CRTC asked to block access to U.S. websites

Canadian Press
Aug. 24, 2006

One of two U.S.-based hate websites was taken offline Wednesday as an Ottawa lawyer and a Jewish lobby group asked Canada's telecommunications regulator to take the unprecedented step of blocking access to the sites from north of the border.

The website, hosted by Google's weblog service Blogger, was one of two that human rights lawyer Richard Warman has asked the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to review.

In an application to the CRTC, Warman said the websites, operated by a "notorious" Nazi sympathizer based in Virginia, contain material intended to incite violence against him that has caused him to fear for his life.

"We want Blogger to enable free expression, including the hosting of views and opinions that are unpopular," Google spokesman Steve Langdon said.

"However, advocating violence against a person is not acceptable."

Some entries on the websites call for "violent overthrow" of the Canadian government and the "extermination" of Jews in Canada.

The application to the CRTC described Bill White of Roanoke, Virginia, as a neo-Nazi who has encouraged people to "take violent action" against Warman and even posted his home address on the sites.

Although the sites are beyond the reach of Canadian law, the CRTC has the rarely used power to order Internet providers to temporarily block them from Canadian web surfers.

But the regulatory body must first issue an order allowing Internet carriers to do so voluntarily.

Warman said he was prompted to file the application because the neo-Nazi movement has a history of engaging in violence against their perceived enemies.

"The fewer people in Canada who are reading incitement to murder me, the happier I'll be," Warman said.

"This is an application to protect all decent people from this sort of insane content. There's an actual call to murder myself and all Canadian Jews."

It's believed to be the first time the CRTC has been asked to block Canadian access to a foreign website, said telecommunications industry consultant Mark Goldberg.

"This is precedent-setting work," said Goldberg, who is also a member of the Ontario executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

If the sites were hosted in Canada, Internet carriers would find them in contravention of their user agreements, he said.

But Canadian law prevents carriers from blocking hate sites without the express permission of the CRTC, which is being sought by Warman.

Bernie Farber, the CJC's chief executive officer, said White has crossed "all kinds of legal lines" in inciting violence against Warman.

"We're not dealing with a free speech issue here, we're dealing with what I believe is a criminal matter — somebody counselling other people to go ahead and murder somebody," Farber said.

White, a former spokesman for the National Socialist Movement, one of the largest neo-Nazi parties in the U.S., readily admits to making the threats.

"All I am doing is making a point about tyrannical and dangerous the Canadian government has become," said White, who describes himself as the editor of a publication called the Libertarian Socialist News.

"I really can't see a difference between the Canadian government and the kind of governments we're told exist in countries like North Korea or Iraq."

He said blocking his sites won't work — he'll just move them to a different spot on the web.

Goldberg acknowledged that blocking the URL — the address typed into a browser to access the website — won't prevent the content from popping up somewhere else.

But he said a ruling would put a "speed bump" in the ability of a person to distribute hate material.

"Once we have precedence, hopefully it will be a reasonable process to say, `This is the same site that just changed its name."'

Goldberg said he's had a positive response from Canadian Internet carriers about blocking the site if the CRTC gives its blessing.

Internet providers that don't block the sites may make themselves legally liable if a user acts on what they read online, Warman suggested.

"The law and the Internet is an evolving field," he said.

"This is perhaps one of the first times where there's been such a direct call to violence that has presented itself in this form."