Tag: Law

The Illusion of Internet Intermediation

The BBC has printed a short essay by Michael Geist, Ottawa law professor and cyber-dreamer [Ed.: that is unkind] of some renown. Unconvincingly, it is based on an alarmingly obvious inclusion of a useful premise of convenience – in this case the “internet intermediary” – which is not founded in anything under Canadian or Commonwealth law but (perhaps and to be fair) ecumenically inserted to assist in the desired end within the argument:

The case places the spotlight on the liability of internet intermediaries. The importance of the issue extends well beyond just internet service providers – corporate websites that allow for user feedback, education websites featuring chatrooms, or even individual bloggers who permit comments face the prospect of demands to remove content that is alleged to violate the law. The difficult question is not whether these sites and services have the right to voluntarily remove offending content if they so choose – no one doubts that they do – but rather whether sites can be compelled to remove allegedly unlawful or infringing content under threat of potential legal liability.

Since when is a publisher in any medium an uninvolved intermediary? The act of publication is just that – an act. I publish this website and even get meagre ad revenue for doing so. I am actively involved with the process of writing, editing and controlling what you see here – even in the comments that I do not author. I monitor and I remove. That is my responsibility. Some believe that there is a new order in which responsibility is no longer part of presenting a civil public discourse. Mr. Geist is one of the most fervent evangelists for this faith. Yet there is no basis for the proposition in fact – the law is still the law and those responsible for publication are responsible. Hate law and child porm crimes as well as civil libel are still legal structures in place to respond to all ill-advised publication. Who ever promised that they were somehow inapplicable simply because the text appeared on a cathode ray tube and not mashed and rolled out tree fibres?  The best analogy I can find is the party that sells items that need to be in compliace with safety standards and then complains when the product turns out to be a lemon that the pre-existing standards are “red tape”.

This is nothing more than “outta be” law. Wishery.  Short reference is made to the fact that there are legal tests in Canada and the US which ensure a level of responsibility exists – that there is no neutral intermediary status.  And the fact that the US has a law of some nature, the details of which were beyond the scope of the essay, does not make it wise or even relevant for other jurisdictions.  Without an analysis of how the neutral internet intermediary role would/could/should operate and its effect on other forms of publication, the simple allusion to its existence is not very useful.  Alluding to it out as a fully formed alternative simply does not seem appropriate.

Some related links:

Last Friday Chat of The First Half

Tomorrow is closer to 2007 than 2005. We have already passed the solstice. Funny how it all just trips away. No nevermind, however, as there are do-ins to do and a long weekend before us. And we’ll see how far we get with today’s bullets as high-speed from Sympatico is chugging like a tramp steamer. No doubt all the new GX40 surveillance technology. Don’t be holding your breath waiting for spelling corrections today, all you grade-five ruler-tappers you.

  • Update3 : Rick Moranis – almost as Canadian as Paddle to the Sea.
  • Update 2: Michael and Aaaarold. I have a white shirt, too, by the way. Wore it today. I like white shirts. They are coming back. You never see ska band members in patterns or stripes. No way.
  • Update: YouTube is good because you can watch the Morton score amazingly anytime you want. It is bad because it does not have the NFB’s film Paddle to the Sea, the one thing that both expresses the soul of the nation and brings it together and brings us all together. Tommorrow, on Canada Day, children all over the land ought to be brought into elementary school gyms to watch Paddle to the Sea and eat creamsicles.
  • The Red Sox. I have not been talking about them and they go on a twelve game winning streak during June’s interleague play. Last night was apparently Coco-riffic with even Steve Somers of the Mets home station, WFAN in New York, going gaa-gaa about his “diving into a swimming pool” catch last night in the eighth to save the game. The view shown here with his head aimed at the green monster in mid-flight should give you some sense of the moment. A video of the catch is available at this page. Easier to watch on TooYube.
  • Two ailments I have which are exceedingly minor but which bug the heck out of me. First, rogue eyelashes. They stick in my eye. It only happened once I hit 40 and it drives me mental. Second, a comb-over sideburn. I have a bald patch 1/4 the size of a stamp. It changes everything. There. I have written something about myself. That is it. No more.
  • Today’s two World Cup games are a gem and a dud. If Italy wins, it should have won but if it loses it should have won. Germany v. Argentina, however, could be the game of the tournament. It is still early enough that the fear will not lock the knees of players gripped with the angst that they might make the play that loses the Cup. Luncheon table booked for second half.
  • Never one to see a high ground he won’t avoid, Junior is going to keep on holding on to the good things that got him all his success:

    President Bush told reporters he promised to take the findings of the court “very seriously”. But he signalled he might seek congressional approval to resurrect the tribunals. “To the extent that there is latitude to work with the Congress to determine whether or not the military tribunals will be an avenue in which to give people their day in court, we will do so,” he said. “The American people need to know that this ruling, as I understand it, won’t cause killers to be put out on the street.”

    You can trust that the good politicians who need to get elected in the fall will ensure there is a sprinkling of natural justice throughout the process so that while the ding-bats will say the tribunals continue the kangaroo will no longer be in the room.

  • Did I mention coffee is good? Kicking Horse Sumatra this morning.
  • TVO is getting redone. I have enjoyed the now-axed Studio 2 but the format may have gotten tired and, yes, there is no doubt that half an hour a week of actual discussion of actual provincial politics would make any government tired of sending cheques. Too bad we do not have the benevolent giving class of our neighbours to the south where benefactors ensure that institutions like National Public Radio are becoming more and more independent of government support and influence and more and more able to address the needs of the community. Sadly, there are few other voices attending to the current affairs and life of Ontario as opposed to Canada. Good to see that Steve Paikin continues in a new news show called The Agenda that may make all my fears for naught.

That is it. It was like doing it on dial up and, while doing it on dial-up is what made the Internet what it is today, I do not like doing it on dial-up.

The Senate

Do you want to talk about the Senate? I don’t really want to talk about the Senate. But we may end up talking about the Senate soon. I am all for abolishing the thing myself. Any move to give it more power is a move away from popular representative democracy to something like a council of elders. Why bother?

And why open up a constitutional debate? I’d rather go through testing for matters of prostate – which I have by the way and which you all should have. You all do not need a council of elders but you all should have a reasonable sense of the state of your nether regions. Say it. Your bum. There. Said it. That is clear enough.

Do We Work Too Hard?

An interesting article in this morning’s Toronto Star on Canada’s combination of relative low productivity and low levels of time off compared to Europe:

Sweden’s very high productivity levels — it boasts the highest ratio of industrial robots in the world — allow the society to value leisure time, Schonning said. Based on total economic output, adjusted by population and purchasing power, Canada’s gross domestic product is very similar to that of many European countries, and below some. The Irish, for example, work 6 per cent fewer hours, on average, yet the economic output per person beats ours by 14 per cent. Most Canadian provinces require employers to provide only two weeks of vacation per year.

While we know that Europe is a fraud, a liar and evil and stuff…they sure do make good wages, get sweet vacations and drive nice cars. Maybe we have it all wrong.

Friday?…what do I do on Fridays?…hmmm

Friday. The last Friday of April as a matter of fact. I always run into May
with as much surprise as despiration as when March arrives. The magnolias are
coming into bloom here. Saw “mag-noooo-lias” like one of those Bugs Bunny
southern-gent-in-white-suit characters. Can’t do that in March. No sir.

  • Bye bye aggregation. Last summer, I was getting around 92% of visits through
    RSS. Now it is down to 76%. Comment spam is to blame I figure. Plus who the hell
    wants to read 250 feeds a day. I got an email from a pal asking me about the
    spam torrent on my comments but I had to tell him I never noticed as this blog’s
    format hides them from the front page pretty well automatically except that they
    show up on RSS. So for you aggregation readers, sorry. But there’s not much you
    can do given aggregation is going the way of usenet.

    Update: should this
    come to pass, kiss email goodbye, too.

  • Baseball is a game of failure and the Red Soxs are doing a good job the last
    week or so of proving that. Having the bazillion channel package just makes the
    down times worse – leaving me clicking back to find out that is it 0-6, 2-9,
    2-15…Good
    Lord    . But it brings perspective to my hollow shell of an inner life, right?
    That is why I follow them. Must be.

  • I am thinking of throwing my hat into the ring for the Liberal leadership
    race. Every single person in the country appears to be doing it so why not me?
    It is a largely uninspiring bunch. I am still backing Iggy from a distance but
    really only because I can call him Iggy. El Tigre makes a fairly good
    point about the vision-ettes
    of the Dryden and Kennedy candidacies     but I think Harper harkening to
    anything other than devolution is a bit off. No, it is all about planning the
    new social engineering of one localizing sort or another these days. Really, it
    is all about blandification as far as I see as so much as been shifted away from
    the Feds that they really have a small amount of effect on day to day life. You
    can’t harken back to the pre-60s without planning to reinstate the massive
    Federal presence as we were then a proud nation of the post office and the train
    system, bureaucracies like Health and Welfare Canada and the St. Lawrence
    Seaway. We always have been a nation of inspectors and the inspected. There has
    been and will be no great Canadian vision without the “national project” of one
    sort or another. Unless someone comes up with one, don’t expect any undoing of
    Grant’s Lament for A
    Nation     otherwise.

  • Chiz is my pal. Reading this, I feel very badly
    for Chiz as Chiz is a really good guy.

Certainty

I have always considered the desire to firmly fix the future – to seek certainty in the uncertain flux of what is to be – a sign of some sort of weakmindedness, hubris over the temporal. No wonder, then, that the news of the day, a cap on trade in lumber to the US and set dates for Federal elections has assured me once again that we now live in Simpleton.

The second is being proposed for reasons antithetical, to avoid early elections. Well, having had two Federal elections in the last two years and no one having lost an eye I simply do not see the reason. We started having maximum terms between votes to assure that we got a vote sooner or later. I like voting. If we voted more I would be happy as that is when I get to be involved in the process. Fixed election dates only stop idiots with perceived leads from getting the boot when they dare to go to the pools early. Serves them right. Leave me and my boot that pleasure.

First of all, why would we think that maxing out the amount that we can sell to anyone? We are a nation of exporters of raw goods, all vanities otherwise aside. What good comes of shutting down a resource market to get a payback of what was improperly taken by a buyer? We aren’t needy. Especially as this country is experiencing a sustained economic boom despite the unfair imposition of that duty. Especially when the amount we are to receive is about half to be blown on the beer and popcorn money. Chicken feed in the big picture. It would seem that economically we are able to deal from a position of strength as a nation but the new negotiators weren’t told.

There. Believe it or not, I lack faith in the new mid-minor masters based on the evidence of their deeds. Who’d believe it? Sooner or later I will put that second string on the banjo…I suppose.

Update: Hey, they listened to the complaints. That’s good.

Friday Chat From The Road

Here I am in the lobby of the Comfort Inn in East Greenbush NY a little east
of Albany (an excellent
spot I might add) when what do my eye’s perceive? Gary’s
lament:

(trembling slightly….)
but, Alan, if you’re on
the road…wh-wh-ooo wiiilll run Friday chat? We, we we gotta have our
fix…..
(shakes, shudders, pale trembling face…)

So it is both
with a warm heart and yet a feeling somewhat like coming to terms with one’s
stalker that we have today’s Friday chat from the road:

  • Highway hotels are a favorite thing of mine. They play much the same role as
    airport terminals. You are in transit. It is not like a resport hotel or one in
    your favorite destination for an urban fix. Gotta have a pool, gotta have
    snacks, free breakfast and a gas station nearby that doesn’t give you the
    creeps. This particular gas station here has large bottles from nearby Ommegang
    as well as a Dunkin Donuts outlet. You got to love that: local craft for the
    beer during the Phillies and Braves and generic international for the morning
    zap. This sort of travel is also something in that style of being nowhere and
    anywhere. I really have no time to learn anything about East Greenbush NY and I
    do not want it foisted upon me. I want pleasing dislocation because by 10 am
    I’ll be gone. Like a Gordon Lightfoot song with someone who will bring you more
    pillows if you just dial the front desk and ask.

  • While on the road, even if just since 4 pm yesterday, you immediately get a
    sense that you don’t know what is going on. US sports talk radio doesn’t help.
    Why Canada can’t sustain a sports talk radio network when every city over 75,000
    in the US has its own local guy going on about the local team is beyond me.
    Yesterday I got a very good hour from WHEN 620 on the AHL team for
    Syracuse, the Crunch, and their prospects in the upcoming first round of the
    playoffs against the Mantiboa Moose. Imagine the guy in Syracuse who is fixated
    on taking apart the Manitoba Moose in four: Crush them! Crush them!

  • Apparently, according to Dick, George gave Dick and George the right to
    declassify information in an executive order. But
    Dick won’t say when they used it, who else has the general power and won’t (I am
    assuming maybe) show anyone the actual executive order. This is a lot like a
    general warrant, something barred by the US constitution, which was an
    appointment of an officer by the British pre-Revolution to search anywhere
    anytime on suspicion. It is much better for accountability and transparency to
    make folk write down on a piece of paper what facts exist and why they are
    relying on a power in like of those facts so that there is something to test the
    use of the power against. One would hope that the executive order would contain
    a test as well – a purpose which justifies declassification – so that if the
    purpose does not exist then a declassification would be unwarranted. And the
    scope of the disclosure as well. Not defining who gets to
    know     is fairly stunned, like the time Dad let the mouse out of the cage
    without shutting the door to the room. Lots of scurrying where you never
    expected you’d be scurrying.

  • If the Jays really are good this year, I know I will bandwagon with the best
    of them, I will say I liked them when – and frankly having watched them when
    there was nothing else to watch during the Jose Cruz Jr era I am owed that
    right. But it sure is depressing listening to them beat
    the Red Sox     for the second night in a row. Tonight, however, Ichiro is
    at Fenway. I love Ichiro. I try to excell at all things in life if only to be
    like the tiniest speck of grey in the shadow of the man that is Ichiro. I will
    drive though southern Vermont and New Hampshire today on highway 9 in an
    Ichiro-like manner.

Well, there you are time to get the DD java and
wake everyone up. Miles to go before I see the sea.

Subtle Thoughts

I had no idea broad brushes came in this massive gauge:

The UK is steaming towards a “National Information Registry” — one big database of everyone’s personal information, tied to biometric IDs. This system won’t fight terrorism, but it will compromise the privacy of British people. What’s more, the system will be impossible to implement, resulting in widespread harm to people who get screwed by the errors it generates.

Bad. Bad, bad, bad and bad. Boing say BAD!!! So certain yet so disconnected from law and privacy policy…and stuff. Good thing Cory is hitting the beach to recover from whatever tensions a newly aging futurist might need to recover from.

Friday + Bullet Points = Chat

That is the magic formula, the secret to all idle thought and a crushing blow to economic production. Even though this is the shortest weekend of the year, it is still worth anticipation and therefore chattery:

  • British Columbia is passing an Apology Act. Here is the text in first reading. It is a little wee law that basically says you can say you are sorry for something without that being used against you. It does not mean that you are excused for the thing you are apologizing for but it does also mean the apology in itself does not serve as a GOTCHA! sort of thing. It is an interesting idea as ultimately there is no real barrier to legal action and, frankly, if you do apologize you are still highlighting that there may be a case to be brought against you if someone were to investigate further. But it speaks to civility and also levels the community so that, say, a professional who has done something they are not comfortable with but which is within the realm of normal non-perfection can actually say “Oops” or maybe something even kinder.

  • It’s been a rather adult week around here between applying for a mortgage and growning out my sideburns. I am under orders on the latter point. The trouble is I do not have the most robust near-ear fuzz and what is there is snowy white as is my whole beard now. That is why I shave – to look more 37 rather than 57. But apparently the suggestioning of a mini-moutasche near each of my temples is an important fashion statement so on I go.

  • Speaking of manliness…am I the only one who is noting our new Prime Minister is getting rather large rather quickly? As a fellow traveller in this regard, it concerns. Heaviness especially at pace is not necessarily good for you. I know, I know…but some people actually are saying so. Here is my evidence over time. He has even taken to wearing gut covering vests when he is in the stinking hot jungle while the guys from Texas and Mexico wear thin searsucker. I don’t expect he is a devotee of the beery world so what is he up to? Is he a secret pastries man? A two litre a day of Coke guy? What does a nerdy policy wonk do to get out of shape this fast? But if he wants to do it well, he really should get in touch with me. Two words: boston chocolate.  Again, the man needs my help.

  • Oh, yes. I went on a cable TV splurge just to check it out. Last year, I signed up for a movies/super-station package and got the Friday night Red Sox game. OK, I signed up for the Friday night Red Sox game and happened to get a movies/super-station package. But then the Super station lost the Friday night game rights. What to do? Well, dump the uber-transmissions and get the sports. 1600 baseball games. Seven bucks more. But what about the east coast stations? Nothing like watching Carl Wells on CBC Newfoundland tell about how the Burin is getting battered by storms again this week. One day I fully expect him to have a panicked look mid-hurricane and turn to the camera screaming “SWEET JESUS IN THE MANGER! WE’VE LOST FOGO!!!”. So that’s another seven. Then for another four bucks or so they guy on the phone said – I clearly heard him say this – “we can turn the tap on full.” Best value, too, said he. So now we have 247 channels. Including One, the channel so generically named you can’t find it on Google unless you use the counter-intuitive long form of the name: One – the Body, Mind & Spirit channel. My leafy green consumable and skin balm awareness is expanding as I sit here. I know it is.