Wednesday, March 26, 2008

National Post "reporting": Warman v. Lemire

[T]he Tribunal appeared to wrongly out an innocent person as a Commission operative, thus exposing her to the unwanted attention of the vast army of bloggers who support Mr. Lemire, owner of the far-right FreedomSite.

For a government agency that has fought for months to protect the personal security of their own staff, even going so far as to (unsuccessfully) invoke national security to keep them off the witness stand, their handling of the "Nellie xxxxxx" question is remarkable. [Elision mine--DD]

Was Joseph Brean even there? Here is the truth of it: the Bell Canada official had been subpoenaed by Marc Lemire's lawyer, Barbara Kulaszka. He required the official request of the Tribunal to divulge the confidential details of his findings. This is pro forma, and the Chair gave his OK. The testimony followed. Then Margot Blight, from the Canadian Human Rights Commission, rose to suggest that such information should be protected, due to privacy considerations.

The Chair agreed, and, if memory serves, ordered that this information not be promulgated. Of course it immediately appeared on Marc Lemire's blogsite. When that became known in the afternoon, the Chair ordered that the information (identity, street address) be removed. It remains posted as of this writing.

Way to let the bad guys off the hook, Joe. Nice work.

UPDATE: (March 26)

My memory of the Chair's ruling is supported by conservative commentator Jaeger:
"A Jadewarr post (a CHRC account) was traced to an IP address owned by a woman entirely unconnected to the CHRC. The chair requested that the woman's identity not be disclosed".

UPPERDATE: (March 26)

More of National Post's "reportage" exposed. (H/t Mordechai.) What's left when Brean stops spinning? No need to answer that.

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