saila.com: Gomery revelations won’t bring down the government

saila.com: Gomery revelations won’t bring down the government

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Living Can Kill You

Gomery revelations won’t bring down the government

The Captain’s Quarters seems to have got itself a juicy scoop and some nice traffic from Canada. But with all the hyperbole coming from our media outlets (force a quick election, explosive and damning testimony, devastating impact on the minority Liberal government, and criminal charges against senior Liberals), keep in mind a few things:

the blog publishing the details has a right-wing conservative bias;
because of the Gomery Commission�s publication ban on this testimony, any confirmation is vague at best;
the ban was intended to ensure fair criminal trials for Chuck Guit�, Jean Brault and Paul Coffin;
the information was undoubtedly leaked by the current government�s political opponents;
it�s great gunpowder for both politicians and the media;
and no party, except maybe the Bloc Qu�b�cois, wants an election right now.

Although I�m not at all condoning the Liberal parties questionable actions, the testimony itself, as leaked, doesn�t seem any worse than anything else we�ve learned.

Unfortunately, given the law surrounding publication bans in Canada, I don�t know if this post is in contempt. Although I don�t think it is, I still won�t be linking to the alleged testimony directly, but the fact it had been released and so widely publicized severely weakens the publication ban as tool in such prominent cases (remember the Karla Homolka plea ban?).

April 4, 2005 at 9:57 AM EDT

Category: Journalism

Topic: Canada

Comments: 4

Comments

MikeyC:

"I still won�t be linking to the alleged testimony directly" Craig, come on who are we kidding here? You're linking to the homepage, where the testimony currently sits. Just because you're not linking to the article's permalink is splitting hairs that I doubt would make a difference in a court of law. Not that there's really anything to fear, as Slashdot is plainly ignoring the ban, and easily accessible to Canadians geeks from coast to coast.

Apr. 4 2005 at 9:08 PM EDT

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Craig Saila:

You didn’t see the wink?

Apr. 5 2005 at 9:38 AM EDT

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MikeyC:

I wonder what the legality of publishing an unhyperlinked URI? Sure it's a trivial task to cut-n-paste it into the Location Bar, but you're not actually linking to anything. No different than publishing the address of the courthouse where the inquiry is taking place and which the public can freely attend.

Let's find out: http://zeit.ca/blog/2005/04/05/adscam-publication-ban/

Apr. 5 2005 at 10:15 AM EDT

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Craig Saila:

The whole thing is quite vague, and even Gomery had to specify “broadcast” meant the Internet. As far as I recall, only one provincial court read that in…

Apr. 5 2005 at 10:40 AM EDT

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