An English (and Welsh) court has held that Google, as owner of Blogger.com, is not liable for defamation posted to a blog, even after the subject of the defamation gave notice that the post was defamatory. Google passed on the allegation to the blogger, who told Google the original post was true. The court said that Google was not in a position to adjudicate between the two claims (lies vs truth). The plaintiff still had her remedy against the blogger(s).

The case is Davison v Habeeb et al (including Google), [2011] EWHC 3031 (QB). A story about the case . . . [more]

Now being reported widely (5, 6, 7), Wikileaks and partners have documented an international market in computer, cellphone, and GPS surveillance software that can and has be used by governments for the use of tracking down dissidents. Muammar Qaddafi is the poster child, at the moment, but the practice is widespread, as indicated on this interactive map.

I have a friend who jokingly teased me for imagining that governments could possibly care what I say or who I call. When it is this easy, though, it would seem almost perverse for them to deny themselves . . . [more]

Looming right around the corner is that magical time of year, we all get more busy, tensions rise and people run around in oddly coloured clothing…. of course I’m talking about Law School Exam Time. Personally, I do not think that CERN needs to go on trying to break the speed of light because this semester seems to have already done so, which brings us to exam time. Back in September I posted, what I hoped were, a few nuggets about being in law school. What follows are a few more with regards to preparing for and executing exam . . . [more]

John Ruskin, the “leading English art critic of the Victorian era,” didn’t simply opine and judge; he drew and painted as well. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has put online his collection of drawings meant to help students of art learn to draw according to his principles. The drawings, often coloured with water colours, are made available in a way that lets you zoom in to investigate and appreciate the details of his technique.

But I thought that rather than this somewhat passive involvement with Ruskin, you might prefer some classes on how to draw, using Ruskin’s drawings. . . . [more]

The Honourable Rob Nicholson responded to critics of the current crime bill who said that crime is declining and the vast majority of Canadians feel safe, “We don’t govern on the basis of statistics.” . . . [more]

When you search for flights between two cities Google now provides you with a chart of options as the first (non-paid) result, making the peripatetic aspect of a lawyer’s life just a little bit easier. Thus, for example, a search for flights from Winnipeg to Vancouver yields the result you see below: . . . [more]

I quite agree that with the Montreal Gazette comment that the blame game is not going to help Attawapiskat. What I want to do in this short note is to give some background on the legal issues. Needless to say perhaps, the legal issues raised in this context are invariably also political issues.

I’ve been following the former Indian Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, succeeded by the Aboriginal Affairs Committee and the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, give or take a few breaks, since about 1960. I’ve been reading the major legal decisions since about 1973. And I . . . [more]

Recent activity in the legal informatics world has been characterized by numerous efforts to make legal documents and technologies more openly available, and to make legal information more interoperable. Here are some examples:

• Núria Casellas, Joan-Josep Vallbé, and Tom Bruce of the Legal Information Institute discussed their recent work applying Linked Data technology to the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), in entitled , presented at the Open Government Knowledge 2011 conference. The paper described their experiments with marking up the text of the CFR as RDF Linked Data, marking up the CFR Thesaurus of Indexing

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat has published an article about Canadians’ perceptions of personal safety and crime, 2009.

Among the highlights:

• In 2009, the vast majority (93%) of Canadians aged 15 years and older living in the provinces said they felt satisfied with their personal safety from crime. This proportion was similar to 2004, the last time this survey was conducted
• Despite higher rates of victimization, younger Canadians were more satisfied with their personal safety from crime than older Canadians. In 2009, 94% of Canadians aged 15 to 24 years said they felt very or somewhat satisfied, compared with

The Clawbies website design is now updated, and the season opening post is up. Yes, it’s time for the (6th!) Canadian Law Blog Awards!

Whether you’re a blogger or blog reader, the month of December has become the time to shine a light on your favourite Canadian law blogs and bloggers. And if you’re new to the Clawbies tradition, please make careful note of ‘the humble Canadian rule’ — don’t toot your own horn! Your blog gets automatically nominated when you nominate and link to other bloggers! Yes, it’s a wink-wink, nudge-nudge concept, but take a look around at . . . [more]

The Ontario provincial government’s decision to terminate all of the permanent Masters’ Registrar positions, and to have other people do their jobs (with per diem registrars in Court and other government employees performing the other job functions of the Registrars) has been noted and commented upon by Sam Marr, TLA President. He has written to Lynne Wagner, Assistant Deputy Attorney General and Lynn Norris, Director, Court Operations (Acting) after learning of these developments.

Below is an excerpt from Mr. Marr’s letter:

Masters play a vital role in the administration of justice in this city. They have unparalleled and unsurpassed expertise