Quebec Town Makes It Illegal To Insult Police Officers And Other Public Officials
from the hi,-I'm-a-non-resident-and-I'd-like-to-insult-you dept
I'm not sure where so many public officials get the idea that the job is best-suited to those with the thinnest skin.
Be careful what you write about police officers online — if you live in Granby, Que., you could get slapped with a hefty fine.Maybe it's a Quebec thing? Here's a TD post from way back discussing Rawdon, Quebec, which -- in a postively Ardisian move -- not only forced a site offline but sent the cops after the site owner.
The municipality about an hour outside of Montreal is seeking the right to issue fines ranging from $100 to $1,000 to people caught insulting police officers or municipal employees on the internet.
The city council of the small town of Rawdon, Quebec (population: 9400) has managed to get a court order to shut down an online forum (French only) because its users were posting messages that were considered 'defamatory and detrimental to the reputation' of the elected board. Police raided the forum owner's house, copied his entire hard drive and asked him to delete the offending posts, and when he said he had over 8,000 messages to look through, they did not specify which ones were specifically targeted.But hey, #NotAllCanadiens. The South Pittsburg City, Tennessee has also done its part to ensure governing bodies aren't stung by the harsh words of constituents.
The commissioners of a small Tennessee town have just voted to ban negative comments about it from social media. This stupid move was prompted by "criticism and lies" being posted online, which supposedly "hampered" the town's government from performing its duties.Granby's bylaw rewrite didn't originate from the bruised feels of council members or city commissioners, but rather from its police force, which found Kevlar body armor may be great for stopping bullets, but does little to stop hurtful words.
The move comes after town officials discovered a Facebook page called Les policiers zélé de Granby — The Zealous Police of Granby.And, of course, defenders are stepping up to explain that this is no more than an extension of stupid, previously-existent bylaw.
According to Catherine Bouchard, the director of legal services for Granby, a bylaw already exists for face-to-face insults and has been used in recent years for online slurs.In order to raise the level of online discourse, insults directed at a select group of people -- public servants -- must be criminalized. The deputy mayor's justification is even worse.
"In my opinion, if I threaten you via my keyboard, it's as though I am making that threat right in front of you.… For me, it's the same thing," said Robert Riel, Granby's deputy mayor.Threats are a criminal offense and I would assume there are laws in place to address these. Insults -- whether they're face-to-face or from behind keyboards -- are just the end result of the world being filled with people that aren't always pleasant. If the insult rises to the level of defamation, there's legal recourse for that. If the insults turn into harassment, again, turn to the law.
But all of these different forms of unprotected speech are being thrown in with protected speech under a single, badly-written bylaw. Statements from the town's lawyer throw out terms like "slurs," "defamation" and "insults" as though they were all legally interchangeable, making her grasp of the law appear every bit as tenuous as the deputy mayor's.
And then there's this:
"If you put something out on the internet, I don't know what the expectation of privacy is," Bouchard said.Well, actually you can destroy a citizen's reputation, Ms. Bouchard. You see, the bylaw only protects city officials from insults, not the general public. Cops and council members can retaliate against those who have hurt their feelings by sending a suddenly-motivated police force to cite offenders.
"Let's say I write something about you that's derogatory or that's insulting … do I have the freedom to write anything about you?
"Your freedom of speech does not give you the right to say anything about anybody you want in an insulting manner. I can't destroy your reputation and who you are because I have freedom of speech."
Bouchard and those voting for this act as though free speech is zero sum. Bouchard acts like public figures would have no other way to counter online insults if it wasn't for this skewed law. The same online platforms and forums can be accessed both by the public and their representatives. But this bylaw can only be used by public figures.
The Huffington Post coverage notes that the local police hadn't offered any comment, but were "eagerly awaiting" the results of the vote. I bet they were. I'm sure there's a few officers who can't wait to take down the people behind the "insulting" Facebook page -- those clever malcontents who thought they were above the law when they expressed themselves using protected speech.
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Filed Under: canada, free speech, granby, insults, police, quebec
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Another Prescient movie comes to real (gov't) life...
"John Q. Public you are hereby fined one credit for violation of the verbal morality code"
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It's almost like we need a police force to police the police. Or maybe we should get rid of the criminals on the police ranks instead of bending over backwards for their every little faux pau
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I beg to differ
Actually, yes it does. Freedom of speech means that I can say things about people in as insulting a manner as I wish, just as people can say things about me in as insulting a manner as they wish.
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Re: I beg to differ
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/s
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I didn't know that Canada was a country based on religion.
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I did not see your /s tag
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No matter what you say, I guarantee you that someone somewhere will be offended by it. When your rights get suspended the moment even one person is offended, you have no rights.
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Please do not insult Police Officers and Public Officials
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What are you saying?
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Also, while I am not a great student of Canadian founding law and there is an entire hemisphere called America with north, south, and central parts, I do believe that the "First Amendment" mentioned is strictly a United States of America thing.
What exactly are you missing?
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So?
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So?
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http://globalnews.ca/news/1981579/illegal-insults-quebec-town-threatens-fines-for-online-in sults-to-police-officials/
Apparently, the article above is incorrect. :rotfl:
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Then again, non-crystal-ball-readers have no idea when this article was written and originally presented for publication. So the changes to the situation 2 days ago may not have happened when this was written.
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In participating locations.
*after 10 easy monthly installments of $99.99
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kenichi
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Dear Granby police officers
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All it took for me to find this information was less than five minutes to search Google. The article states that the vote hadn't happened yet when it actually has. Since the links in the article above were from April 23rd, it appears that nobody did any background on this new addition to Quebec's law before they published the article on the site.
I wasn't being mean when I posted, just stating that Techdirt could stand to research the articles it posts to ensure that the article has updated, factual information.
:p
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The article's headline is in the past tense and the first paragraph of the HuffPo link is:
But that is besides the point anyways - this article is an opinion piece on the bylaw itself and not a news report about it. You were able to Google the information fairly quickly, so I assume that any moron could also do so.
And once again: Learn to threaded mode! or at the very least quote something from who you are responding to, otherwise your comments make even less sense than usual because most everyone else views Techdirt in threaded mode.
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Perhaps Mike might consider adding that to the TD banner? It would head off things like that.
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LOL
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Moreover, the fact that the bill has been voted on changes none of the facts presented in this article except for the fact that the bill has passed since the article being referenced was published. Therefore, it still has factual information that has been researched.
You dont know when the article was researched or written, so how can you decide that research wasn't performed?
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"The job's less about serving, more about ruling you see."
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Come get me - lol
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So if I do this...
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That way their feelings won't get hurt and after enough criminal cops die they might get the message to stop being dirty cops.
Of course a lot of people will die from this, but that will happen regardless if things keep going in this police state cops can do no wrong mentality.
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Now let's see how this plays out.
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Inferiority
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So...
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Fine Schedule of Fines
$100 fine for saying: Stinky, doo-doo head or fart-face
$200 fine for saying: your mother wears army boots
$300 fine for saying: brain-damaged armpit-sniffer
$400 fine for saying: killer of cute puppies
$500 fine for saying: torturer of cute kittens
$600 fine for saying: butt-puss-sucking used car salesman
$700 fine for saying: incessant You-Tube video poster
$800 fine for saying: AOL user
$900 fine for saying: morphodite pig-fucker
$1000 fine for saying: shit-eating mom-raping necrophiliac
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