver, British Columbia.
1 Lender to Green Parties
2 Control of the Green Party of Canada
3 Online journalism
4 Sources
Lender to Green Parties
He is best known for his involvement in the Green Party of British Columbia, to which he donated substantial funds in 2001, and the Green Party of Canada, to which he lent nearly $440,000 in 2003-4. It was his activities as that party's major creditor that brought him to the public eye.
Speculation began in 2001 about Crookes' motives, with some persons claiming his intent was to "split votes" and elected the BC Liberal Party. Crookes quickly suppressed such suggestions, notably at rabble.ca, a left-wing political chat site, whose publisher Judy Rebick published a boilerplate apology to Crookes, who was otherwise generally successful at avoiding media scrutiny until 2005-6.
Control of the Green Party of Canada
In return for this, "Mr. Crookes was also appointed to a newly- created Green party election readiness committee -- an appointment that rubbed many Greens the wrong way", according to a May 2006 article in the Ottawa Citizen.
After raising concerns about "having a rich guy buy his way into a position of power", Gretchen Schwarz, the Party's Chair, a sentiment she claimed was shared by "a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Greens", "she and five other members of the executive council resigned in 2003." She later complained that financial statements prepared by Chief Agent John Anderson had not ever been made available to the party's elected Council. During the Canadian federal election, 2006, this and other criticisms of Jim Harris' financial relationships and reporting during the period in which the party was repaying Crookes prompted the party to file a number of lawsuits and accuse several critics of lying to alter the outcome of an election, a crime in Canada. After the election, the suits were apparently dropped, [http://openpolitics.ca/GPC+whistleblower+crisis,+ 2006 which were taken by some as proof of their original political motivation].
Though he had resigned as head of the GPC's Management Committee, just before that election, it was widely believed that Crookes' personal penchant for libel actions had influenced the party to take these actions.
During 2005, the party had undergone another crisis very similar to 2003, and this was also widely attributed to Crookes' influence. During the Canadian federal election, 2004, Crookes had served as national campaign manager. Afterwards, he continued to lend the party bridge funds until public funding was received.
He was very involved in operational matters, approved spending proposals personally, and was called "Uncle Wayne" in Council meetings by John Anderson, the party's chief agent, according to Elio Di Iorio.
His influence grew as staff were hired, some of which had originally reported to Crookes during the 2004 election. There were tensions with volunteers and especially with those who working on policy research, who saw the staff as sometimes usurping political work. In January 2005, elected Fundraising Chair Kathryn Holloway came into conflict with Debbie Hartley, who had Crookes' trust and had replaced him as head of the election readiness and campaign team, a conflicted body which included both staff and the Council that they in theory reported to. Holloway was "suspended" from the Council, an unprecedented action with no precedent in the party's constitution. This triggered another set of events usually called the GPC Council Crisis.
Protests about Holloway's treatment grew, and analysis of it was published in party forums. In early February 2005, a memo from Crookes, who had formally withdrawn from the election readiness committee now controlled by Debbie Hartley, was forwarded by Hartle