I am not an expert on SOPA, PIPA, or American Censorship of the Internet; but I do know quite enough about the issue to be extremely concerned.  This blog got an awful lot of traffic yesterday, and it seems that there were a lot of unanswered questions about how this all will affect Canadians.

The following are many of the search queries — what people type into the “search” bar in their browsers — that brought people to this blog yesterday:

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SOPA and Protect IP (PIPA) will most certainly affect Canada.  These bills assume American governance over all of the Internet used by Canadians.   Under these laws, an American allegation will result, not just in blocking Americans access to Canadian sites accused of infringement, but in Canadian website takedowns.  This is simply unacceptable.  Last time I looked, Canada was a sovereign nation.

If I haven’t answered your questions, please let me know in comments or email (click my avatar image; my email address is posted in my profile), and I’ll address any unanswered questions next week.

In the meantime, for information about the legal ramifications of SOPA/PIPA on Canada, Michael Geist wrote a pretty extensive explanation of the legalities for Canadians in Why Canadians Should Participate in the SOPA/PIPA Protest

You can find information about SOPA from http://americancensorship.org/

… and, of course, Wikipedia has clearly stepped up to the plate on this.

Yesterday, while the US portion of Tumblr was dark, I posted a fair number of screen caps of blacked out sites, as well as reblogging Tumblr SOPA protests on my Tumblr blog.

SOPA and PIPA are bad laws that will very definitely impact on Canadians and our Internet.

Today we strike against censorship

Join the largest online protest in history:

Americans: tell Congress to stop this bill now!

Canadians (and everyone in the rest of the world): Petition The US State Department.

Join The Strike!

• Watch the video

• American Censorship page

• View the Infographic

Read SOPA on OpenCongress
Read PIPA on OpenCongress

The three most definitive articles on SOPA and PIPA:

• Free Speech,

• Problems,

• Security

my posts on SOPA and Canada:

• Happy American Censorship Day”

• Will “American Censorship” Impact on Canada?

• Netizens Day

legislation

In the world of books, an omnibus is a perfectly acceptable way to package a collection of previously published stories, related either by content or author, in a single over sized volume.

But in government, especially in a democracy, an omnibus bill is problematic.

An omnibus bill is several pieces of unpassed draft legislation lumped together into an unwieldy package, and inevitably fast tracked. Because the original drafts have already been part way through the process, they have received varying amounts of scrutiny and debate. Legislators can have a sense of déjà vu about the disparate parts of an omnibus, even without having completely examined it all.

The sheer size of an omnibus bill makes it difficult or impossible for it to get the same kind of scrutiny any individual piece of legislation would receive. It is allotted about the same amount of time as any individual piece of legislation. It’s one thing to skim a book you’ve already read; but it is something else entirely for a legislature to skim through draft legislation.

Laws need to be debated and weighed to ensure they fulfill the needs of a democratic society.

The problem, of course, is that our less than perfect “first-past-the-post” adversarial political system allows any government that holds a majority of parliamentary seats — the “majority party” — to pass any law it wants.

And they frequently do. This is the government equivalent of a parental rules that exist “because I said so.”

I don’t know about you, but I would rather see laws made with care instead of rushed to completion. Fast tracked laws have more chance of unintended consequences than laws that are more carefully considered.

crime

Not just as a citizen, but as a parent, Bill C-10 strikes me as totally wrong.
My child was raised with logical consequences, not unreasonable harshness. Punishment should always be a last resort.

Experience has taught me that prevention and inclusion are far more effective than punishment and exclusion — in both parenting and society — because they deter bad behaviour. Isn’t that the point of law?

Child poverty in Canada is as bad — or worse — than it was when first identified as a priority years — maybe decades? — ago. Modern statistics say crime rates have been dropping across Canada. So I don’t understand why our government wants to invest vast sums into building bigger jails and incarcerating more Canadians.

If it costs around $100,000 a year to incarcerate someone, shouldn’t we be concentrating on prevention? Canadian tax dollars could be better spent on social programs that address child poverty and the appalling conditions in which many of our first nations citizens struggle.

What I don’t understand is why our government would spend money we don’t have on jails we don’t need.

As a parent I know that the children who are excluded are the ones that become a problem.  The same is true for citizens.  People who do not feel a part of society have no motivation to fit in or follow societal laws.  Harsh punishments result in hardened criminals.

You don’t have to take my word for it: that’s what the experts say, too.

senatorial oversight

The Canadian electoral system is archaic and horribly overdue for reform. Our “First Past The Post” system was established in the days of quill pens, so it isn’t surprising to find it unsuited to the computer age.  Nonetheless we seem to be stuck with this unstable adversarial system that confers an unfair advantage to the political party that achieves the most seats, and thus a majority government even without a majority of votes.

The inequities in our system are so great that it is common for political parties that are not in power to rail against the inequity. They can clearly see how Canada’s outmoded electoral system is detrimental to Canada — until their own party benefits from the inequity and achieves a majority.

It is an adversarial system which has winners and losers. But the biggest loser is always Canadian democracy, particularly when we have a majority government typically elected by 30-40% of the popular vote.  With a system so imbalanced, huge numbers of Canadians vote “strategically” in futile attempts to make their votes count.

Fewer than 30% of eligible voters voted for the Conservatives, who currently hold the majority of seats in parliament. 

Our system makes no provision for a majority of Canadians to oppose any draft legislation. The majority government is vested with the authority to act as an effective dictatorship until the next election.  The majority has the power to pass any law it likes, and there is nothing Canadians can do about it.

Canada is out of luck…

Or is it?

Isn’t this why the Senate exists?

Senators are appointed for life which frees them to make their own choices. Senators can’t lose their Senate seats for stopping harmful legislation and sending it back to the drawing board.

Which is why Senators are appointed for life.

Many Canadians question the validity of the Canadian Senate, since succeeding governments have attempted to suborn the institution by “stacking the deck” with patronage appointments intended to turn the Senate into a mere rubber stamp for their party agendas.

sober second thought

The Senate exists to provide necessary checks and balances to our imbalanced system of governance. The Senate has the opportunity to slow or stop laws that may well prove terribly detrimental to Canada.

It is far better to legislate with care rather than with haste. Bundling many different bits of draft legislation together into an omnibus bill is always dangerous; and without proper scrutiny, laws passed hastily can cause harm.

But it is within the Senate’s purview to review the evidence. The Senate’s constitutional role is to make substantive analysis of legislation, especially for bills of far reaching consequence, and then submit needed improvements through amendments which are then sent back to the House of Commons. The Senate’s role is most crucial when we have a majority government.

This is why our Senate has the power of oversight, to ensure that a single political party’s agenda doesn’t act against the public good.

What’s the rush?

We are at the beginning of a new term of a majority government.  We are told that majority rule is “more stable,” since majority governments have both the luxury of time and the last word. So what harm is there in taking the time, doing the research,  listening to the experts and examining the evidence before rushing to legislate?

Bill C-10 has been fast-tracked, and the House of Representatives has passed it hastily in the wake of growing objections from many quarters.

The Crime Omnibus is precisely why Canada need an Upper House. We need the Senate to perform the function for which our Upper House was created. It should not matter which government appointed a Senator; the Senate’s purpose goes beyond party politics, stretching into the wider purpose of serving Canada.

Canada truly needs some sober second thought.

Bill C-10: What The Experts Say

References courtesy of leadnow.ca:

• Critics of omnibus bill ‘advocate for criminals,’ Conservatives charge (Globe and Mail): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/critics-of-omnibus-bill-advocate-for-criminals-conservatives-charge/article2205213/
• Texas conservatives reject Harper’s crime plan – ‘Been there; done that; didn’t work,’ say Texas crime-fighters (CBC): http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/10/17/pol-vp-milewski-texas-crime.html
• Study: Prevention Fights Crime Better Than Jail (Seattle Times): http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960620&slug=2335526
• Tough on crime will likely lead to more crime, bigger deficit (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives): http://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/tough-crime-will-likely-lead-more-crime-bigger-deficit-report
• Crime rates fall to lowest level since 1973 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/07/21/crime-rates.html
• Open letter to the Government opposing mandatory sentences from over 550 Canadian experts and public health professionals (Urban Health Research Initiative): http://uhri.cfenet.ubc.ca/content/view/90
• A Meaner Canada : Junk Politics and the Omnibus Crime Bill (Alex Himelfarb) http://afhimelfarb.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/a-meaner-canada-junk-politics-and-the-omnibus-crime-bill/
• What’s Wrong With Harper’s Omnibus Crime Bill (Behind the Numbers) http://www.behindthenumbers.ca/2011/09/20/whats-wrong-with-harpers-omnibus-crime-bill/
• Rough Justice in America: Too many laws, too many prisoners – Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little (The Economist): http://www.economist.com/node/16636027
• Salvaging a faulty crime bill (Irvin Waller) http://www.themarknews.com/articles/6942-salvaging-a-faulty-crime-bill
• Incarceration and Crime: A Complex Relationship, (The Sentencing Project) http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_iandc_complex.pdf
• For the full text of the bill, see the Parliament of Canada website: http://www.parl.gc.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&billId=5120829

The leadnow.ca page has a form e-letter to make it easy for you to send a message to your senators. For those of us who prefer crafting our own missives for our elected representatives, I’m putting together an online senatorial contact list to allow easy contact with the appropriate senators.

The aftermath of the Toronto G20 police repression, including mass arrests, and citizens placed under restrictive bail conditions including prevention of free speech are continuing cause for concern.

The recent “Occupy” protests across Canada have met with rough treatment by police.

Guelph poverty activist Julian Ichim, after being intensely investigated and charged prior to the Toronto G20, has had the charges against him dropped. Yet on the second day of his new blog, he was told by police to remove a blog post. Ichim protested, now the court has ordered him to remove the name – which isn’t even the real name, but the psuedonym – of the undercover police officer who insinuated himself into Mr. Ichim’s friendship, and spent a year and a half trying to get evidence, but the best he could do was call Julian Ichim a sociopath in court. Apparently it doesn’t matter that what Julian Ichim writes in his blog is true, it is illegal to expose an undercover RCMP officer or any security agency, which I learned from Joe Bowser’s stunning presentation Counselling Mischief as Thought Crime – CCCamp 2011

Media Coop Occupy offers Canadians the opportunity to Download the G20 Papers received through Freedom of Information requests.

Whatever happened to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

Byron Sonne’s case has finally come to trial. Because it is not a jury trial, concerns that the media could misrepresent the facts of the case and taint a jury no longer apply, so there is no publication ban for the proceedings,  although evidence given under the preliminary hearing is still covered under the publication ban.

We are into the fourth week of Byron Sonne’s trial.   Video of two of Byron’s interrogations have been released, giving Canadians a chilling look at how the law can work in Canada.  Jesse Brown looks at the interview process to help us understand what is happening here.   This trial will clearly go on much longer.

The first week of the trial saw Charter arguments from the defense. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the legislation that guarantees Canadian civil rights.

1. Arrest Warrant

National Post:

“Mr. Sonne, a Forest Hill security professional arrested days before the 2010 world leaders’ conference, stands charged with possessing explosive substances and counselling others to commit mischief. The Crown’s case is based on the premise that the accused was targeting the G20 summit, while supporters argue Mr. Sonne — who meticulously documented security measures and mused online about how to subvert them — was merely exploring the limits of summit surveillance.”

“The defence alleges the first Charter violations occurred when Mr. Sonne was arbitrarily detained and questioned by police in the financial district about a week before the G20, after he was seen photographing the expansive security perimeter.”

“While the accused initially refused to produce identification, “the officers threatened him with a provincial offence [jaywalking] as a ruse to compel him to identify himself,” the defence factum noted.”

— Megan O’Toole, National Post, Police violated rights of man accused of plotting G20 attack, trial hears

Possibly the single most shocking thing to me, personally, was the newspaper reportage. Regardless of political stripe, every one seemed equally concerned with the abuses to Canadian civil rights evidenced in this specific case.

Globe and Mail
“The defence also argues that he was questioned for 12 hours without having access to a lawyer.”

AND

“Mr. Sonne is corralled in front of that police car,” defence lawyer Joe Di Luca told Ontario Superior Court Justice Nancy Spies.

Mr. Di Luca said his client, as was his right, refused to identify himself when the officers asked.

He said he would only do so if he was being detained under the Terrorism Act, something the Crown said would have alarmed the officers.

The police then devised a “ruse” to obtain his ID by threatening to arrest him for jaywalking, court heard, and Mr. Sonne then appeared to identify himself.

AND

Mr. Sonne’s Internet activity had attracted the attention of law enforcement,” Byrne said.

To justify the warrant that led to his arrest, police used Mr. Sonne’s Twitter and Flickr postings, along with statements made when they stopped him downtown.

Colin Perkel, Globe and Mail, G20 trial begins for man charged with possessing explosives

2. Home/Office Search Warrant

Toronto Star

Toronto computer consultant Byron Sonne once built a “wave guide” to redirect microwave energy but confessed he was unable to even melt chocolate from a few inches.

“He posted a wry account of his failed experiment on his “Toronto Goat Blog,” in June 2009, concluding there was “no magnetron death ray.”

“But a year later, a G20 intelligence detective deliberately misled a judge when he omitted any reference to the blog in a document seeking authorization for a search warrant of Sonne’s Forest Hill home, his lawyer Joseph Di Luca argued Tuesday.”

“In written documents, the Crown argues French’s concerns were reasonable and the defence’s “microanalysis” of his every factual assertion should be rejected.”

— Peter Small, Toronto Star, Police officer misled judge in ‘G20 geek’ probe, lawyer says

3. Search Warrant Family Cottage

Toronto Sun

“His lawyers argue officers quickly developed tunnel vision after reading Sonne’s blog, posts on Flickr and tweets from a Toronto Goat Twitter account and wrongly concluded he had nefarious intentions.

Defence lawyer Joseph Di Luca told the court the flimsy evidence amassed against Sonne should be thrown out because police repeatedly violated his Charter rights and filed an affidavit filled with “falsehoods and inaccuracies” to secure search warrants for his home and Midland cottage.

At one point, police falsely claimed they’d found HTMD, an explosive substance, and a home-made detonator in Sonne’s Elderwood Ave. home so a judge would issue another warrant.”

— Michele Mandel, Toronto Sun Byron Sonne: Wacky or enemy of the state?

Although I am not a lawyer, but it certainly seems to me that the rights guaranteed to Byron Sonne, the same rights owed to every citizen under the Charter, were not honoured.

Any unarmed, ordinary, law abiding, Canadian, suddenly surrounded by three armed police officers is likely to comply with whatever they say. But Byron didn’t.

Byron refused to allow himself to be bullied.

Byron Sonne availed himself of the legal protection of Canadian Law. It seems that everything else happened as a direct consequence.

Since when does standing up for yourself warrant the kind if legal over-reaction levelled at Byron Sonne? Call me crazy, but I had this idea that law enforcement isn’t supposed to bully citizens.  That’s why we have the Charter: to protect our rights.

Byron Sonne did not allow himself to be bullied.  If the Crown attorney doesn’t understand the effect of that, perhaps the Crown needs to get reacquainted with the world most Canadians live in.  I find the Crown’s cavalier attitude toward Canadian civil rights to be very disturbing.

If the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
doesn’t work for one of us,
it works for none of us.

Trial notes
Identi.ca !FreeByron
Twitter: #freeByron\
Open File:
The ruse that violated Byron Sonne’s rights
Lies and Videotape: Byron Sonne trial continue
The Daily Ruse
Free Byron Website

P.S.: The trial has already exceeded the time allotted for it, and will go much further. Please make a donation if you can:
You can wire funds directly to:
Valerie Sonne, In Trust
TD-Canada Trust, 1 Queen St.E & Main St., Brampton, Ontario, Canada L6W 2A7
Branch Transit: 21202
Financial Institution: 004
Account: 03116395523

They don’t call Canada the “Great White North” for nothing. We’ve already had some snow.

So, you would think that the OccupyCanada movement would start to dissipate, but in fact the reverse seems to be true.

In the wake of police punitively pepper spraying peaceful student protesters at the University of California Davis campus, many people are outraged at the police brutality we are seeing. Many Canadians have been seriously disturbed about this kind of repression of dissent since last year’s G20 mass arrests.

So, you would think that the government mandated police attacks designed to silence the OccupyCanada movement would start to dissipate, but in fact the reverse is true there too.

From the Remembrance Day assault on the Halifax #Occupy Nova Scotia protest camp, to all the other brutal evictions of the occupy Movement ~ which is in fact taking hold all across Canada ~ these attempts to stifle dissent are not working.

Many law abiding citizens think the brutality is intended to stop people camping out in public parks, yet Naoimi Wolf points out that the police are not pepper spraying or roughing up people camping out to buy tickets to shows The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

A truly sobering thought is that the backbone of the Occupy Movement are people who have nowhere else to go. Most people reading this blog have a domicile. A place to live where there is heat and light, electricity, and perhaps even an Internet connection. This is not true for an alarming number of Canadians who are homeless. When the riot gear clad police wade into the numerous Canadian Occupy Camps pitched in public parks across this great land, when the police make free with batons and pepper spray and brutally turn the protesters out of the donated tents where they have been living, many of the protesters have nowhere to go. Living in these Occupy tents with access to heat and light and purpose has been an improvement in their standard of living. They have been camping in public parks for want of anywhere else to go for some time now.

That which the Occupy movement protests, the ridiculous inequity of wealth in this country is illustrated by the fact of so many Canadian homeless.

The draft legislation is called Bill C-10 An Act to enact the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act and to amend the State Immunity Act, the Criminal Code, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and other Acts

It is unnecessary and it goes way too far.

Instead of spending $100,000 per year ~ each ~ to incarcerate each petty criminals, wouldn’t it be better to direct some of the money that the government wants to spend on jails to addressing underlying problems like child poverty?

One of the biggest problems is the quantity of very different legislation that is being lumped together in this Omnibus Bill. It’s one thing to collect several books together and repackage them as an “Omnibus” but the idea of bundling several bills together means that they don’t get the attention that they should. Making law in haste is never in the public interest.

You don’t have to take my word for it, do a web search and fast tracking it see what they’re saying online:

• ixQuick Cruel Crime Bill
• DuckDuckGo Cruel Crime Bill
• Scroogle Cruel Crime Bill
• Seeks Cruel Crime Bill
• Ask Cruel Crime Bill
• Google Cruel Crime Bill
• Yahoo Cruel Crime Bill
• Bing Cruel Crime Bill

Leadnow has taken the lead in the fight against the Omnibus Crime Bill:

National Days of Action:
Thu 24 & Fri 25th November, 2011

The Leadnow website provides information on:

• how to find your local protest events,
• guidance on starting your own,
• Keep Canada Safe Petition
• as well as offering solid information as to why this bill will be harmful if passed.

You can also sign the AZAZ petition Stop Harper’s cruel crime bill directed to the Premiers.

And last but not least, you can listen to what Rick Mercer has to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWwEwUz45_I

I have written something similar to this letter more than once, which made me think I should post it publicly. I understand that even activist organizations need operating expenses. I don’t have the slightest qualms about whether an organization I support accepts “dirty money.” If a person, corporation or gun runner feels wants to support good causes out of guilt or whatever, great. It won’t improve my opinion of the donor, nor will it make me think less of the recipient.

But that is a different thing than using PayPal, or worse, than
using *only* PayPal. If you have a PayPal account you agree to allow PayPal control over your finances. Where I might accept a Nobel Prize I would not give gun runners or terrorists access to my bank account. See the difference?

Doing business with PayPal actively supports this American Corporation which has shown willingness to mess with Canadian sovereignty, and worse, Canadian democracy.

Not cool.

Here’s the body of my letter:

Dear ——:

I understand and support what you are trying to do. What I can’t understand is why you deal with PayPal.

Just prior to the beginning of his trial, G20 activist Byron Sonne‘s defense account was summarily cut off by PayPal.

Previously, PayPal arbitrarily froze Pirate Party of Canada funds when they were gearing up for an election.

PayPal has also cut off Wikileaks, an international organization that not only has not broken a single law anywhere in the world, but also has not been charged with anything in any jurisdiction in the world. [Should the United States alter any of their laws in future solely to muzzle Wikileaks, well, that won't count.]

And that doesn’t say anything about all the people around the world who have set up a PayPal account for some reason or other only to have PayPal arbitrarily decide to freeze their funds.

Aside from the fact that it is dangerous for any person or group involved in any type of political reform to trust any part of their income to this corporation which has a track record of selectively discriminating against same, the ethics of many citizens like myself will not allow us to deal with PayPal under any circumstances.

I understand why a new organization would sign up with Paypal – everyone knows the name and they make it easy to sign up – but you should understand that dealing with PayPal says that your organization is willing to deal with a corporate entity with a track record of bullying customers and assisting government repression.

Personally, like many people, I will not use Paypal no matter how good the cause. Nor would I feel comfortable forwarding your email to anyone else so long as you request donations that can only be made through PayPal.

If your organization wants the support of people with conscience, it needs to respect our choices.

I am sure there are more alternatives to PayPal but the only ones I am currently aware of are WePay, and Ogone allows for straight credit card payments in Europe [I don't know if they operate in North America].

Just thought you should be aware of this important issue.

Regards,
Laurel L. Russwurm

Which reminds me… I need to cut a cheque so I can post my small contribution for Byron Sonne’s defense.

Every bit helps. #freebyron

Easy answer: Of course it will.

Website Blocking

The government can order service providers to block websites for infringing links posted by any users.

Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users
It becomes a felony with a potential 5 year sentence to stream a copyrighted work that would cost more than $2,500 to license, even if you are a totally noncommercial user, e.g. singing a pop song on Facebook.

Chaos for the Internet

Thousands of sites that are legal under the DMCA would face new legal threats. People trying to keep the internet more secure wouldn’t be able to rely on the integrity of the DNS system.

— American Censorship Day

Q: What is the DNS system?
A: The DNS or Domain Name System is the hierarchy that controls the Internet URL naming conventions. If you want to set up your own website, the current common use is to register a domain name, to make it easy for users to find your website online. In the beginning, domain name registration was free, nowadays there is an annual charge. You can get a domain through a company like godaddy or choose a privacy respecting registrar like the one I use, Register 4 Less which can be found at https://secure.register4less.com/

This means that you can easily find Google at https://www.google.com/ or Josh Woodward’s music at http://www.joshwoodward.com/ or my brother Larry’s humour blog at http://www.larryrusswurm.com/
One of the most important functions of the Domain Name registration is to ensure that there is only one of each name.

Q: How does Internet Black Listing work?
A: It doesn’t actually turn off the website, it simply removes the site’s domain name. In cases of egregious law breaking, such as child pornography or even copyright infringement, this does nothing to prevent the breaking of these laws. The blocked website still exists, and will continue to be accessed by law breakers via numerical static IP addresses.

The ineffectiveness of black listing has actually been demonstrated when the American government sought to censor WikiLeaks. Removing the domain name from the registry does not remove the IP address.

But what it will do is make it easier to block competition and innovation while making it more difficult for users to find the websites they want.

Q: How will Website Blocking affect Canada?
A: The Internet is all over the world.

If Websites are only blocked within the United States, American customers will find it difficult, impossible or perhaps illegal to access these blocked websites. If A Canadian website is accused of infringement, whether real or imagined, this blocking will mean the loss of American customers.

If blocking is done by DNS domain name removal, this will affect websites the world over.

Q: How will the Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users affect Canada?
A: Richard O’Dwyer, a British University Student is currently facing extradition to the United States to face charges of copyright infringement under existing laws.

Need I say more?

Q: What do they mean when they warn about “Chaos for the Internet?”
A: Different laws exist in different countries.

The Internet is comprised of networked connections all over the world.

USA

Current American law provides for “safe harbors” which protect sites like Facebook, Flickr, and G+ as well as independent blogs and comments from legal liability in the event a third party posts illegal material.

Without this, the Internet will cease to be an interactive medium, because no one, whether independent bloggers or Internet giants like Wikipedia will have the luxury of allowing third party posting.  A malicious edit in Wikipedia could spell the end of the fifth largest website in the world.  YouTube can’t afford to screen every video for potential IP violation.  Most Independent bloggers don’t have legal departments.

Canadian innovation

Canadian law is different than American law. Although Canadians are some of the most active people online, we seem to be users rather than pioneers. Recently Michael Geist appeared before Canada’s Standing Committee on Industry and explained the legal barriers that existing Canadian law has thrown up before innovative Canadian startups that might have become a YouTube, a Google, a Facebook or a Skype.

Canadian free speech

Recently the Supreme Court of Canada, the highest court in the land, established that Canadian Law should “Avoid restricting the free flow of expression.”

Yet it seems that elements of the proposed Protect IP and SOPA laws seek to make hyperlinking potentially a criminal act. Search engines would be compelled to remove links from search results.

existing Canadian copyright law

IP lawyer Howard Knopf shows that Canadian Copyright law is currently far stronger - and more restrictive to creativity – than American Copyright Law is currently.   In Canada we have slightly shorter copyright terms than they have in the United States. I don’t believe Bill C-11 will increase this term if it passes.

Under existing law, Wikipedia is considering removing this photograph of Ontario’s Elmira District Secondary School ~ the school I attended ~ even though it is legal to use this image in Canada, if it is not legal under existing American Law.

This tinted photo of the original school building ~ Canadian history uploaded to Wikipedia by Dconlon268 ~ hung in Elmira District Secondary School when I was a student there more than 30 years ago.

This Canadian work is in the public domain in Canada because its copyright has expired for one of the following reasons:

1. it was subject to Crown copyright and was first published more than 50 years ago, or

it was not subject to Crown copyright, and

2. it is a photograph that was created before January 1, 1949, or

3. the creator died more than 49 years ago.

The media description page should identify which reason applies.

This file is only in the public domain in the United States if it entered the public domain in Canada prior to 1996. This image can only be kept if it is also in the public domain in the US. If it is in the public domain in both Canada and the United States it may be transferred to the Wikimedia Commons.

Note: If this image is in the public domain in the US, modify the end of the copyright tag from “}}” to “|commons}}”. This will replace the preceding US copyright notification with a nomination for this image to be moved to the Wikimedia Commons.

— Wikipedia

Canada is a sovereign nation

It is bad enough that the American government has brought pressure to bear against our government in an effort to compel passage of a Canadian DMCA with Bill C-11 the so-called “Copyright Modernization Act.”

If these American Censorship Laws pass, like ACTA, they will be used to impose American Law on Canada and the rest of the world.

This will affect Canadians, and everyone else.

Image Credits:
Map of the Internet – photo by the Opte Project released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 1.0) License

“EDSS Old School” Canadian Public domain image, posted to Wikipedia by Dconlon268

The Canadian DMCA logo freed into the public domain CCO 1.0 by laurelrusswurm

You’d call him Byron Sonne.

In the children’s story I reference in the title, the child that pointed out the deficiencies in the Emperor’s wardrobe was listened to.

In Canada, for doing much the same thing — pointing out the deficiencies of the G20 security apparatus — Byron Sonne was arrested, incarcerated without bail for nearly a year, and is now undergoing the rigors of a trial.

the trial

Three days were scheduled for the Charter arguments — to decide whether the protections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms have been breached by law enforcement in this case. The Charter argument has stretched into two weeks.

The Toronto Star has released a video of one of Byron’s interrogations by Detective Tam Bui a day after his arrest on June 22nd last year. Watching this video is an up close and personal look at the Canadian justice system.

The reason citizens need some kind of protection from the law is that the law is far more powerful than most citizens will ever be.

In the video, we see the detective ask Byron about a whole host of things that he did.

• Taking photographs in public places and posting them on Flickr.
• Posting comments about the increased police presence for the G20 on Twitter.
• Owning a potato cannon and air guns.
• Possessing a variety of chemicals for various purposes that might be combined to make bombs.

“…why don’t you go down to Canadian Tire, why don’t you arrest them because they have all the ingredients…”

—Byron Sonne interrogation video released by the Toronto Star

I’m not a lawyer, but I didn’t think that any of these things are illegal.

Taking photographs in the public spaces of the municipality where you live isn’t illegal. Or, it didn’t used to be.

And when did taking photographs of law enforcement officers become illegal?

Back when I was in the seventh grade, I was on a class trip with my first camera when I happened across an RCMP officer dressed in the distinctive Red Serge “Review Order” dress uniform. I asked him to pose for me. And he did.

Now I’m an adult who takes plenty of photographs everywhere I go with my digital camera. And I post photographs on Flickr too. But these days, when I find myself photographing police officers, at the KW Multicultural festival for instance, I wonder: is this going to get me arrested?

I post comments about things that I perceive to be threats to democracy on Identi.ca, Twitter and Facebook all the time. I blog a lot, too. Is this going to get me arrested?

Personally, I’ve never owned anything like a potato cannon or an air gun. My older brother wanted an air rifle, just like Ralphie, when he was a kid. When he didn’t get one, he built himself a slingshot that I lacked the strength to use. But I’ve seen children using working trebuchets built by amateur enthusiasts at medieval festivals. The incredibly popular “Angry Birds” computer game involves shooting birds out of catapults to knock things down. How many people like playing shoot’em-up video games? . Clearly, people like shooting things.

Years ago I allowed my brother-in-law to put a plaster head I’d sculpted in my high school art class on a cedar rail fence and shoot it into plaster dust with his real hunting rifle. You know, one of those long guns that the Federal Government doesn’t want to have registered?

As a life long mystery buff. I’ve been reading and watching mysteries my whole life. I recall a Columbo episode that involved a chef killing someone with a frozen fish, then defrosting it and feeding the murder weapon to the guests at a dinner party. Most anything can become a murder weapon.

And if we are going to start talking about possessing chemicals that are legal to own, but that can then be combined to make a bomb, that covers an awful lot of ground. If you know anything about chemicals, you know that cleaning supplies can be used in many ways their manufacturers did not intended. I know never to mix bleach and ammonia because combined they make poison gas. Many perfectly useful things can be combined to make explosives.

Detective Bui:
This is a very structured, organized shelf of chemicals you have here. My understanding is that ammonium nitrate can be used in the construction of an incendiary device or an explosive device, is that correct?

Byron Sonne:
Yeah, but so can lighter fluid, so can your barbeque tank in your back yard, so can cooking oil in your house.

Detective Bui:
You’re a chemist, or an engineer or you definitely have a chemical background…

Byron Sonne:
not a licensed engineer

Detective Bui
OK. Do you have elements here that could be combined to make an explosive device?

Byron Sonne:
Ah, No, because I would not combine them into an explosive device.

Detective Bui:
But that wasn’t exactly my question. I’m asking do the elements exist. When we take a laundry list of items out of your house, and if we combine them in a certain manner could create an explosive device.

Byron Sonne:
I think that this interview might be over officer.

interrogation video released the Toronto Star

Boing Boing said it best: Law prof and cop agree: never ever ever ever ever ever ever talk to the cops about a crime, even if you’re innocent

If you watch the interview closely, you will see that Byron and the Detective are in agreement that none of the bits of “evidence” the detective asks Byron about are in and of themselves illegal. The detective doesn’t question that, instead, what he does is to try to get Byron to agree that the chemicals could be used to make a bomb, and that the cumulative effect of the evidence is how bad things look, and what other people might think of this or that.

Have I missed something? I thought that our legal system was based on facts and evidence, not innuendo.

What did Byron Sonne actually do?

He took photographs documenting the G20′s massive influx of security cameras, the deployment of security fences around public buildings, and police officers visible on public streets.

Byron Sonne pointed out security flaws in the G20 security apparatus.

And now he’s pointing out flaws in the Canadian justice system.

further reading

For an idea of what has been happening in court, read the notes published here: colah / ByronTrialNotes

Read Byron Sonne’s Twitter stream @torontogoat

See Byron Sonne’s toronto_goat’s photostream on Flickr.

P.S. Follow

The Daily Ruse

as it chronicles the story of law and democracy in Canada.

~ laurelrusswurm, 19 November, 2011