Are hate speech laws unconstitutional?

There’s been lots of press coverage this morning of a fairly confusing issue: The Canadian Human Right Tribunal has ruled that Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is unconstitutional, as it contravenes Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
What does this mean?
Good question. In short, it means that the CHRT [...]

Anti-ethnic Penguins part 3

We’re getting a lot of new hits related to searches on why “And Tango Makes Three” might be anti-ethnic. I assume this is thanks to the ALA OIF’s recent release of their top 10 most frequently challenged books for 2008, and the fact that Tango again tops the list (for the third year running!).  Due [...]

Canadian Net Neutrality Consultation

For people who found this page while looking for info on April’s CRTC  “traffic shaping” consultation, go here.
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The CRTC’s “traffic management” (throttling) consultation is accepting comments from interested individuals right now.
This is the “Net Neutrality” consultation we’ve been waiting for. Many of us have asked the CRTC to hold this public consultation and it is [...]

Anti-ethnic penguin update

I have received a reply to my query about the “anti-ethnic” allegations against “And Tango Makes Three” (for background see previous post on the topic).
The ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom was kind enough to explain to me that the OIF compiles their reports based on both newspaper reports of book challenges and the forms people [...]

And Tango Makes Three: anti-ethnic penguins?

It was recently called to my attention that on the ALA’s list of the “10 Most Challenged Books,” And Tango Makes Three is listed as being challenged not only for the to-be-expected reasons such as “homosexuality” (although at least one of those penguins could probably be considered bi), being “anti-family” (ironic, yes, when alleged regarding [...]

YouTube videos on CanWest info issues

I don’t have a television, but I do love to watch stuff on my computer.  Back in the last millenium, when I did have a TV, I didn’t have cable anyway, so I am easily impressed with the amazing diversity of media to which I have access via the Internet.
As you may have noticed from [...]

Free Speech and Patron Privacy are Corequisites for Intellectual Freedom

The book

So you’ve probably heard about this library assistant (Sally Stern-Hamilton, aka Ann Miketa) in small-town Michigan (Luddington) who wrote a fiction book (“Library Diaries”) based upon her accounts of library patrons, and published it under her maiden surname at a vanity press. The book doesn’t sound all that original or like it’s anything [...]

Warrentless library computer searches – what affects librarian response, and what can we learn from the news?

There have been a couple of high-profile cases this summer involving US law enforcement seeking library computers as evidence, and showing up without a warrant in hand:

In Maryland, FBI agents took two computers from a Frederick County Library. The library director granted them permission, although they came without a warrant.
In Vermont, state police detectives were [...]

The Vancouver Sun parody & SLAPP

When I moved to Canada, I was shocked to learn that parody is not a specially protected form of speech here. It is in the US, and I like to think I made pretty good use of that principle over the years. You may already be aware of some of the freedom of expression [...]

Who CAIRS about Access to Information? (hint: Not Steven Harper)

The Canadian policy wonk blogosphere has been abuzz with the breaking of the news last week that the Tories (capital-c Conservatives for the non-Canuck readers out there) sent out a notice to civil servants advising them reporting access to information requests to the centralised database, CAIRS, was no longer a requirement.
Let’s talk about what’s going [...]