Stephen Harper Ultimately Responsible for G20 Infringement of Civil Liberties

Having taken my own advice to show my support for Canadian civil liberties, I've begun receiving correspondence back from MPs. Among the respondents has been Mario Silva, a Liberal who represents the Toronto riding of Davenport. He writes in part that

it was the office of the Minister of Public Safety, the Honourable Vic Toews, which coordinated security for the G8 and G20 summits, in close consultation with the Prime Minister’s department, the Privy Council Office.

Now I'm loathe these days to take any politician's word for anything, but this does make sense, given the G20 was the $1.3 billion party ordered up by one Stephen Harper. And we all know how much Harper favours micromanagement - if he's the one doing it.

ETA: And now a response from Rona Ambrose, one of Harper cabinet ministers: "I am pleased to inform you that an independent review of police tactics during the G20 protests will be conducted."

Would that be the independent review to be held by the Toronto Police Services Board, I wonder? If so, then Ambrose's response is an exercise in duplicity; it answers NOTHING with respect to FEDERAL responsibility. (I've responded to her in kind, insisting on an inquiry at the federal level.)

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Cheeks Red from Slap in Face

CBC has shown how NOT to reward loyalty. I wrote the following over at Scott's place, in response to CBC's new licensing policy - better named 'gag order' on Canadians at large.

Among the ironies for me: The linking policy on this blog and our others has been to hunt for - even WAIT FOR - CBC (or indy) articles on news items that have come up in the queue, rather than to write posts linking to Canwest Media or CTV.

In other words, we have been doing our level best to support our public broadcaster and independent media by sending people to their sites, not to the sites of their private competitors.

Our faces are red, from the slap across both cheeks.

CANADIAN copyright laws apply in this country. That includes the fair use policy I quoted yesterday in another article pertaining to copyright.

To the publicly-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and to any other media corporation serving in Canada that might entertain such notions: Don't try importing U.S. copyright law over here. You'll get a battle you'll wish you'd never provoked.

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One-Line and All-Copy-Paste Posts

I've said this in tweets more than once and I'll say it again here:

I really, REALLY dislike one-line blog posts that say nothing, such as "You should read this" - without telling me why; or provide only a link, e.g., "Go." - again without saying why; or are composed entirely of the writing of others, except to introduce it with something like "Jane Doe writes..." Too many posts like that - there are bloggers who 'write' these posts almost exclusively to their blog - and I don't visit that blog again.

It's bad form for so much content to be copy/paste, even if linked. It's no more fair to news organizations to re-use their work in that way than it is to swipe the work of other bloggers to build up your own readership.

Have Daphne and I written one-liners or posts almost entirely of others' work? You betcha.

But that's not our modus operandi on this or our other blogs. Moreover, in the case of virtually a full post of copy/paste, it is done with permission of the original authors. With one-liners, the content makes their brevity self-explanatory.

There's nothing wrong with using excerpts, subject to appropriate acknowledgement such as linking. One of my favourite bloggers uses excerpts extensively, together with connecting-the-dots prose. The latter makes the post the blogger's own and tells a compelling tale.

Perhaps some bloggers are unaware that what they do is annoying and off-putting and in the case of extensive copy/paste, more than likely a violation of copyright laws. However, there are bloggers whose backgrounds suggest they should know better.

NB: On fair dealing in copyright law: "In deciding whether copying is fair dealing, the courts have determined that the relevant factors to be considered include the length of the excerpts used, the relative importance and quality of the excerpts used, and whether a copy is made for academic or commercial purposes. Fair dealing usually involves copying only a reasonable portion of a work."

About three years ago, an academic wrote a book in which huge portions of Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health were used. I'd been advised he'd violated my copyright, despite his acknowledgement of the source. It was particularly galling given the people who were behind the WISE book - 21 women in poverty. This is another case in which ownership matters.

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