“The Internet is an open door to knowledge, entertainment, communication – and exploitation.”

This quote is in R. v. Legare, 2009 SCC 56, Justice Fish writing for the unanimous majority (at para 1) (emphasis in original).

While I have no wish to write about the facts in this particular matter, it is interesting that a decision about exploitation should be published by the SCC in December.

Unfortunately, the holiday season is often rife with frauds. A grandson in jail scam was recently reported and McAfee has posted an article in their newsroom titled the 12 Scams of Christmas . . . [more]

Here’s a recent statistic from an American study:

“Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with its customers’ (GPS) location information over 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009. This massive disclosure of sensitive customer information was made possible due to the roll-out by Sprint of a new, special web portal for law enforcement officers.”

More on the blog of a PhD candidate in informatics, Slight Paranoia.

We have had some debate in Canada about law enforcement’s right to collect from ISPs (without a warrant) the name and address of people behind IP addresses. Cases have gone both . . . [more]

I came across this opening paragraph in a judgment of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Kripps v. Touche Ross & Co, 1991 CanLII 2261.

On December 4, 1990 this appeal was heard by three judges of this court. Judgment was reserved. In the course of drafting reasons for judgment it was discovered that two judgments of this court relied on by the appellant had been the subject of adverse comment in the judgment of the House of Lords in Rush & Tompkins Ltd. v. Greater London Council and another, [1988] 3 All E.R. 737. It

Some substantive law both because of what happened and because it may give some people cause to think about the consequences of our past action on our environment.

If the decision stands – I expect the plaintiffs will try to get leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada given the amount involved: more than $1.7 million plus interest plus legal fees – it’s proof that the courts aren’t the answer to all problems.

I’ve set out all that’s needed to understand what the problem was, and the end result.

Berendsen v. Ontario, 2009 ONCA 845

http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/decisions/2009/december/2009ONCA0845.htm

[1] In . . . [more]

In late October, Master Ronna Brott of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued a highly pointed decision that encapsulates Canadian courts’ unwillingness to entertain spoliation disputes before trial and, to some extent, to tolerate the increasingly common problem of lost records and things.

In Cerkownyk v. Ontario Place, Master Brott denied a request for production of a personal computer that a plaintiff in a personal injury claim said she had thrown out because it had broken down after litigation commenced. In dismissing the motion, Master Brott admonished the defendant for proceeding with its production request despite the plaintiff’s . . . [more]

Harvard’s Berkman Center has released the draft of a report, “Next Generation Connectivity: A review of broadband Internet transitions and policy from around the world” [PDF], which examines the position of the United States in relation to various other countries with respect to salient aspects of broadband connectivity. The report takes into consideration a country’s regulatory scheme and the economic model used to provide broadband services, in addition to the more usual measures by which countries are ranked.

The report has a lot to say about Canada, none of it very flattering. (The table of contents doesn’t adequately . . . [more]

The treatment of First Nation Chiefs as “heads of state” at the Olympics will have real significance if this status is accorded First Nations beyond the Olympics. Apparently, it results from an agreement signed prior to the Vancouver bid for the Games to which all political actors who would be involved in the Games were parties, including the First Nations Chiefs on whose traditional territories the Games will take place. Protocol usually follows political status, but is this a case when protocol might lead to a more firmly grounded recognition of the First Nations as sovereign nations? The media story . . . [more]

With our friends south of the border still reeling from a turkey-induced hangover, it was a quiet week. Still, there was plenty to be thankful for.

Proponents of personalized medicine were thankful for several developments that show this trend is picking up speed: CVS followed Medco’s example in expanding pharmacogenomic testing, while biotech and pharma companies, as well as the National Cancer Institute, stepped up their investment in the field.

I am thankful to be following a new trend for 2010: synthetic biology, i.e. attempts to create novel organisms. This week, I weighed in on the search for . . . [more]

Just as we were thinking the Texas ban on unions “identical…to marriage” and the Ugandan proposal to severely punish homosexuals were the loony tunes of the moment, here comes a Swiss miss: A right wing proposal to ban minarets in Switzerland, put to the people in a referendum, was a few minutes ago approved by “a majority of the Swiss people and the cantons . . .”

According to an announcement on the Federal Chancellery website:

The Federal Council respects this decision. Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted. The four existing minarets will remain.

We’re late to the party on this one, which has been bouncing around the internet over the last week, starting with a claim (by Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a lawyer and a candidate for the office of Texas attorney general) in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, picked up by the Huffington Post, that a 2005 amendment to the Texas Constitution effectively wiped out legal marriage there. The thing that has Radnofsky fussed — and scornful — is Paragraph (b) of Section 32 of Article 1 (Bill of Rights), which reads as follows:

(b) This state or a political

Given the current news stories arising out of the Commonwealth leaders meeting and the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill introduced last month, I thought it might be useful for Slaw readers to have access to the actual language of the bill. (I guess it’s too much to ask the mainstream media outlets to either quote the legislation at length, in cases such as this, or provide a link to a web location for the text of legislation under discussion.)

A PDF photocopy of the bill is available on the Box Turtle Bulletin site, as is an HTML text version. . . . [more]

After months of deliberation, the CRTC today finally approved Al-Jazeera English for distribution in Canada, without conditions.

What’s remarkable about this decision is, well, that it’s entirely unremarkable. To all appearances, this should have been a relatively easy regulatory call: Al-Jazeera English fit squarely within the new regulatory framework announced a year ago for distribution of non-Canadian news services, where the CRTC stated that it would generally approve such services absent “clear evidence” that the service would violate Canadian regulations. There was strong demand for the service, as shown by the 2600 interventions in favour. Furthermore, Al-Jazeera English wisely engaged . . . [more]