Time Immortal

Richard Warman has sued several conservative bloggers and website operators, including Ezra Levant (ezralevant.com), Kate MacMillan (smalldeadanimals.com), Kathy Shaidle (fivefeetoffury.com), and Free Dominion (freedominion.ca). The intent and aim of the lawsuit appears to be an attempt to muzzle and censor, en masse, the conservative blogosphere.

Warman’s goal is breathtaking in its chutzpah: he wants to muzzle the Canadian conservative internet. It’s not just his goal — it’s the goal of the CHRC itself, and its friends at the Canadian Jewish Congress, who have stated their goal is to “tame” the Internet — or at least those voices they disagree with. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the CJC was bankrolling Warman’s lawsuit — they’ve done joint legal work together before, and Warman’s number one defender is on the CJC’s legal committee. The CJC hates conservatives, and this would be a way for them to do damage to the conservative blogosphere without taking the political flak for it.

Ezra has a list of ways that one can help out in fighting this latest assault on freedom of speech and conservative opinion, and it basically involves two things: financial contributions and spreading the word. Obviously, fighting a legal battle is a costly ordeal, and Ezra et. al. could use all the donations they can get, either directly or through purchase of various bits of merchandise that they offer. Equally, though, the Reader is encouraged to keep spreading the word about the travesty that are the human rights commissions in Canada, and is likewise encouraged to contact his or her Member of Parliament ( always in a civil tone, and not to a level — quantity, that is — that might be deemed as spamming) to voice concerns about, and objections to, the abuses of the HRCs.

This is a winnable fight. But war is always costly.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Not all of them, admittedly — just the ones with which he personally disagrees.

I’ve written about how Richard Warman, the former Canadian Human Rights Commission staffer who is now the CHRC’s biggest customer for thought crime complaints, has tried to censor Canadian libraries in British Columbia and Ontario.

But the largest libraries in the world now, of course, are online. And defamation suits and human rights complaints — Warman’s preferred tools of Censorship — don’t work as well if the libraries and other websites in question are based in the United States. Their robust First Amendment means that U.S. defamation law is not an effective censorship tool, and that country does not — yet, at least — have anything as pernicious as Canada’s various thought crimes laws.

Well, if a Canadian can’t censor U.S. websites, can he get Internet companies here in Canada to block those U.S. sites from Canadian internet users, like Communist China does with politically incorrect sites? That’s exactly what Warman sought to do in an application to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

I’m not an expert in telecommunications law, but from what I gather, Canada’s big Internet companies like Rogers and Bell are governed by the Telecommunications Act (apparently little ISP’s aren’t). Section 36 of that Act specifically bans communication companies from interfering with content without government approval — and that includes censoring websites:

Except where the Commission approves otherwise, a Canadian carrier shall not control the content or influence the meaning or purpose of telecommunications carried by it for the public.

Well, that’s what Warman — and the censors at the Canadian Jewish Congress — asked the Commission to do. In the written application to the CRTC filed by his lawyers, Warman asks not only for the CRTC’s “permission” under section 36 to ban two particular U.S. websites, but he also asks for:

Directions on procedure… whereby Canadian carriers and other interested parties can present their views as to whether the blocking of these URLs should be made a final order of the Commission and whether the blocking of these websites should be mandatory for all Canadian ISPs.

Say…isn’t that what the Chinese do, more or less? Oh, wait…yeah, it is, as Ezra points out above. Censorship, plain and simple.

But remember, O Reader…Richard Warman prefers that you not call him a censor! Okay, fine, whatever. Were the CRTC to ban access, within some or all of Canada, to certain American websites, that would, by definition, be an act of censorship. By what name, then, shall we call someone who lobbies for just such an action to take place?