RSS FeedSuggestions on how to react to the "CSIS is listening" revelation
Perturbed by the recent revelation that CSIS has been listening in on lawyer/client phone calls? (as discussed earlier, here) Concerned that CSIS has stated it will not stop listening in on such phone calls in other cases, until specifically ordered not to? (see here, second paragraph)
Well, here’s one possible counter-tactic, care of the brilliant webcomic, xkcd
CIRA, whois and IP Osgoode
Check out my post about CIRA’s ‘whois’ policy on the recently launched IP Osgoode wesbite. I wrote it as an assignment for my IP law class with professor D’Agostino.
I Spy with my Little Eye Something that is a Tort
The B.C. Supreme Court has awarded damages to a Vancouver woman whose landlord installed, without notice, a hidden video camera in the hallway outside of her suite.
According to the ruling judge, Justice Paul Walker, at issue in the case was the competing rights of the two parties: the tenant’s ‘right to quiet enjoyment’, including the right to ‘reasonable privacy’, as entitled by Section 28 of the Residential Tenancy Act, and the landlord’s right to “protect its property and its obligation to protect the interests of other tenants in a residential apartment building.”
In his ruling, Justice Paul Walker wrote,
As far as I am aware, there is no reported decision in Canada dealing with the issue.
Without a direct precedent or evidence as to the actual damages caused, the judge awarded the plaintiff a nominal amount of $3,500 plus court costs in compensation.
Ms. Heckert, the plaintiff, testified that she found it “very creepy” and an invasion of her privacy to have the video camera installed outside her suite.
It is clear from the video shown to me that any person watching the video images from the 12th-floor camera is able to see a very close-up and detailed image of anyone entering and exiting Ms. Heckert’s suite,
Justice Walker said.
This view is quite intrusive of personal privacy.
In Defense of Free Speech…
On June 28 2008, the Canadian Human Rights commission dismissed the complaint against Maclean’s magazine (Rogers Media) concerning an article by Mark Steyn, and rightly so. (The complainants held that the article, among others, established a pattern of discrimination, and following repeatedly rebuffed attempts to respond in Maclean’s magazine, felt compelled to bring further action).
As many of you are aware, one article, “The Future Belongs to Islam”, is an opinion piece in which Steyn employs demographic information to support his opinion that the future of the Western world is in peril/doubt because of the spread of Islam.
While I am not a fan of Mark Steyn’s “neoconservative” ideology, as a self-described left-of-center civil libertarian I am certainly a fan of freedom of expression. Even if you do not agree with his arguments, he should have the right to express them without remaining worryingly susceptible to the retributive power of the state.
In fact, if it is held necessary that a body is to rule on the acceptability of certain speech, in order to protect vulnerable groups, the bar should be set exceedingly high. And according to previous rulings, the Supreme Court agrees. From the recent Maclean’s decision:
“The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Canada (Human Rights Commission) v. Taylor, [1990] 3 S.C.R. 892 that this legally prescribed limitation of fundamental Charter rights [Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act] was reasonable and justifiable, but warned that caution and restraint would be required in the application of the section so that the limitation on free speech would be minimized to the greatest possible extent.”
From Taylor:
“The guarantee of freedom of expression is not unduly impaired by s. 13(1). The section is not overbroad or excessively vague. Its terms, in particular the phrase “hatred or contempt”, are sufficiently precise and narrow to limit its impact to those expressive activities which are repugnant to Parliament’s objective. The phrase “hatred or contempt” in the context of s. 13(1) refers only to unusually strong and deep‑felt emotions of detestation, calumny and vilification…”
The test was whether Steyn’s writings were so extreme and malicious in nature as to elicit hatred or contempt against the subjects:
“The court interpreted ‘hatred’ to mean a feeling of extreme ill-will that allows for no redeeming qualities in the person towards whom it is directed while ‘contempt’ “encompassed looking down upon or treating as inferior the object of one’s feelings.”
In an earlier related case referred to in the decision, Warman v. Kouba, it is made clear as to what type of material is considered to warrant intervention and censorship. Steyn’s writings certainly do not meet this benchmark. Hence, the commission concluded that the views expressed in the article:
“when considered as a whole and in context, are not of an extreme nature, as defined by the Supreme Court.”
A decision is pending from the BC commission.
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