Posts Tagged ‘Globe and Mail’
Joe Di Luca: “Maybe, just maybe, he’s telling the truth.”
When I attended a few days of Byron Sonne’s preliminary hearing last year I met his parents and a few of his friends. But not Byron, since he had been denied bail and was in still in custody. I only saw him ushered in and out of the court room in handcuffs. And it was clearly breaking his mother’s heart that she wasn’t allowed to talk to him even though he was only a few feet away.
Although we corresponded, I never actually met Byron until I attended the first day of the closing arguments at his trial on Thursday. Byron warned me that the Crown’s closing argument would try to make him look bad, yet it seemed to me Crown Attorney Nadeau spent a great deal of time proving the hollowness of her case.
“To begin, if you’re taking anyone’s life, and reducing it to a number of exhibits, there’s not going to be a unifying theme.”
— Joe Di Luca
The Crown has the masses of documents on computers seized in Byron’s home, including computer “bookmarks”, the names of files posted to torrent sites, and Byron’s words and images posted on the internet, in email, electronic mailing lists, IRC chats and even more publicly in forums like Twitter and Flickr.
And the Crown had the testimony of Dr. Anderson, an expert witness who knows how to transform common household chemicals into explosives. Nor is there any argument Byron Sonne had a home laboratory which included chemicals that could be used to make explosives.
One chemical cited with trepidation was potassium permanganate. Like the Crown Attorney, I didn’t have a chemistry set growing up, so my own experience with chemistry is limited to baking. But my husband’s parents bought him a chemistry set when he was ten years old, and one of the standard chemicals it came with was potassium permanganate.
Another thing that concerned the Crown was that Byron removed chemicals he purchased from their packaging and stored them in his home laboratory without marking them with warning labels.
I have no trouble understanding taking materials out of original packaging because I do the same thing. When I buy beads to hand craft Christmas ornaments, the first thing I do when I get them home is take them out of the packaging and store them with my other craft supplies.
The second concern strikes me as being a little ridiculous. Byron’s laboratory was in his home, not some place frequented by random members of the public requiring supervision or warning. The only other person resident in the home was Byron’s wife, who would have been well aware that the lab contained dangerous chemicals.
Dr. Anderson can only testify that it was possible the chemicals could be made into explosives. But in and of themselves, none of the chemicals Byron had, in the quantities he had, were illegal. If the only possible use for any of them was bomb creation, wouldn’t they have been banned?
Dr. Anderson is an expert, of course, because as the head of Military Engineering for Defence Research and Development Canada, he spends his days figuring out which ordinary household products can be turned into dangerous bombs. Expert or no, I can’t imagine that this wouldn’t also lead to bias on the good doctor’s part. Clearly, Byron isn’t the only one interested in chemistry.
“We have to start with the presumption of innocence. There is a human tendency to look at narrative and make the facts fit. We must guard against that.”
— Joe Di Luca
Finally the Crown rested, and Joe Di Luca began to speak in Byron’s defence, beginning with the presumption of innocence, an integral element of our criminal justice system. He talked about how easy it is to overlook this presumption in any prosecution. (As has clearly happened here.)
Christopher Olah’s notes are far superior to mine, so I very much recommend his notes for a good unofficial summation of Mr. Di Luca’s excellent defence argument.
highlights
Mr Di Luca argued that Byron was telling the truth all the time. (The Crown argument relies on his truthfulness only when convenient for the Crown case.) The Crown has no trouble accepting that Byron is aware law enforcement might be listening, and that he has the skills necessary to proceed covertly. Yet he didn’t.
Byron made purchases using his own name and credit card. Openly.
Mr. Di Luca points out that as the G20 approached, Byron publicly told people that he wanted to monitor the police, and document and disseminate the results. Talking to friends, acquaintances and strangers, making security presentations, using IRC chats, email, Twitter, YouTube, Byron’s stated intent was testing the system, or “tickling the dragon.”
And as Mr. Di Luca so eloquently put it:
“And he did tickle it, and it breathed fire all over him,
and now he’s before this court.”
Chemicals in Byron’s lab could be combined into TATP, HMTD, HDN and ANFO, which is why Byron faces four counts of possessing explosive materials.
In the days leading up to the G20, Mr. Di Luca points out that Byron was not combining chemicals into explosives, but instead walking the fence line, taking photographs of G20 security cameras and drawing the police attention that resulted in his arrest.
But for me, the Perry Mason moment was when Mr. Di Luca asked,
“Why would Mr. Sonne engage in making four different kinds of explosives?”
— Joe Di Luca
If Byron ever had any intention of bombing the G20, why would he need four different types of explosive material? Each would require its own elaborate and dangerous process. To actually build a bomb, any one would be more than sufficient. You might be able to make a case for two, so a second type could provide an alternate. But four? That makes no sense at all.
Unless, of course, the reason for assembling the chemicals was to search out the flaws in the system.
“Maybe, just maybe, he’s telling the truth.”
— Joe Di Luca
As the fictional Doctor House would say, “That explains everything.”
a writer’s take
I find it interesting that the Crown assumes Byron’s interest in rocketry is merely a “cover’ or a “ruse” because it appears inconsistent with other facts they have about him. As a novelist, one who has both studied and struggled with understanding human behaviour, I have to tell you that this kind of inconsistency is precisely the kind of thing that any fictional character must have in order to be believable.
Because real people are inconsistent. We all harbour ambivalence and hold mutually contradictory opinions. And our opinions can be different on different days of the week, or in alternate seasons. And the opinions we have can change based on new information, or if we are jolted by an external stimulus.
Nothing in Byron’s past — from his political dabbling, his family background, his marriage, his work, his interests, his community or his life — suggest the slightest motivation for terrorist bombing. If Byron was a fictional character, it simply would not be believable that he would step out of his comfortable life to bomb the G20 or anything else.
It is equally unbelievable in the real world.
Even if something catastrophic happened to rock his world, I still wouldn’t give these charges credence. Because of his parents. And perhaps even more, because of the support he continues to receive from his community.
The people who know him best believe in him. And that’s a fact.
Further Reading
README.md: Byron Sonne Trial Notes
With final submissions, end may be in sight for Byron Sonne trial
Globe and Mail: Sonne’s open intentions debunks charge that he planned G20 bombing
CTV The Canadian Press: Sonne didn’t want to blow up G20 summit: lawyer
The trial will resume Monday, April 2nd, at 10:00 a.m. in Courtroom 2-2 at 361 University Avenue, Toronto.
Dear Wikipedia: The Death of Mark Duggan is Notable
I frequently use Wikipedia as a reference, particularly for breaking news. As a blogger, I link to supporting articles, because linked information adds depth.
broken links
I hate broken links, so I try to avoid linking to The Globe and Mail, for instance, because they started locking older articles behind a paywall. That deliberately breaks links that work when I post the article [unless the reader pays ransom].
I am quite certain that I’ve linked to Wikipedia more than any other website, and so I worry because deleted Wikipedia articles will result in broken links.
Broken links are bad for blogs, and while online news outlets often don’t understand this, Wikipedia ought to. As a blogger, when I link to something, I expect it to stay there. As an Internet user, it is annoying to follow a link to get more information, only to discover that the original article has been removed. The only time any Wikipedia entry should be deleted is if it is fraudulent.
The Wikipedia page Death of Mark Duggan is flagged for deletion. There is a huge argument raging about whether or not Mark Duggan’s death is notable.
I’ve never been to the UK, never met Mark Duggan in life.
Yet over here in Canada, I know Mark Duggan’s name, the tragic circumstances of his death, and the aftermath precipitated by it. People I talk to online are directly affected. It strikes me as absolutely ludicrous that this Wikipedia page might be deleted.
Wikipedia is “self-correcting;” which means if a contributor gets something wrong, other interested folks will step in and correct it. This has resulted in some surprisingly high levels of accuracy. Wikipedia is a creation of volunteers, so it isn’t perfect. It depends on co-operation. And unfortunately, as with any volunteer organization, internal politics exist. Which is why many perfectly good articles are deleted — because someone deems them unimportant.
And so the Death of Mark Duggan article is flagged for deletion: apparently, some Wikipedians claim it is not “notable.”
Call me crazy, but any event that precipitates days of rioting in a democracy seems worthy of note.
notable searches
The Google front page (citing: About 7,100,000 results (0.16 seconds) of a “Mark Duggan” search today turned up results starting with Tottenham & Wood Green Journal: ‘Why I clash with police’ by man who grew up with Mark Duggan and ends with the American ABC Television: What Happened to Mark Duggan, The Man Who Sparked the London Riots? This, in spite of the fact that the name, and page is also shared by a number of “established” people named Mark Duggan:
- Mark Duggan: Professor of Economics,
- Mark Duggan: Percussionist,
- Mark Duggan award winning artist
- Mark Duggan Photography,
- or the other Photographer named Mark Duggan
- and all the professionals named Mark Duggan listed in LinkedIn.
The Wikipedia article Death of Mark Duggan is the fifth listing, in itself an indication of “notability.”
A Bing/Yahoo search (citing “3,810,000 results”) results generates a page of search results entirely devoted to the dead young Tottenham man, with the “notable” Wikipedia article Death of Mark Duggan placing eighth.
limits
Back in the days when encyclopedia space was limited by the physical constraints of paper and ink and binding, notions of “notability” would have helped to determine what subjects to exclude. Not because the information was bad, but because the encyclopedia needed to appeal to enough people to be able to generate funds to pay for itself. Because what was considered notable to residents of one geographical area was not necessarily notable to others, different encyclopedias grew up in different countries.
Is the problem one of space? Is Wikipedia so close to capacity? The Wikipedia article Death of mark Duggan runs 1053 words, and the argument on the Wikipedia Wikipedia Articles for deletion: August 8th: Death of Mark Duggan runs 7425 as I write this. The argument for deletion takes up seven times as much space as the article flagged for deletion. This suggests any limitation based on space restrictions in today’s world of low cost digital storage would be artificial.
deletionism
There’s a page about the controversy Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia. What it boils down to is some people want to limit the contents of Wikipedia based on the purely subjective basis of “notability.”
I know a few very active Wikipedians, but so far have only contributed a single Wikipedia page (relatively uncontroversial. largely untouched), which entitled me to attend a Wikipedia meeting at Toronto’s Linux Caffe that sought to determine interest in a possible Toronto Chapter. There was a lively discussion about “deletionists,” the consensus was opposed to wanton deletion, and many had stories about expert contributors who have ceased to contribute because of the deletion frenzy.
Writing a Wikipedia entry was hard work for me, not least because I had to learn the rules and the physical format.
It seems to me that anything that triggers the creation of a Wikipedia entry is “notable” to the contributor. Knowing that the hard work I might invest in future contributions could be deleted because someone else deems it not “notable” is a huge deterrent. Why should I bother? If I have information to share, I can blog it, because then I know it will still be available when someone needs the information a year from now. I don’t know that about Wikipedia. Investing time and energy in contributing to Wikipedia is one thing; having to spend time arguing why it shouldn’t be deleted is likely to drive away potential contributors. Destruction is always easier than creation.
censorship
Deletionism is a form of censorship exercised by some people who choose to impose their priorities on others.
While I defend your right to decide what is notable to you; I categorically reject your attempt to define what is notable or important to me. Is Wikipedia in the business of sharing information or censoring it?
If a Wikipedian doesn’t like an article, they needn’t visit it. However, if they manage to have articles deleted, others seeking the deleted information — people who would find it notable — will forever after be deprived of accessing the information.
I suggest that power struggles and bullying should have no place in Wikipedia.
subjective or objective?
I had the idea that Wikipedia aspires to be what I always imagined Asimov‘s Encyclopedia Galactica to be, a reference storehouse “containing all the knowledge accumulated” – which means including every fact.
Facts are facts. They are not good or bad, notable or not, until we apply our subjective biases.
In order to be a truly objective and comprehensive reference, Wikipedia must cease trying to decide what is important, because importance is variable.
If Wikipedia is to become a truly universal resource, it needs to dispense with any possibility of this kind of editorial censorship. History may be written by the victors, the bullies or the ruling class; but an encyclopedia should never be.
If it is true, if it exists, if it happened, it should be included in Wikipedia. What isn’t important today, might be tomorrow. Or next week.
A week ago, Mark Duggan was still alive. Today, his death has shaken the world.
Canadian Writers! Artists! Say “No” to GBS Settlement
If anything you have written has been published, or will be published, it is important for you to act quickly.
Because the Google Book Search Settlement will apply to
all published material in large American libraries
Under the terms of this settlement ANYTHING that might be in a library could be scanned and digitized by Google for their own benefit.
I don’t hate Google. I love the Google search engine because it works so very well. In fact when using it to look for links on this subject it was very helpful, it even highlighted this lovely quote from the amazing Ursula LeGuin:
“You decided to deal with the devil, as it were, and have presented your arguments for doing so. I wish I could accept them. I can’t. There are principles involved, above all the whole concept of copyright; and these you have seen fit to abandon to a corporation, on their terms, without a struggle,” she wrote in her letter of resignation.”
Ursula K. LeGuin in the GUARDIAN article Writers’ groups lobby US Congress against Google books deal
But I don’t think that businesses have any business owning copyright — CREATORS are the only ones who ought to own copyright. The reason copyright is in the absurd place it is today is because for years the corporations who owned the distribution networks were able to used their absolute power to deny artists access to a mass audience unless the artists were willing to give up some or all of their copyright to the corporation. In law that’s called “duress”. But that was SOP. Only the select few artists who struck it big ever had a hope of regaining control because they shifted the balance of power.
There are all sorts of reasons why this Google Book Search Settlement should not go through… one being that the scope is just too large. The outcry from other American writers groups indicates clearly that The Authors Guild, Inc.does not speak for all American writers, yet they have brought their suit on behalf of all the writers in the world and are prepared to accept a settlement which is clearly not acceptable to their American brethren, let alone writers from the rest of the world.
It is ludicrous to think a single writers collective can possibly speak for all the writers AND artist AND songwriters of the world
In the first place copyright law is NOT universal. This is why countries like Germany, France and the UK have fought hard against the original Google Book Scan settlement– and in fact won their freedom from this settlement.
Writers from Australia, Canada and the USA will be losing their digital copyright to Google. But that will not be the end of it.
Other things besides books are published and housed in libraries. Magazines. Newspapers. Sheet Music. Lyrics. But as well as written material, there is also a great deal of art published and held in library collections. I haven’t heard anything about artist’s rights being looked out for.
How can this be?
So in this second attempt at reaching a Google Book Scan settlement the only countries who may end up stuck with this legal travesty are Australia, Canada and the USA. Apparently there has not been much of a to-do about this issue in Australia, which leads me to believe that Australian Writers and Artists are just as much in the dark about this as I was yesterday. So they have not been presented with this information and will lose their digital rights without even being aware it is happening.
They don’t have the right to give away our digital rights.
The best case scenario is to stop this class action suit settlement because it will strip away the digital rights of creators. That’s what the Canadian Petition letter is aiming to do. Read it on Sarah Sheard’s blog: LETTER IN PROTEST OF THE GOOGLE BOOK SETTLEMENT <em>[editor's note: Sarah Sheard seems to have taken all the GBS material down, breaking all the links, so I'm just disabling them here.]
Better yet– sign the petition!
Sarah Sheard and David Bolt stress that This is not an opt-out petition
Although I’m an optimist by nature, life has taught me to expect the worst, so I as well as adding my signature to the letter I am also opting out, just in case.
Much more information about the legalities can be found on the American National Writers Union FAQ. I had technical difficulties with the National Writer’s Union sample letter (which would only open as “read only” in Open Office) so I retyped it into my blog post so you can easily cut and paste if from in the wind: Google Book Search OPT OUT letter: WRITERS. The National Writers Union is only one of many American writer’s groups are campaigning hard against this grossly unfair settlement deal in the United States.
There is a facebook group from which I learned that January 28th is just the opt-out deadline, but that there are additional hearings:
from the Facebook Group:
Canadian Writers Against Google Settlement says:• Notice begins: Monday, December 14, 2009.
• Opt-out/objection/amicus deadline:
Thursday, January 28, 2010 (45 days later).
• DOJ files its response: Thursday, February 4, 2010 (7 days later).
• Plaintiffs move for final approval:
Thursday, February 11, 2010 (7 days later).
• Final fairness hearing: Thursday, February 18, 2010 (7 days later)
It would seem to me that if there are VAST amounts of opt-outs, the court may well decide to throw out this settlement as well.
More Coverage of this important story can be found at:
Authors lobby U.S. court to reject Google deal
Writers’ groups lobby US Congress against Google books deal
Canadian Authors Mount Anti-Google Campaign
Quill & Quire: U.S. writers’ groups team up to protest Google settlement
Computer Weekly: US authors appeal to Congress over Google Books deal
New York Times: Writers Groups Oppose Google Settlement
[To make up for the broken links, here's a Bonus Link: Google, Publishers, Authors Defend Book Settlement (Update2) ]
And to restore substance, I’ve found the petition:
LETTER IN PROTEST OF THE GOOGLE BOOK SETTLEMENT
The following Canadian authors and copyright holders wish to protest the Google Book Settlement. Even in its revised form, it is an assault on international copyright law and has distorted class action law for the benefit of a predatory corporation.New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa and India – all countries with English-language presses similar to Canada’s — have been exempted from the settlement because they protested vigorously against it.. We wish to protest just as loudly. The Governments of France and Germany protested that illegal digitization of books amounted to theft of a cultural heritage. We agree, and believe that Canada’s heritage of Cultural nationalism should be applied to the Google settlement. All of continental Europe is now exempt, and so should Canada be.
We believe that Canadian Copyrights should be subject to Canadian courts, as well as to the Berne Convention. We believe that Canadians should not lose control over their works because they fail to sign up in a registry in another country; and, further, that the opt-out (rather than the time-honoured opt-in) clause serves to co-opt many copyright holders who do not have the the time or inclination to study this complicated settlement. Also, the deadline for opting out insults common sense and benefits only Google.
The director of the US Copyright Office has said “no factors have been demonstrated that would justify creating a system akin to a compulsory license for Google – and only Google – to digitize books for an indefinite period of time.” She has called it “an end-run around copyright law”. We agree.
The US Department of Justice sees no reason why Google should not negotiate with authors and publishers individually, just like anyone else who wants to purchase copyright licences. We agree.
The Google Settlement was negotiated by the Authors Guild of the U.S. But other U.S. groups — the National Writers Union, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers — are all unequivocally opposed to it. We do not accept that the Authors Guild speaks for us and join the above organizations in demanding that the settlement be rejected.
If the settlement is not rejected, we see no reason to trust in the future. The Google Corporation has behaved in an illegal and predatory fashion in the past and will likely go on behaving in this way.
We join with the writers’ and publishers’ groups, as well as with the foreign law courts and governments, who reject the settlement in its entirety.
—Vancouver Observer: Canadian Authors Mount Anti-Google Campaign
