timeimmortal

One of the more amusing — and yet tragic — revelations of Marc Lemire’s cross-examination of Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) staffer Dean Steacy (among other people) in regard to the exact identities of the authors of certain racially-charged statements at the white supremacist forum that Mr. Lemire oversees has to be the tactics employed by Dean Steacy. Essentially, Mr. Steacy (and former HRC employee and current serial plaintiff thereof Richard Warman) engaged in tactics that would be called “entrapment” had bona-fide police officers committed them — dissatisfied with the quantity (or lack thereof) or specifically racist material to be found on Mr. Lemire’s forums, they created aliases for themselves, logged in to the forums, and posted their own racist statements. Those statements then were used to form the basis of Mr. Warman’s human rights complaint against Mr. Lemire.

This is all old news by now; I reiterate it here for the benefit of those readers who may have forgotten some of the finer points since last it came up for discussion on this blog.

What is new — and both comic and tragic — is exactly how Mr. Steacy went about “covering his tracks” when posting the aforementioned racist content.

When Mr. Steacy began posting messages on hate sites as “jadewarr,” he was sufficiently internet savvy not to leave any ISP information that could be traced back to the CHRC. He didn’t want Marc Lemire looking at his server logs and noticing any unusual interest from anything ending in “gc.ca.” So Mr. Steacy disconnected himself from the office Internet, and looked around for alternative wireless connections. He found one belonging to a young lady whose apartment is a block away from CHRC headquarters in Ottawa. Without obtaining a warrant, he connected to her server, and in effect used her as his cover for his “jadewarr” postings. Last week, a representative from Bell Canada named the lady in open court, since when her name has been reported in the newspapers. Let’s say in 10 years’ time, this woman applies for a job in, oh, Sarnia or Moose Jaw or Des Moines, and her prospective employer decides to Google her name, and what comes up is all very complicated and hard to follow but she seems to have something to do with some white supremacist investigation back in 2008.

Dean Steacy is on record as dismissing the right to freedom of speech as “an American concept” that he doesn’t put much stock in. Evidently, his attitude toward the right to private property is similar. And yes, I know that the lady whose wireless internet access he made use of should have done more to protect herself against his invasion of her privacy and usurpation of her identity. Wireless routers should be secured, preferably using the WPA security scheme, and any person intenting to use a wireless router in his or her home should both be made aware of this fact and, if necessary, taught how to do it.

But even though her wireless was unsecured, Mr. Steacy’s use of it to pursue — by way of entrapment-like tactics — the CHRC’s case against Mr. Lemire is unconscionable, and may have tarnished this lady’s reputation for years to come. Not that one expects the human rights kommisars to demonstrate the least bit of care toward the well-being of Canadian citizens, not while more pressing concerns — like the pursuit of the fictional Canadian Nazi Party, or the defence of a Newfoundlander’s right to act in a manner that lines up with ‘Newfie’ stereotypes, thus resulting in the termination of his employment for being a lazy slacker — are out there to be found.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!