Quotulatiousness

March 23, 2010

The Canadian “flavour” of free speech

Filed under: Cancon, Liberty — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:15

Marni Soupcoff hits the nail on the head with this observation:

Do Canadians understand freedom of expression? For several years, I’ve been arguing that the majority of them don’t — that despite freedom of speech’s prominent place in the Charter, they think it means the ability to say critical things provided these things don’t offend or upset anybody. Protest away, as long as you don’t actually rock the boat.

It’s part of that notorious “Canadian nice” thing: we’re so terribly afraid of offending someone that we’ve empowered the state to monitor and “correct” our speech and behaviour. We like the idea of free speech, but we also undercut the spirit by carving out exceptions to ensure that free speech is not free to offend or insult or demean the listener (or bystanders, or people totally unconnected to the conversation).

This is the genesis of our “hate speech” legislation, which legally defines certain kinds of speech as being so harmful that the use must be proscribed. We appear to fear the use of certain words and phrases as much as if they were literal clubs or bludgeons or some other kind of blunt instrument. In other words, we think it worse to hear offensive speech than to be physically threatened with bodily harm.

This is why the University of Ottawa’s François Houle not only felt it necessary to warn Ann Coulter about our draconian speech laws, but almost certainly felt that without such a warning, those laws were likely to be put into motion. The unspoken but hardly concealed subtext is that we recognize that Americans are more mature than Canadians: they can hear those horrible, horrible words without taking damage or harm.

What initially sounds like another example of Canadian smugness turns out to be an example of Canadian inferiority. Again.

March 9, 2010

Opening the door to arbitrary punishment

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:33

Cory Doctorow talks about why the proposed “three strikes” internet ban is such a stupid idea:

February 6, 2010

Tweet of the day

Filed under: Humour, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:27

loresjoberg
When all you have is a hammer, a nail, and 95 theses, everything looks like a church door.

January 7, 2010

Tracking the effectiveness of bloggers by arrests

Filed under: China, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:30

2009 was a tough year for journalists, with at least 76 killed and arrests and physical assaults increased over last year. In a back-handed way, the effectiveness of bloggers and other informal journalists could be measured by the ways in which they get harassed, intimidated, or otherwise interfered with as they tried to report on the news:

Meanwhile, the spotlight is increasingly falling on bloggers, as 2009 was the first year that more than 100 bloggers and cyber-dissidents were imprisoned.

In a number of countries online dissent is now a criminal offence: authorities have responded to the internet as pro-democracy tool with new laws and crackdowns. A pair of Azerbaijani bloggers were sentenced to two years in prison for making a film mocking the political elite.

China was still the leading Internet censor in 2009. However, Iran, Tunisia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan have all also made extensive use website blocking and online surveillance to monitor and control dissent. The Turkmen Internet remains under total state control. Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer remains in jail, while well-known Burmese comedian Zarganar has a further 34 years of his prison sentence to serve.

However, the Report also notes that democratic countries have not lagged far behind, instancing the various steps taken by European countries to control the internet under the guise of protection against child porn and illegal downloading. It also notes that Australia intends to put in place a compulsory filtering system that poses a threat to freedom of expression.

December 11, 2009

Changes coming to England’s over-generous libel laws?

Filed under: Britain, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:19

For the aggrieved, suing in London has been the way to go, due to English laws which strongly favour the plaintiff. This may change, as the laws are being reviewed:

England has long been a mecca for aggrieved people from around the world who want to sue for libel. Russian oligarchs, Saudi businessmen, multinational corporations, American celebrities — all have made their way to London’s courts, where jurisdiction is easy to obtain and libel laws are heavily weighted in favor of complainants.

Embarrassed by London’s reputation as “a town called sue” and by unusually stinging criticisms in American courts and legislatures, British lawmakers are seriously considering rewriting England’s 19th-century libel laws.

A member of the House of Lords is preparing a bill that would, among other things, require foreigners to demonstrate that they have suffered actual harm in England before they can sue here.

December 4, 2009

More good news on reining in the out-of-control HRC bureaucracy

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:16

Colby Cosh summarizes the results of the Alberta Queen’s Bench decision on the Boisson case:

So how stands freedom of the press in Alberta after Thursday’s Queen’s Bench decision tossing out the Boissoin human-rights panel ruling? Justice E.C. Wilson’s reasons establish two big things, pending some higher-level judicial review of Alberta’s human-rights regime:

1. The Charter of Rights can’t be used willy-nilly by content creators in magazines and newspapers as a shield against tribunal oversight, but

2. The tribunals have to confine themselves strictly to the powers granted them by statute, defer to Charter values, respect the presumption of innocence, and in general act a lot less like a cross between a military junta and a three-ring circus.

In 2002 Red Deer preacher Stephen Boisson had written a sweaty, sulfurous letter about the Great Gay Conspiracy to the local daily paper (pause for ironic smirk: it’s called the Advocate). Among other things, Boisson denounced the spectacle of “men kissing men”, which suggests he may not know his way around the synoptic Gospels too well. In any event, a panel of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission found him guilty of discrimination-by-the-word, and he was subjected to a fine, prior restraint on his future speech, and a demand for a written apology.

October 24, 2009

QotD: Canada and freedom of expression

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:26

Some Canadians are rather touchy about criticism from Americans regarding freedom of speech in Canada. The irony of this touchiness is that the Canadian Supreme Court has based its free-speech jurisprudence, at least in the context of antidiscrimination concerns, in large part on the theories of left-wing American academics such as University of Michigan professor Catharine MacKinnon. The Canadian left has a penchant for importing left-wing ideas from the U.S. and elsewhere, adopting them as public policy, and then accusing anyone who objects of being "anti-Canadian" because these policies somehow define Canadian identity. I like Canada a lot myself, but I should hope that there is more to Canadian identity than national health insurance, gun control, and aggressive hate speech laws.

David Bernstein, “Touchy Canadians”, The Volokh Conspiracy, 2003-12-05

October 22, 2009

Soon, they’ll demand a fee for thinking about the songs

Filed under: Britain, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:44

Although this particular case appears to have ended correctly — with an apology from the heavy-handed enforcer — it does still illustrate just how far the copyright police are willing to go:

A shop assistant who was told she could not sing while she stacked shelves without a performance licence has been given an apology.

Sandra Burt, 56, who works at A&T Food store in Clackmannanshire, was warned she could be fined for her singing by the Performing Right Society (PRS).

However the organisation that collects royalties on behalf of the music industry has now reversed its stance.

They have sent Mrs Burt a bouquet of flowers and letter of apology.

Mrs Burt, who describes herself as a Rolling Stones fan, said that despite the initial warning from the PRS, she had been unable to stop herself singing at work.

October 21, 2009

Can Twittering be sufficient cause for arrest?

Filed under: Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:07

Regardless of your opinions on the particular cause, the recent arrest of a protest organizer should cause concern. Harry A. Valetk looks at the case from a legal standpoint:

“SWAT teams rolling down 5th Ave. … Report received that police are nabbing anyone that looks like a protester. … Stay alert watch your friends!” Pennsylvania State Police arrested New York social worker Elliot Madison last month for being part of a group that posted messages like those on Twitter. The arrest took place in a Pittsburgh motel during protests at the Group of 20 summit. In all, almost 5,000 protesters demonstrated throughout the city during two days, and about 200 were arrested for disorderly conduct.

But Madison wasn’t among those protesting on the street. Instead, published reports say he was part of a behind-the-scenes communications team using Twitter to “direct others, specifically protesters of the G-20 summit, in order to avoid apprehension after a lawful order to disperse.” A week later, FBI agents spent 16 hours in Madison’s home executing a search warrant for evidence of federal anti-rioting law violations.

This isn’t, at least based on the initial reports, a criminal mastermind perpetrating some atrocity . . . this is someone trying to help others falling afoul of legal entanglement. If it turns out that he was attempting something that is clearly illegal, then the courts will sort it out — but that isn’t what appears to be the case here.

Presumably, officers believed that Madison violated this statute when he warned other protesters on Twitter about “impending” police apprehension. But this prohibition assumes that the warning is given to fugitives or others committing a crime. Can we make this broad assumption about an entire group of protesters? Not likely. And, even so, the statute specifically allows warnings to bring that individual into compliance with law (e.g., a motorist warning a speeder about a speed trap).

Still, it seems this arrest is really about speech — what you can say to others during a public protest. Can you warn others online by saying, “Hey, don’t go down that street because the police have issued an order to disperse”?

October 20, 2009

FTC guidelines require me to inform you that . . .

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 17:46

. . . I have received no free materials, no payment, and no promised service in exchange for blogging. Others, like Daniel Kalder may end up having to splash nonsense like the start of this post across all their book reviews posted online:

In a fascinating interview conducted with Richard Cleland of the FTC, books blogger Edward Champion exposed the manifold incoherencies in the guidelines. Read the whole thing, for yea verily, it abounds in absurdity. What leapt out at me was the blanket assertion made by Cleland that “when a publisher sends a book to a blogger, there is the expectation of a good review”.

To which Champion replies: “I informed him that this was not always the case and observed that some bloggers often receive 20 to 50 books a week. In such cases, the publisher hopes for a review, good or bad. Cleland didn’t see it that way.”

“If a blogger received enough books,” said Cleland, “he could open up a used bookstore.”

Got that? Good Lord, the man’s a genius! I never realised this criticism lark could be so lucrative! Yes indeed, in Cleland’s brave new world a review copy is compensation, and a review from a blogger is a priori an endorsement, even if negative. Mysteriously the FTC does not require newspapers to disclose how they come by the books they review, or any other freebies their journalists might receive. And yet to pick one obvious example, almost all travel journalism actually is built on the kind of payola/payback system Cleland ascribes to book reviewing, so I can’t see why not.

September 21, 2009

Hate the president: it’s a hallowed tradition

Filed under: Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:27

Steve Chapman looks at the long, long, long history of President Derangement Syndrome:

A new president, pursuing policies well within the political mainstream, evokes weirdly angry and intense denunciations from opponents—a reaction hard to explain in terms of anything he has actually done. Does that suggest, as Jimmy Carter insists, that their true motivation lies in racism?

No, it doesn’t, because I’m not talking about Barack Obama. I’m talking about George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — both of whom, from the day they took office, managed to convince a minority of Americans that they were not just wrong but illegitimate, dangerous, and thoroughly evil. Obama’s troubles are not exactly unprecedented.

[. . .]

So you don’t need to turn to race to explain the virulent animosity against Obama. What all the presidents who previously endured irresponsible slander had in common, after all, is that they were white.

Clinton’s experience suggests that merely being a Democrat is enough to evoke hysteria in some quarters. In matters of policy, he was about as congenial as any conservative could have hoped — cooperating with Republicans to balance the budget, advancing free trade, rejecting an international treaty banning land mines, signing welfare reform, and threatening to bomb North Korea over its nuclear program. Yet even today, many on the right regard him as an extreme liberal.

I don’t remember President Ford rousing the standard levels of derangement among his opponents, but that could be because it was before I started paying much attention to U.S. politics. Other than Ford, all the other occupants of that office seem to have generated deep animosity (Nixon? Hell yeah. Carter? Yep. Reagan? A subgenre of musical animosity. Bush I? Yep.)

September 11, 2009

If you look hard enough for racist comments, you’ll eventually find . . .

Filed under: Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:34

. . . that you end up in rather ridiculous situations like this one:

In my column about Barack Obama’s health care speech yesterday, I described the president’s “we will call you out” warning to lying Republicans as “a nearly Snoop Doggesque display,” linking to a great new Snoop video whose chorus is “we will shut you down.”

DING! DING! DING! We have a racial nut! Salon Editor in Chief Joan Walsh is on the case:

Every time I think I’m exaggerating the nature of the racial nuttiness that Obama faces, an ostensibly tolerant, smart guy like Welch does something boneheaded like this. What in God’s name does Snoop Dogg have to do with Barack Obama (besides the obvious). Snoop’s chorus is some variation on, “I run this town, act loud, get wild, we’ll shut you down!” Oh, I get it: Obama runs Washington, and he threatened to call out people who lie about his proposals, and…that’s the same thing?

September 9, 2009

QotD: The Democratic Party’s problem with criticism

Filed under: Government, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:12

Why did it take so long for Democrats to realize that this year’s tea party and town hall uprisings were a genuine barometer of widespread public discontent and not simply a staged scenario by kooks and conspirators? First of all, too many political analysts still think that network and cable TV chat shows are the central forums of national debate. But the truly transformative political energy is coming from talk radio and the Web — both of which Democrat-sponsored proposals have threatened to stifle, in defiance of freedom of speech guarantees in the Bill of Rights. I rarely watch TV anymore except for cooking shows, history and science documentaries, old movies and football. Hence I was blissfully free from the retching overkill that followed the deaths of Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy — I never saw a single minute of any of it. It was on talk radio, which I have resumed monitoring around the clock because of the healthcare fiasco, that I heard the passionate voices of callers coming directly from the town hall meetings. Hence I was alerted to the depth and intensity of national sentiment long before others who were simply watching staged, manipulated TV shows.

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.

Camille Paglia, “Too late for Obama to turn it around?”, Salon, 2009-09-09

September 2, 2009

QotD: Section 13 violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:54

I have determined that Mr. Lemire contravened s. 13 of the Act in only one of the instances alleged by Mr. Warman, namely the AIDS Secrets article. However, I have also concluded that s. 13(1) in conjunction with ss. 54(1) and (1.1) are inconsistent with s. 2(b) of the Charter, which guarantees the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. The restriction imposed by these provisions is not a reasonable limit within the meaning of s. 1 of the Charter. Since a formal declaration of invalidity is not a remedy available to the Tribunal (see Cuddy Chicks Ltd. V. Ontario (Labour Relations Board), [1991] 2 S.C.R. 5), I will simply refuse to apply these provisions for the purposes of the complaint against Mr. Lemire and I will not issue any remedial order against him (see Nova Scotia (Workers’ Compensation Board) v. Martin, 2003 SCC 54 at paras. 26-7).

Athanasios D. Hadjis, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision in Warman vs. Lemire, 2009-09-02

August 26, 2009

Gun-toting protests ineffective?

Filed under: Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:00

Megan McArdle points out that folks simultaneously exercising their freedom to assemble, freedom to petition for redress of grievance, and freedom to bear arms are not likely to succeed:

I think carrying guns to protests is entirely counterproductive. Indeed, I’m not sold on the general virtues of protesting, which worked for Gandhi and the civil rights marcher, but has a dismal track record on other concerns. But I think people have a perfect right to do it, including with guns, though I also think the secret service is within its rights to ensure that they don’t have a sight line on the president.

But the hysteria about them has been even more ludicrous. Numerous people claim to believe that this makes it likely, even certain, that someone will shoot at the president. This is very silly, because the president is not anywhere most of the gun-toting protesters, who have showed up at all sorts of events. It is, I suppose, more plausible to believe that they might take a shot at someone else. But not very plausible: the rate of crime associated with legal gun possession or carrying seems to be very low. Guns, it turn out, do not turn ordinary people into murderers. They make murderers more effective.

So perhaps unsurprisingly, when offered the opportunity to put some money down on the proposition that one of these firearms is soon going to be discharged at someone, they all decline.

I have to agree with Megan . . . when I saw the images of individuals attending the protests while openly carrying firearms, I thought it would have a negative effect on the undecided viewer. I’m in favour of all the freedoms: assembly, speech, bearing arms (not a freedom we enjoy in Canada, BTW), but this was an inappropriate time and place to exercise that last freedom. It makes the debate more murky, and allows people to characterize their opponents in ways totally unrelated to the issue being protested.

A political own-goal, as it were.

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