No decision as web hate speech case ends

Written by Paul Fromm

Thursday, 15 December 2011 02:26

No decision as web hate speech case ends Joseph Brean <http://news.nationalpost.com/author/jbrean/> Dec 13, 2011 – 10:51 PM ET [image: Matthew Sherwood for National Post] Matthew Sherwood for* National Post* Richard Warman, left, has successfully fought a number of cases using Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. A case involving Marc Lemire, right, has put the hate law in jeopardy. - Comments<http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/13/no-decision-as-web-hate-speech-case-ends/#disqus_thread> - Email <http://news.nationalpost.com/email-form/?email-post=119076> - Twitter<http://twitter.com/share?text=No+decision+as+web+hate+speech+case+ends&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.nationalpost.com%2F2011%2F12%2F13%2Fno-decision-as-web-hate-speech-case-ends%2F&related=financialpost,fullcomment&via=nationalpost> - inShare*0* - - A federal court review of Canada’s Internet hate speech law ended without a decision Wednesday, with the judge hinting he might have been persuaded to consider overturning the law, rather than stick to the narrow legal issues put forth by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Mr. Justice Richard Mosley also had harsh words for the federal government, which withdrew from the case — a constitutional review of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, within the hate speech prosecution of Freedomsite webmaster Marc Lemire by activist lawyer Richard Warman. The government’s absence is “unusual and regrettable,” the judge said. Section 13 “is federal legislation. The Attorney General should be here. The Attorney General should take a position, as it appears he did at the [Canadian Human Rights] Tribunal.” Related - Undercover work debated in hate hearing<http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/12/undercover-work-debated-in-hate-hearing/> - Once epic hate speech case whimpers to unforeseen anti-climax<http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/09/once-epic-hate-speech-case-whimpers-to-unforeseen-anti-climax/> Rob Nicholson, the Justice Minister, does take a position. The problem is that it is exactly the opposite position he took in 2008, when Mr. Lemire’s case was before the tribunal, and the Conservatives held a vulnerable parliamentary minority. Then, he intervened to support Section 13. Now, with a majority, Mr. Nicholson has urged Parliament to back a private member’s bill that could repeal it next year. Passed by Parliament in 1977 to combat telephone hate lines, and expanded to the Internet in 2001, Section 13 bans repeated messages that are likely to expose protected groups to hatred or contempt. In the age of the Internet, it has been used almost exclusively by Mr. Warman, a former CHRC employee who has seen 15 hate speech cases through to a conclusion, usually with a financial penalty, a cease and desist order, and occasionally payments to himself for his efforts. Judge Mosley said he is tempted to wait for the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in the similar case of William Whatcott, which will re-analyze Canada’s main legal precedent on hatred. But that could be months away and he might decide on Section 13’s constitutionality before then. The CHRT found Mr. Lemire had violated Section 13 by posting a racist, homophobic article called AIDS Secrets, written by someone else, which he removed as soon as he was told of the complaint. That willingness to resolve the complaint, however, coupled with the CHRC and Mr. Warman’s refusal to agree to mediation, led Athanasios Hadjis, a tribunal member, to conclude in 2009 Section 13 was no longer a reasonable limit on freedom of expression, as the Supreme Court decided in 1990. Once remedial and conciliatory, the law had become punitive, he decided. He made no order against Mr. Lemire, and cast Section 13 into limbo. Margot Blight, the CHRC’s lawyer, argued the commission’s actions alone cannot invalidate a law and the judge must confine himself to the narrow issues raised in her request for judicial review. These focus on whether Mr. Hadjis should have upheld the basic law, and simply “read out,” or ignored, the penalty provisions. Barbara Kulaszka, Mr. Lemire’s lawyer, said the judge can and should reconsider all of Section 13. She argued Mr. Hadjis could have reached the same conclusion on different grounds, namely that expanding the law to include Internet has drastically changed the constitutional questions, as the Supreme Court understood them in 1990. She said recorded telephone messages simply do not compare to the participatory style of the web. Section 13 is a “truly despicable law, enforced in a despicable way,” with federal bureaucrats acting in the manner of Crown prosecutors, she added. “If it wasn’t for Richard Warman, Section 13 would basically be dead, because Canadians love the Internet, the back and forth… the freedom of speech it represents.” Ms. Kulaszka compared Section 13, and its supposed 100% conviction rate, to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which did not sit well with Judge Mosley. “Let’s not get carried away with hyperbole. Some comparisons are offensive,” he said. “Counsel should know this and restrain yourself.” * National Post* *[email protected]*

 

Undercover work debated in hate hearing

Written by Paul Fromm

Thursday, 15 December 2011 02:25

Undercover work debated in hate hearing [image: Richard Warman posed as a supporter on neo-Nazis' websites to "[obtain] information."] Aaron Lynett, National Post Files Richard Warman posed as a supporter on neo-Nazis' websites to "[obtain] information." - Twitter<http://twitter.com/share?text=Undercover%20work%20debated%20in%20hate%20hearing&url=http%3a//www.nationalpost.com/news/Undercover%2bwork%2bdebated%2bhate%2bhearing/5850084/story.html&related=financialpost,fullcomment&via=nationalpost> - Email<http://www.nationalpost.com/ajax/email/story.xml?url=http%3a//www.nationalpost.com/news/Undercover%2bwork%2bdebated%2bhate%2bhearing/5850084/story.html&id=5850084&title=National+Post+Story%3a++Undercover+work+debated+in+hate+hearing> - inShare*0* - - Joseph Brean, *National Post* · Dec. 13, 2011 | *Last Updated: Dec. 13, 2011 3:09 AM ET* Richard Warman, the serial hate-speech complainant whose case against webmaster Marc Lemire will be heard in Federal Court Tuesday on a constitutional appeal, is known by many false names. The grandest is Canada's Hatefinder-General, a mocking epithet coined by celebrity human rights victim and columnist Mark Steyn. The most improbable is Mary Dufford, as whom he corresponded with Eldon Warman, no relation, a radical anti-Semitic "de-tax" activist, seeking to confirm his receipt of legal documents. AxeToGrind, as whom Mr. Warman posted 33 messages on the white supremacist Vanguard News Network between 2004 and 2005, seems to speak for itself. Pogue Mahone, his handle for 93 posts on the white power site Stormfront, means "kiss my arse" in Gaelic. But the longest-lasting alias is Lucy, or Lucie, in honour of Lucie Aubrac, who died in 2007, and was a hero of the French Resistance against the Nazis. It is a curious historical nod for the lawyer and thricefailed Green Party candidate whose pursuit of hate-speech cases against neo-Nazis and other hatemongers involved posing as a supporter on their message boards, praising their leaders, and even signing off with "88," a coded reference to "Heil Hitler." This unsupervised freelance undercover work by Mr. Warman - who worked for the Canadian Human Rights Commission from 2002 to 2004, and has successfully pursued 15 hate-speech cases, often with the CHRC arguing the case on his behalf, and with his help - was a key point in the public outcry against Section 13, the Internet hate speech section of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The majority Conservative government has vowed to repeal the law as an affront to free speech, even as the Supreme Court of Canada deliberates on a separate case that could see Section 13's legal foundation struck down. At Tuesday's hearing in Toronto to decide whether Section 13 is constitutional, the CHRC is expected to argue that its own practices in fighting hate on the Internet are irrelevant to the question of Section 13's constitutionality. Evidence presented throughout the Lemire case revealed those practices to be heavily influenced by Mr. Warman, who once urged the CHRC to "hold off on informing" Mr. Lemire about the expansion of the investigation against him "until the police take a good look" at some new allegations. No criminal charges were ever filed. Details of the extent of the Lucie pseudonym are included in records of a separate libel suit Mr. Warman brought against bloggers. The National Post also was sued over the alleged libel, but issued a retrac-tion and apology, and settled the lawsuit. In a forensic analysis of the hard drive of a laptop belonging to Mr. Warman, the word Aubrack turned up 1,460 times, largely from email records of an address in that name. The analysis also turned up "n-gger" and "c--t" 4,062 and 259 times respectively, which René Hamel of Digital Wyzdom Forensic Inc. reported was "consistent with Mr. Warman's lengthy human rights work collecting evidence of hate group activity." "I signed up and posted to the neo-Nazi website forums vnnforum.com and stormfront.org as another means of collecting intelligence about the neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements and information about the identities of individuals in Canada that it was my intention to file federal human rights complaints against," Mr. Warman said in an affidavit last year as part of the libel suit. "Purporting to be interested in, or a supporter of, the beliefs of a closed group is a standard practice for obtaining information that would otherwise be unavailable. The vast majority of these postings are entirely banal...." To explain why he made comments about two neo-Nazis who do not fit the typical mould - one was not white, the other disabled - he said in his affidavit that "contemporary neo-Nazi groups have often splintered or excluded individuals as a result of arcane suspicions about the racial lineage of members or leaders. It has thus been a useful technique to sow doubt about such matters...." In upholding one of his hate complaints, Edward Peter Lustig, chairman of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, also said Mr. Warman's hateposing "diminishes his credibility" and "could have precipitated further hate messages." Mr. Warman has even been accused of hate speech himself: once when the respondent in Tuesday's case, Marc Lemire, sought to add Mr. Warman as a respondent to his own complaint, on the theory that Mr. Warman had anonymously written a comment on his message board; and later when Alex Kulbashian, whom Mr. Warman won a hate speech complaint against, complained he had anonymously violated Section 13 on Stormfront and VNN. That complaint was dismissed as vexatious. Mr. Warman denies writing anything on Mr. Lemire's Freedomsite. Neither the analysis by Digital Wyzdom, nor a subsequent one, turned up any evidence that Mr. Warman had written the message at the heart of the libel suit. "Mr. Lemire and his direct associates had always been cautious enough never to spread the allegation outside of the CHRT hearing. Indeed, one of Mr. Lemire's closest associates indicated in an Internet posting that they had legal advice not to do so (presumably knowing they would be sued for libel)," Mr. Warman said in his affidavit. Mr. Warman did not attend much of the tribunal against Mr. Lemire, but he is expected to make submissions Tuesday in support of Section 13. [email protected]

 

Hear Paul Fromm -- The Fighting Side of Me: Truth Instead of Political Correctitude

Written by Paul Fromm

Thursday, 15 December 2011 02:21

Hear Paul Fromm -- The Fighting Side of Me: Truth Instead of Political Correctitude<http://reasonradionetwork.com/20111206/the-fighting-side-of-me-truth-instead-of-political-correctitude> December 6, 2011 [image: Terry Tremaine]<http://reasonradionetwork.com/images/2011/12/Terry_Tremaine.jpg> *Paul Fromm:* - … denounces the Crown for prosecuting Terry Tremaine for “hate” and seeking yet another delay in a hearing challenging their long delay in this case; - … praises Gatineau, Quebec for its guidelines for immigrants — no bribes, honour killings, or sexual abuse of children; - … wonders how an Indian reserve (Attawapiskat) can get over $90,000,000 for its 1,850 people in five years and still be living in dire poverty with some people living in tents and unheated shacks; - … explains the origin of Sec. 13 of Canada’s Human Rights Act. It started as censorship of telephone answering machines and then graduated to Internet censorship; - … outlines the Canadian Association for Free Expession’s submissions — “hate” law based on scientific bunk — arguments at next week’s Marc Lemire Appeal in Toronto. * ** http://reasonradionetwork.com/20111206/the-fighting-side-of-me-truth-instead-of-political-correctitude *<http://reasonradionetwork.com/20111206/the-fighting-side-of-me-truth-instead-of-political-correctitude>