The media stories have Hollywood corporate fat cats reeling from Wednesday’s shutdown or blackout of more than 12,000 websites like Wikipedia, Reddit and Wired. NJN Network did its small part by wearing black all day.
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Wikipedia goes dark for SOPA protest
If SOPA passes the US Congress in anything close to its current form, the internet as we know it will be essentially dead.
We are joining sites around the world to protest like Wikipedia, Flickr, and Reddit.
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Liberal MP Shawn Murphy might be trying to abridge your rights
In Canada, you clearly have a constitutional right to have your internet comments anonymous except in rare situations.
The comments by Liberal MP Shawn Murphy are scandalous. If Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper made them, the Liberals would be howling.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants freedom of expression that the courts have interpreted to mean “anonymous” expression when you chose. Of course, nothing is absolute: if online comments are considered illegal or defamatory, the court may issue an order to identify the IP address of the poster.
The law on this topic has been developing and the current best precedent is the appeal in Warman v. Fournier (Ontario Superior Court May 2010). That ruling has already been used in Nova Scotia in A.B. v Bragg so it appears to be the rule in Ontario and Nova Scotia. It could reasonably be expected to apply in the Maritimes.
That being said, anytime you go to court, there is no way to predict the outcome. Judges have the ability to read the law as they see fit. New law can be made in cases beyond Warman.
The best advice is to be temperate in your comments about private individuals. Continue reading
Toronto police line blocking protests on Queen image: CBC
The violence and property damage in Toronto is lamentable but predictable. Use of military power to limit public protest always results in violence, in Beijing, Tehran and Toronto.
In Beijing of course Canada denounces it as communist suppression of free speech and lack of democracy. The Iranian government is oppressive when it shoots at people protesting the election. In Canada somehow the government finds the use of police violence as appropriate when people want to end poverty or discrimination.
The same conference was held in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania with only $18 million in security costs and minor violence. “In Pittsburgh during the G20 meeting late in September 2009, about $50,000 in damage was caused by a minority of protesters.” CTV That wasn’t ten years ago, it was ten months ago. Continue reading
A year ago that voter protests in Tehran resulted in death, injury and a crackdown on human rights in Iran. The death of 27 year old Neda Agha Soltan caught the world’s attention. Here was a young girl shot down randomly in the street and caught on cell phone camera. Her death has become an international symbol of the Iranian struggle for freedom.
امروز، سی خرداد، ساعت 7 بعد از ظهر این دختر جوان توسط لباس شخصی ها کشته شد
Basij shot to death a young woman in Tehran’s Saturday June 20th protests
Video showing death of Neda Agha Soltan in new documentary
The Guardian – How the Neda film went viral Link to this video
Iran is jamming satellite broadcasts in attempts to stop people seeing a new film telling the story of, the young woman who was shot dead during the mass protests that followed last summer’s disputed presidential election.
Viewers in Tehran complained of jamming and power cuts on Wednesday and yesterday when the Voice of America Persian TV network broadcast the documentary For Neda, featuring the first film interviews with the family of the 27-year-old.
The 70-minute film, made by Mentorn Media for HBO and being screened in the US this month, has rapidly gone viral in Iran in the run-up to next Saturday’s anniversary of the disputed elections that triggered the protests. It is available on YouTube so can be seen by anyone with access to the internet. The video follows the story break.
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It has been 2 years since UPEI pushed the disabled to the edge of the campus in violation of their human rights
Human Rights aren’t worth much if the strong are allowed to pick on the weak. Wade MacLauchlan has made himself a human rights pariah. PEI will be well rid of him when his term of office is up next year.
The question is: is he the problem or are the UPEI Board of Governors and other senior managers of the same mind?
Human Rights violations at UPEI are extending beyond people living with disabilities. Recently UPEI refused to provide the media with basic information like the salary of its president Wade MacLauchlan.
Earlier this year UPEI declared it would not respect the ruling of the PEI Human Rights Commission. It will continue to retire employees at 65 despite a ruling the policy is illegal.
Two years ago in June the University of PEI removed accessible parking for those living with disabilities. When we spoke out against the human rights abuse of those with disabilities, some scoffed. The evidence is piling up against their record. Does UPEI consider itself a good corporate citizen of Canada or above the law? Continue reading
By Sam Bayward, Citizen Media Law Project
This morning, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire handed down an important decision holding that a mortgage industry website, The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter, is entitled to protection under the state’s reporter’s privilege.
The case is Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc., which was argued before the New Hampshire Supreme Court last fall. The dispute centers on an article that Implode-O-Meter published in August 2008, which detailed administrative actions taken by the New Hampshire Banking Department against The Mortgage Specialists, a mortgage lender.
The article included a link to a financial document that The Mortgage Specialists allegedly submitted to the state banking authorities, which Implode-O-Meter had obtained from an anonymous source. After the mortgage company discovered the disclosure, it sued the website, demanding that the document be removed from the Internet and that the anonymous source be identified. A Rockingham County Superior Court judge granted these requests. Continue reading
UPEI President Wade MacLauchlan, his salary is private but should it be? photo: Nina Linton
CBC News – The University of Prince Edward Island should be included under the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, says the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies.
The Halifax-based policy group was frustrated recently while doing a study on first year university students in the region. Research manager Bobby O’Keefe said every university in the region sent information except for UPEI. O’Keefe believes the university does not have the right to withhold information.
“It does aid in helping the school community and the university community, and the taxpayers who are funding the universities, find out what they’re getting for their money,” he said. Continue reading
An image from one of the Flash cartoons on Mark Fiore’s site that Mr. Fiore says would have gone on his iPhone app.
Cartoonist Mark Fiore caused a ruckus this week when he revealed the Apple Store refused to list his cartoon app.Apple rejects Pulitzer winner’s iPhone app because it ‘ridicules public figures’
Winning a Pulitzer gave Fiore more notoriety than somebody else but the principal is the same. What right does Apple have to infringe free speech? Satire is a long cherished part of free speech, except on the PEI Media where it got one satirist banned from the Press Gallery.
Apple did a turnaround on this and asked Fiore to re-submit his application. Cartoonist: Apple Backs Down After Denying iPhone App
By Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post - A Pulitzer Prize can win you a round of applause in a newsroom, but it won’t necessarily get your application in Apple’s App Store.
Freelance artist Mark Fiore, winner of the 2010 prize for editorial cartooning and the first online-only recipient of a Pulitzer, found that out in December.
This story surfaced yesterday, when the Nieman Journalism Lab blog (a product of Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation) reported on Fiore’s computing rejection in a piece about his critical success. Author Laura McGann wrote that Apple refused to list an iPhone program presenting Fiore’s animated cartoons because … well, they were mean to name-brand people. She quoted an Apple e-mail forwarded by Fiore: Continue reading