Canada's long-standing practice of barring news organizations from disclosing what's happening in certain court proceedings is being tested by Internet bloggers.
A Canadian commission that's investigating charges of high-level wrongdoing in the nation's Liberal Party has ordered news organizations not to reveal details from the proceedings, which are open to the public.
But Ed Morrissey, a conservative Web logger in Minneapolis, has been gleefully violating the ban by posting detailed reports of the verboten "Adscam" testimony. Public revelation of Adscam, which involves allegations of corruption and illegal campaign contributions, could end the Liberal Party's precarious grasp on power and force new elections this summer.
Since that unauthorized publication, provided by a confidential source who claims to have been present during the proceedings, Morrissey's Captain's Quarters blog has become overwhelmed by visits from curious Canadians. His usual average of 30,000 page views a day skyrocketed during the weekend to more than 400,000, according to SiteMeter.com, and the site was unreachable for part of Tuesday. Canada has even been lampooned in a cartoon because of the proceedings.
Morrissey now has laryngitis as a result of a rapid-fire series of interviews from Canadian news organizations. He's found them a bit bizarre. "They can't ask me about the case itself because they can't reproduce anything that has to do with the testimony," Morrissey said in an interview. "They can't ask me about my blog because they can't reproduce the URL."
Canadian publications and bloggers have been left in the difficult position of attempting to describe the violation of a judicial order without revealing which Web site did it. The National Post claimed it could not mention Morrissey by name, and one blogger in Toronto wrote that "I have avoided linking to the U.S. blogger in question. I also deleted a comment someone posted" with alleged Adscam testimony.
Canada's attorney general is investigating the legality of the U.S. blog posting. Government lawyers may charge Canadian Web publishers with contempt of court if they reproduce some of the Adscam testimony or perhaps even link to Morrissey's blog, the Toronto Sun reported.
That announcement is prompting Morrissey to worry about two possibilities: his confidential source being scared away, and a vacation that his family has planned in nearby Canada. "They can find me in contempt of court," he said. "That's fine. I just won't travel to Canada until it expires."
Canada's latest woes aren't the first time its publication ban has been thwarted by the Internet. Grisly details of the Karla Homolka murder trial were circulated on the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.karla-homolka in 1994 in defiance of a gag order. An issue of Wired Magazine that mentioned the Usenet disclosure was even yanked from Canadian newsstands.
James Rossiter, a media lawyer with the Canadian law firm Wickwire Holm said, "Canadians are as interested in the testimony that's come out in the last few days as they were in the Homolka case. But what's different in 2005 is that there are computers on every desk and the Internet is on every computer."
Rossiter said that Canadian courts and quasi-judicial officers such as the Adscam commissioner are permitted to hand down publication bans as a way of protecting the right to a fair trial--by preventing jurors from being exposed to material they're not supposed to see. Unlike in many U.S. trials, Canadian jurors are not sequestered from the media and their families and are permitted to go home every day.
"The testimony that has been delivered in a shroud of secrecy may lead to a more explosive political scandal than either of our countries has seen since Nixon," Rossiter said. "And we're left to learn about this from Americans."
Way to stick it to the Canooks eh! That'll show them to mock us in beer commercials!
But it all seriousness, if I even link to the guys sights are men in red jackets, riding pants, and knee boots going to haul me into court when my wife and I go to Toronto next? The entire farce makes me glad I only vacation there. Its such an ungodly pinch on freedom of speech its silly. Its almost as bad as some of the laws the British deal with, which I suppose shouldnt be a shock for various reasons.
Sadly too many Americans are confused because they though Minnesota is in Canada.
The liberal papers were quite happy to comply with the gag order. It protected the Liberal party in power. They are really mad that a conservative has aired the dirty laundry. One trouble that we have in US and everywhere that humans write the news, is bias. Nobody can just report without bias. Your choice of what stories to report and which facts you consider important will color the report. That said, the papers etc, should be allowed to print/post the days transcripts. The gag order could be used to limit the commentary on the proceedings.
Canadians are so "DUH!!!"....this is a national issues; a public case, yet the public is not allowed to listen to certain aspects of the testimony. What is wrong here?
What people are failing to understand is two key points. In Canada, jurors are NOT sequestered, so they DO go home to their regular lives when they're not in court- this is the reason for gag-orders. Secondly, certain details in ANY trial are ruled as permissible/unpermissible for a jury to hear. if they are declared unpermissible and in a non-sequestered juror system the juror just reads in the paper under a non-gag-order stuff they're not supposed to use to judge a case, then what happens!
Yes, it's a national issue, but at the heart of it we have a judge, a jury, and all the components of a judiciary system. This why we -have- them. so that -we- don't have to do it ourselves. It's why we have government in the first place. If you don't have trust in your government (which will make mistakes no more and no less than you will) and your judiciary processes then you must only live in fear.
Also, it's fairly easy to criticise when you are unfamiliar with the processes of another country- and considering the overwheling LACK OF INTEREST to become so familiar with even the most nominal and trivial aspects of whatever happens across a shared border that there should be just as much interest in criticising, but i guess some just cannot resist, can they.
Web giant is spending $120 million to beef up its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, according to filings with the city reviewed by the San Jose Mercury News.
Tor's "obfsproxy" technology would make encrypted data look innocuous and let it dodge government censors. That could help citizens in Iran reach blocked sites as antigovernment protests reportedly loom.
MIT creates a simulation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Spacewar. A relic of the early days of minicomputers, it was one of the first computer video games and set the stage for many others, including Asteroids.
But it all seriousness, if I even link to the guys sights are men in red jackets, riding pants, and knee boots going to haul me into court when my wife and I go to Toronto next? The entire farce makes me glad I only vacation there. Its such an ungodly pinch on freedom of speech its silly. Its almost as bad as some of the laws the British deal with, which I suppose shouldnt be a shock for various reasons.
Sadly too many Americans are confused because they though Minnesota is in Canada.
NWLB
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<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.nwlbnet.blogspot.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.nwlbnet.blogspot.com</a>
with the gag order. It protected the Liberal
party in power. They are really mad that a
conservative has aired the dirty laundry.
One trouble that we have in US and everywhere that
humans write the news, is bias.
Nobody can just report without bias. Your choice
of what stories to report and which facts you
consider important will color the report.
That said, the papers etc, should be allowed to
print/post the days transcripts. The gag order could be used to limit the commentary on the
proceedings.
Yes, it's a national issue, but at the heart of it we have a judge, a jury, and all the components of a judiciary system. This why we -have- them. so that -we- don't have to do it ourselves. It's why we have government in the first place. If you don't have trust in your government (which will make mistakes no more and no less than you will) and your judiciary processes then you must only live in fear.
Also, it's fairly easy to criticise when you are unfamiliar with the processes of another country- and considering the overwheling LACK OF INTEREST to become so familiar with even the most nominal and trivial aspects of whatever happens across a shared border that there should be just as much interest in criticising, but i guess some just cannot resist, can they.