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Canada's Wayne Crookes Sues the Net
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Apr 22, 2007 08:12 AM
from the shotgun-doesn't-begin-to-cover-it dept.
from the shotgun-doesn't-begin-to-cover-it dept.
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..."
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Can a Blogroll Be Defamatory? 142 comments
An anonymous reader clues us that the wildly litigious Canadian Wayne Crookes, who has been suing the Internet for defamation, has added Michael Geist to his hit list. Geist is a well-known Canadian law professor and blogger. His offense: linking on his blog to site that links to another site that contains material allegedly of a defamatory nature. (Others would characterize that material as historical facts about Crooks's tenure at the helm of the Canadian Green Party.)
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Mr. Crookes? (Score:5, Funny)
--jeffk++
submitter's conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:submitter's conflict of interest (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:submitter's conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:submitter's conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
You also claim that this lawsuit is a SLAPP. But typical SLAPPs lawsuits differ from this one though in an important way, Crooke has sued two very large firms that have more than enough money to defend themselves: Google and Wikipedia. SLAPPs, since they are based on intimating people who can't afford to defend themselves, usually are targeted only against small folk, not the big guys. Google and Wikipedia are unlikely to fold simply because the lawsuit was filed, and thus I do not believe this particular lawsuit of Crooke can be classified as your SLAPP.
Parent
Re:submitter's conflict of interest (Score:5, Insightful)
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In tomorrow's news... (Score:5, Funny)
Downtime (Score:5, Funny)
"oops, harddrive crash... nothing to see here judge"
this is a useful reminder (Score:5, Interesting)
It's sometimes difficult for young'uns to remember that the internet, in it's populer worldwide usage form at least, is still very young. A great many people, organisations and countries were caught off guard by the freedom it gave for comment, and are still trying to remove that freedom.
Their efforts are going to fail, but not because of any moral or ethical issue, simply because of evolutionary principles. The internet is evolving faster then it can be censored. If, and this I doubt, but if they manage to censor all the current expression methods on the internet, more will be created to fill the gaps, and more. It's a fight that can't be won.
The only thing we need worry about is whether 4chan becomes the dominant player in the free expression market
Re:this is a useful reminder (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I'm not sure what the term free speech means in Canada, but down here in the U.S. it means that the government is not allowed to suppress Constitutionally-protected speech (which it does anyway, but that's a topic for another day.) It does not mean that we aren't allowed to suppress each other. The courts determine when and if we can do that, and if Mr. Crook wants to throw his weight around and try to "suppress" his detractors, that really doesn't come under the heading of free speech. It may be an abuse of laws, and of those being threatened. I don't know, I'm not Canadian, and like I said maybe the term means something different under Canada's legal system.
It's a fight that can't be won.
Sure it can. You understand that the Internet is evolving, but you're assuming that the Internet, as it stands today, is the only way such a network can be run. China has already shown us a different way (certainly not a better way, by Western standards) where what can be found online can be strictly controlled, if the government so chooses. Even here, in the land of the brave, home of the free
Certainly there will always technological measures that can be implemented to get around most such obstacles, but the problem is that those tools will never be in the hands of the majority of the voting public. If the Internet doesn't just conveniently "work", doesn't just let them go where they want to go, most people will never get there
I guess what I'm saying is, enjoy it while it lasts.
The only thing we need worry about is whether 4chan becomes the dominant player in the free expression market
What's a 4chan?
Parent
Re:this is a useful reminder (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is an incredibly important distinction that is lost on some of the other posters here. The Founders were not (so far as I can tell) attempting to make us exempt from the consequences of what we say. They were very much aware of the potential consequences of opening one's mouth, or of setting ideas to paper.
They did, however, want us to have the power to speak in the first place, no matter what, and the biggest single threat to that ability is government itself. That fact is no less true today.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's probably more correct to say, "you're free to say whatever you want so long as it's true", at least in the United States. If the truth causes harm, well, sometimes the truth hurts. If you don't want people to talk about the bad things you do, don't do the bad things in the first place. I mean, it has to cut both ways.
Dunno about Canada, but I'd think it would be similar.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's may be true that you fancy barbie dolls and collect stamps, but the public has no need for such information and if you publish it to harm another (e.g. ridicule, contempt, etc) you may be guilty of libel.
Simply being true isn't enough. But I'm not a lawyer so I dunno if that's 100% correct.
Re:this is a useful reminder (Score:5, Informative)
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
Parent
Re:this is a useful reminder (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [amazon.com] 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
Parent
Self defeating strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Streisand Effect (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a fine example of the Streisand Effect [wikipedia.org] in action.
How do you know when nuts are not ripe for eating? (Score:4, Funny)
Kook of the Month? (Score:3, Funny)
The Kook of the Month [killfile.org] [mind your eyes at that site] award ought to be revived...
Al Gore (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Proof once again (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Remember, It's Canada (Score:4, Funny)
Nah
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:HAHA (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as a lawyer is concerned, if he's paying then that's all that matters. Saying you found a lawyer who's prepared to argue your case is like saying you found a prostitute prepared to have sex with you.
TWW
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