Slashdot Mirror
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..."
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.
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 ----
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.
Indeed, straight from the Chief Justice Herself, Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca/aboutcourt/judges/speeche s/ComparativeView_e.asp
That said, the debate isn't new in fact, http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/libel3.html decribes how lawsuit can be used to shout down criticism through intimidation. Jeffrey Shallit http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/
is vice-president of Electronic Frontier Canada http://www.efc.ca/. One of us!
I Swear, God as my witness, I thought Turkeys could fly!!
Consider reading the code section 298 states
298. (1) A defamatory libel is matter published, without lawful justification or excuse, that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published.
Note the "without lawful justification or excuse." Section 300 states if it's false the punishment is 5 years, and section 301 blankets it with a 2 year sentence regardless. (that is, upto). So you can get more time for a false statement, but true or not, you can still be found guilty of libel.
It's in the publics interest if he messed with party money [or whatever]. If the allegations are false, then whoever published them can be found guilty of defamatory libel.
However, suppose he had an embarrassing hobby (that was otherwise legal), and it was paraded in public to mock and ridicule him. If the publication causes him harm [loss of job, contempt of peers, etc] it can be found to be libel, regardless of whether it's true or not.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I have no idea what your ranting about. I didn't vote NDP. And I'm pro-individual rights, which includes the rights to live safely (free from ridicule, contempt, torment, etc). I was simply replying to the parent suggesting that libel is real, does affect people, and there are boundaries that civilized people don't cross.
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.
If that means changing existing website designs to disallow anonymous posts to become immediately published so be it.
Take a look at this for instance. Not once did I "spam" usenet about the book. I posted one message in an on-topic usenet group (where I've was an active participant for the last 7 years) about the book, some asshole then took that post and reposted it to a hundred other groups.
Amazon was at one point hosting reviews that read such as [from memory] "I would never buy this book as he's a usenet spamming jerk. This book clearly is not worth buying, etc, etc..." While amazon was nice enough to take down the reviews [which were posted before the book was in print] they didn't remove the "discussion" threads which are still there today.
While I don't think that's the only reason the books aren't selling, I have to assume that it has had an impact on some of the sales, at the very least, one sale.
And what did I do to deserve this treatment? Be an outspoken advocate of free software, open source cryptography, and an enemy of snake oil. Because someone didn't like how open I was, how generous I was to give out free knowledge and software they decided to post spam, kiddie porn and other nonsense with my name on it. It wasn't like I was actively attacking others. In fact, the last round of joe-jobs before I just quit using usenet altogether were people re-posting my research posts [I had optimized my ECC implementation that I give out in LibTomCrypt].
Basically some guy decided he didn't like me so he nearly ruined my life (hint: you consider awful things when you're being labeled a kiddie porn peddler).
Is that what living in a "free" society is like?
God help us all then when some random asshole on the web decides to have it in for you. Maybe the next time someone does the same to someone else (yourself, a friend of yours, a family member), someone will respond with violence. In my case, there were times were I was afraid someone would mail a bomb, or worse, come to my house looking for a fight.
People should be responsible for what they write, and people should be responsible for what they host.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.