Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/2005/04/05/canadian-government-cant/ That Politech message from April 5 (above) included a link to sites with "ban busting" information. The link is still there and it still works -- it is being continually "published" every time someone visits that page. Because I have not deleted that post from the Politech archives, will I get in trouble the next time I go to Canada? The judge did warn, after all, that violations of the publication ban will be treated "very seriously." -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: New Media Publication Ban in Canada Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 09:41:56 -0400 From: Neil Schwartzman <neil@private> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> I'll see if i can beat Michael Geist out of the gate to let you know about this. Media are prohibited from even mentioning website with ban-busting information, one lawyer I heard on CBC last night said it is possible to interpret the ban to possibly ban mention of the existence of such a site. Such is the bi-polar nature of of legals judgements - free to fileshare, but not free to talk about court proceedings. I should hasten to say this is in effect solely to avoid tainting the jury during the selection process. Presumably they will be sequester sufficiently to avoid that happening should the ban not be renewed, a point I hope is argued towards the public good of keeping us all informed. Otherwise I'll have to rely on email, which of course never crosses borders to let me know where the ban-busters are. Pickton judge imposes unique media ban By ROBERT MATAS Thursday, June 9, 2005 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050609/BCPICKTON09/TPNational/Canada VANCOUVER -- The judge at Robert Pickton's first-degree-murder trial has imposed an innovative media ban, prohibiting publication of Internet addresses that include information from the pretrial hearings. [...] Still to minimize the risk, Judge Williams wrote, he decided to ban publication or broadcast by any means, including the Internet, of information that would identify websites or other sources. [...] The court order is the first time in Canada that the media have been prohibited from publishing an Internet address, Michael Skene, who represented CTV and The Globe and Mail at the proceeding, said later in an interview. Still, it could have been worse. There was a request by defense council to prevent anyone present during the preliminary hearings from even discussing the case, even between family members of the victims. This request was squelched, thankfully. -- Neil Schwartzman - Publisher, spamNEWS peteMOSS Publications <http://peteMOSS.com><http://spamFLAMES.com> spamNEWS - the BLOG <http://spamNEWS.com/blog/> ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Internet access providers, companies that engage in the business of connecting people to the Internet for profit ... assume the role of Internet censors, arbitrarily closing accounts of those of whom they disapprove." - Martha (C&S) Siegel ------------------------------------------------------------------ ----- End forwarded message ----- _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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