CRTC Asked to Block Hate Site

6 Responses to “CRTC Asked to Block Hate Site”

1. Mark Goldberg (1 comments.)
   August 24th, 2006 at 17:19

   You may not be aware of the facts in this case: this is a matter with a pretty simple determination - uttering a death threat (in fact, a call to murder) complete with the target’s home address.

   The Parliament of Canada granted the CRTC the jurisdiction in this case. There is no other body. Recall from your criminal law classes that utterance of a death threat is form of speech for which we expect the state to intervene between the citizen and idea.

   Unless you think that there is some kind of digital exemption.

   
   
2. Rob Hyndman (317 comments.)
   August 24th, 2006 at 17:39

   Mark,

   If a death threat was uttered, than the law already has a solution - a criminal charge against the utterer. Your problem presumably is that the utterer is not in Canada, and the statement is not criminal where he is resident. The CRTC application therefore seems to be an attempt to effectively impose extra-territorial jurisdiction to Canadian criminal law.

   And I doubt very much that Parliament has granted the CRTC jurisdiction to make decisions about what kind of speech can and can’t be made on the internet. This is, at the very least, a tortured interpretation of the Act. Having said that, I’ve complete confidence in the CRTC’s ability to abandon common sense in favour of making single-case determinations where the facts are particularly egregious.

   To my mind the CRTC has no more business (or competence) banning websites than Customs has banning books. My stomach is strong enough to handle vile speech, and I suspect most of my fellow citizens are equally able to recognize it for what it is. More to the point, I believe it’s important to know where it lives - the better to isolate and ostracize it, and to teach the next generation about the true meaning of evil.

   Quite apart from that, there seems to be a factual issue here. One of the commenters on your site asserts, in a particularly despicable manner, than no death threat was made on any website - he asserted that it was made on radio, if I recall correctly. I have no interest in looking for the site to see for myself, but I’m curious about your response to that assertion.

   No one worth talking to doubts these people are slimeballs. For the life of me, I can’t understand why there is so much effort being made to draw attention to them.

   
   
3. ohara
   August 27th, 2006 at 18:57

   I never heard the threat on radio but when this issue broke I read it on this neo-Nazi’s google blog (now thankfully blocked by Google) and on his own personal website where it remains. In fact it has been repeated with a call for Canadian neo-Nazis in Ottawa to picket Mr. Warmna’s home.

   I am fully behind Mr. Goldberg and the CJC on this one as I believe are many Canadians. This is not about free speech. It is about protecting a fellow citizen from the potential violent actions by Nazi exrmists.

   
   
4. Fairness Fairy
   August 27th, 2006 at 21:07

   OH GROW UP…

   To be fair, Richard Warman is involved with an urban terrorist group called the “Anti-Racist Action” who he recently sponsored to go and protest in front of another individual’s house, thus the Paul Fromm reference. (link provided)
   http://www.onepeoplesproject.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=987&Itemid=2

   They picketted his street with masked faces and sticks and weapons. the cops acted as a barrier between them and Mr. Fromm’s house. This group of individuals that Richard Warman has given speeches to and financed, were also responsible for the firebombing of another individual’s house, including the posting of instructions to do it.
   (link with news articles and pictures on the ARA, including the firebombing, and articles about them attacking police horses’ eyes with sharp sticks during protests provided) http://www.freedomsite.org/ara/index.html

   And if you visit the website of ARA Toronto (link provided), the first page is a video that shows their members in another county of ganging up on an individual sleeping on a train that they suspected was racist and assaulting him while filming it. (link provided)
   http://www.aratoronto.org

   After the event, this group posted paul fromm’s address online in a “declaration” about their “successful” mission attacking his house.
   (link provided)
   http://onepeoplesproject.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1027&Itemid=2

   While they were protesting however, a member of the group was holding up a sign that said, “Thank you Richard Warman for the bus rental” and another with “Die Nazi Scum”
   (2 picture links provided) http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=3341546&postcount=2
   and
   http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=3341579&postcount=4

   As you can see in the pictures, some of the members are masked in this protest. Good thing the cops outnumbered the protesters threefold.

   Now this isn’t the end. Paul Fromm is an individual that Warman is trying to sue, seemingly unsuccessfully, for calling him a censor. Also, Paul Fromm has been doing free legal defense work for individuals that Richard Warman files complaints against. A month before the attack on Paul’s house, Richard Warman was unsuccessful in trying to ban Mr. Fromm from defending people for free. At the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, the complainant gets a lawyer from the Canadian Human Rights Commission to prosecute the case for him (for free), but the respondents have no right to legal representation, so they have to pay for their own lawyers. Since most people that Richard Warman targets are youth that post messages online, they can’t afford that.

   Richard Warman also filed a human rights complaint against someone alleging that he was making racist posts online recently. Before the case even went to court, or was even investigated by the canadian human rights commission, Warman called up the university where this guy worked and told them he was a racist and convinced them to fire him. (link provided)
   http://www.canadianfreespeech.com/updates/tremaine/destruction.html

   He has affected other peoples’ lives and threatened their safety as well on many occasions. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. So ohara’s comment on the matter is influenced by the fact that she has no idea about any of the background in this case.

   So it’s okay for RIchard Warman to do this to other individuals and then whine about it when it gets reciprocated. At least it’s a good thing that the CRTC rejected the application.

   And feel free to read the actual application and decision:
   (link provided)
   http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2006/8646/p49_200610510.htm

   Ignore what the media hides, but the application was attempting to carry out the action ex parte (with no one being allowed to oppose them). Is this the kind of action defensible? Is this a dictatorship where well-connected civilians should be able to file an-unopposed motions to change laws?

   The Ruling Also states that Richard Warman is not a legal applicant because he is not from the ISP community. So all this was an utter failure.

   And to make matters much worse, Bernie Farber filed an affidavit that he was a qualified expert in the hate field while leaving out that the last time he tried to testify (in 1999), he was DISQUALIFIED from testifying because he had made comments to the media that indicated that he is dangerously biased would likely say anything to get some people nailed. (link provided)
   http://www.freedomsite.org/exposed/cjc/farber_biased.html

   There is no information to show he has been requalified as an expert witness since then. And the fact that he decided to go in on the ex parte application shows that his heart is not in the right place.

   GOD FORBID THAT ANYONE POSTS HIS ADDRESS ONLINE OR CALLS FOR A PROTEST ON HIS STREET!

   Next time you get this affected by a story, google the names and events of people involved and you might find out more than you read in the daily rags.

   Thank you,

   The Fairyness Fairy

   P.S. Links have been provided to justify all the information I have posted here. I don’t know if the moderators will remove them once this is posted. If i forgot to post some links, feel free to google the information, it will be easy to find.

   
   
5. Paul Fromm (1 comments.)
   August 27th, 2006 at 21:45

   The CRTC was wise to avoid the demand to aloow or compel ISPs to ban, in an ex parte hearing, foreign websites or blogs carrfying offensive or threatening material.

   This is yet another effort by pro censorship forces, with human rights complaints neister Richard Warman leading the charge, to effect more restrictions over what thinking Canadians can read and post on-line.

   Warman was credited by scruffy armed protesters who beset my suburban residence last weekend with having paid for the bus that transported him. His numerous human rights complaints about Internet postings and his advocacy of “maximum disruption” in the lives of folks with whom he disagrees make it rather rich that he now squawks about over-heated threats made by some blogger in far off Virginia.

   
   
6. Truth (1 comments.)
   August 28th, 2006 at 12:54

   I think we have to expand our scope when looking at a situation like this. Though I commend Mr. Goldberg on his initiative in this case I must point out that not enough of this case is getting reported.

   I will give Mr. Goldberg the benefit of the doubt on this case as I do not believe that he has enough background information about the Applicant, Richard Warman.

   People read stories like this and get affected by the “victim impact statement”. In this case, Mr. Warman states that he fears for his life due to the fact that his address has been posted online. No one stops to think as to what the actual origins of this issue were. I was amazed to see that almost all the Canadian coverage of this issue gave very little background about anything to the point of being frustrating.

   There was no mention of Mr. Warman’s relationshp to Mr. White in the U.S. No talk about Mr. Warman’s crusade against hate propaganda online or his speeches and awards. All that coverage started when the CRTC motion failed. But in the tradition of “speaking well of the victim”, nothing will likely be revealed that will answer any questions as to why things would possibly turn out this way and why a man in the U.S. would care about a specific lawyer in Canada.

   In the Zundel case, the Supreme Court ruled that Zundel could not make the court believe that he did not approve of violence when he spent most of his time with violent people or groups.

   Richard Warman finds himself in a similar position. He recently seems to have sponsored an urban terrorist group called the “Anti-Racist Action” to protest in front of another individual’s house whose ideas he did not agree with and he considered a “Neo-Nazi” (Mr. Warman has a tendecy to call anyone he considers a racist by that name to create the maximum effect).
   http://www.onepeoplesproject.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=987&Itemid=2

   They picketted his street with masked faces and sticks and weapons. the cops acted as a barrier between them and Mr. Fromm’s house. This group of individuals that Richard Warman has given speeches to and financed, were also responsible for the firebombing of Ernst Zundel’s house in the mid-90s, including the posting of instructions to make a moltov cocktail printing beside a picture of Zundel. (link with news articles and pictures on the ARA, including the firebombing, and articles about them attacking police horses’ eyes with sharp sticks during protests)
   http://www.freedomsite.org/ara/index.html

   And if you visit the website of ARA Toronto [ http://www.aratoronto.org ] , the first page is a video that shows their members in another county of ganging up on an individual sleeping on a train that they suspected was racist and assaulting him while filming it.

   After the protest, this group posted Paul Fromm’s address online in a “declaration” about their “successful” mission attacking his house.
   http://onepeoplesproject.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1027&Itemid=2

   While they were protesting however, a member of the group was holding up a sign that said, “Thank you Richard Warman for the bus rental”. Another with “Die Nazi Scum” (could that be considered a death theat?)
   http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=3341546&postcount=2
   and
   http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=3341579&postcount=4

   As you can see in the pictures, some of the members are masked in this protest.

   What relation does Paul Fromm have to Richard Warman?. Paul Fromm is an individual that Warman is trying to sue, seemingly unsuccessfully, for calling him a censor/an enemy of free speech. Also, Paul Fromm has been doing free legal defense work for individuals that Richard Warman files human rights complaints against. A month before the attack on Paul’s house, Richard Warman was unsuccessful in trying to have Mr. Fromm banned from defending people for free at the Warman v. Tremaine case. At the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, the complainant gets a lawyer from the Canadian Human Rights Commission to prosecute the case for him (for free), but the respondents have no right to legal representation, so they have to pay for their own lawyers. Since most people that Richard Warman targets are youth that post messages online, they can’t afford that.

   Aside from trying to ban Mr. Fromm from representing Mr. Tremaine, before this case was so much as evaluated by the investigative body (CHRC) Richard Warman called up the university where Mr. Tremaine worked and told them he was a racist and convinced them to fire him.
   http://www.canadianfreespeech.com/updates/tremaine/destruction.html

   This is nowhere near the begining of what Mr. Warman has done, but it’s a taste. He has affected other peoples’ lives and threatened their safety as well on many occasions. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

   Now when we reevaluate the “victim” in this case, is it okay for RIchard Warman to do exactly the same thing to other individuals and then whine about it when it gets reciprocated. I am overjoyed by the fact that the CRTC did not buckle to the false image of public opinion that the media created in their patchy reporting of the incident.

   At least the next time around when Mr. Warman tried to bring this issue to the CRTC again, the other parties will have the chance to introduce this type of information to counter his. I wonder what the CRTC would think knowing this.

   And speaking of missing information, I wonder how the CRTC would feel finding out that Mr. Farber was a little less than honest on his affidavit when he stated that he was a qualified expert in the field of hate, etc,etc….

   Would the give his affidavit the same weight if he didn’t leave out that the last time he tried to testify (in 1999 - Skinhead/Roma cse), he was disqualified as an expert because he had made comments to the media that indicated that he is dangerously biased would likely say anything to get “racists” nailed.
   http://www.freedomsite.org/exposed/cjc/farber_biased.html

   There is no information to show he has been requalified as an expert witness since then. And the fact that he decided to dive into an ex parte application shows that his heart is not in the right place.

   So I pose this direct question to you Mr. Goldberg: Did you and Mr. Warman decide to exclude other parties from this case in order to prevent this kind of information from seeing the light?