Re: Re: [ga] Proposal for mailing list policy

[Joe Baptista <baptista@pccf.net>]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

> The legal reference is French, not Canadian: Database owners may be liable 
> for injurious material contained in their publicly visible databases, even 
> if it is put in there by someone else.
> See below for the Canadian reference.

A good argument to locate the database in a free country - like t5he US of
A.

> > > Secondly, according to my information, after having gone through an
> > > experience similar to the one we are witnessing now, the Canadian
> > > Government took a different approach about the filing system ;>).
> >
> >I am afraid the reference here is lost on me.

so am I - the reference to Canadian law is in error.

> One nice link is
> http://www.ipc.on.ca/web_site.eng/locating/orders-m/M-618.htm and
> http://www.ipc.on.ca/web_site.eng/locating/orders-m/m-947.htm, since this 
> appears to be a set of rulings from the Information and Privacy 
> Commissioner of Ontario.
> (the appellant in the second case is not identified)

Orders IPC orders M-618 and M-947 have nothing to do with censorship or
freedom of information.  Your reaching Harald.

> Briefly, Baptista and another person bombarded Canadian government agencies 
> with requests for information in such numbers that the requests, if 
> satisfied, would have caused all government officials to be busy preparing 
> information for him. The rules were changed afterwards because of this.

Incorrect observation of the history here.  First of all, we were
sucessful in our freedom of information requests.  The action happened
over a three year period and during that period two people (of
which I was one) increased the administrative burden on the governments
Freedom of Information processes in excess of 300%.  The IPC itself had to
hire more people to meet the demand.  The cost to the system from my work
varies from $100 to $500 million per year.

The rules had to be changed.  The government had only two options,
A) close down the system and denie everyone access, or open up the system
and treat information processing as an asset and put the whole sheebang
online.  They choose to deny information access, and now a few years later
- everyone in Canada is  screaming bloody murder.

Certainly the press is no longer happy.

> 
> I particularly like the quote from Baptista in M-618:
> 
> "My interest in freedom of information legislation has a singular intent. I 
> have made it very clear to the Commission and any other party that my 
> purpose is the creation of an administrative burden for the Commission and 
> related government agencies"

Yes - that is correct.  The quote was used by commissioner Wight to
rationalize his decision - and I certainly admit to having provided it to
him to assist in the job.  Mr. Wight disappeared shortly after his ruling
and is now ruling on license plates in the automobile department.  This
was a step down in the corporate ladder of government.

The goal was to close down the Canadian FOI access to the general
public.  That's about the only simularity these events have to ICANN.  The
way it works Harald is that in a free information society a government
entity which is non responsive - or unable to meet demand for information
becomes obsolete.  That was my goal in FOI and I succeeded.  The same
theory applies to icann in practice.

Regards
Joe Baptista