Conservative website shuttered after libel ruling [Free Dominion]

OTTAWA — The online political forum, Free Dominion, has shut down after a wholesale defeat in a libel case brought by Ottawa human rights lawyer Richard Warman.

A jury concluded that Warman was maliciously defamed by four commentators on Free Dominion, a website that bills itself as “the voice of principled conservatism.”

Warman has been awarded more than $127,000 in general damages, aggravated damages, punitive damages and court costs because of 41 defamatory statements published on the conservative website in 2007.

Warman rose to prominence during the past decade by using the Canadian Human Rights Act to shut down the websites of people spreading hate speech; it made him the target of free speech advocates in the conservative blogosphere, and on websites such as Free Dominion.

In a recently released decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith granted Warman a permanent injunction that prohibits Free Dominion from ever repeating “in any manner whatsoever” any of the 41 defamations.

The website’s operators, Connie and Mark Fournier, of Kingston, this week shut down freedominion.ca, saying they could not control what comments other people posted.

“By leaving the forum open and allowing people to comment, we’d be opening ourselves to a contempt-of-court charge,” Connie Fournier said Tuesday.

“If someone repeated one of those comments, we would be in trouble — and could even go to jail.”

The Fourniers have operated the website as a “labour of love” for the past 13 years.

“It’s really sad to be at the point where we have to shut down the political forum,” she said. “But we’ve come to the point where it would be crazy for us to keep it open: it would be too much of a risk.”

They have vowed to appeal the defamation case and have launched a campaign on Indiegogo.com to raise money for their legal costs. The campaign has so far raised $2,800 of its $25,000 goal.

The Warman case is among the first to address at trial what constitutes defamation in the caustic political blogosphere. It adds to case law that suggests the Internet does not shield anonymous posters from legal action if they wrongfully attack someone’s reputation.

On his website, Warman said the case offers lessons for anyone involved in an Internet blog or forum. Chief among them, he said, is the idea that “If you make a mistake, admit it, repair the harm, and move on.”

Connie Fournier, however, said that if the case stands on appeal it will impair the once vibrant Canadian blogosphere.

“I think this is a terrible thing for free speech on the Internet,” she said. “When people who are allowing comments on their blogs and forums look at humongous costs and damage rulings like this, at injunctions that could put them in jail, they’re not going to want to take the risk of opening their site.”

The jury found that the four defendants — Roger Smith, Jason Bertucci, Connie and Mark Fournier — had been “malicious, high-handed and oppressive” in their conduct. Justice Smith also found the defendants had acted unreasonably by refusing to accept Warman’s offer to settle the case for $5,000 each.

Warman had to fight in court to obtain the identifies of those anonymous posters who had left defamatory comments on Free Dominion. The case dragged on for six years, culminating in a three-week trial before a six-person jury.

The Fourniers have never apologized or issued a retraction about the statements found to be defamatory.

Late in 1998 I found my way onto the internet and soon wandered into Free Republic. I couldn’t believe my eyes, there were people here openly using the f-word (freedom) and I realized for the first time in decades that I was not alone. Two years later I met my now-wife Connie at FR and with a number of other freepers began a Canadian counterpart of FR, Free Dominion. Free Dominion was directly inspired by Free Republic and we shamelessly used every good idea that has made Free Republic such a success.

By 2004 Free Dominion was the top political discussion forum in Canada and we were growing fast within our market. Although we were unrelenting in calling our governments to task at every opportunity, we had a good relationship with many politicians on the conservative side of the aisle in the House of Commons. In fact, we were so trusted by the conservatives that we were approached by the federal conservative party of the day to organize a friendly greeting for President Bush, who was making an official state visit to Canada. This we gladly did.

On the day of President Bush’s arrival, downtown Ottawa was packed with the usual suspects protesting his visit here. Connie and I believed the conservative leader of Canada’s closest ally and best friend merited a more welcoming greeting. We have no doubt that the two of us were carefully scrutinized by Canadian law enforcement, the Secret Service and Homeland Security before we were allowed into the security cordon that had been thrown up around the Ottawa airport for the president’s arrival. We obviously passed muster.

Everything went off without a hitch and the first civilians President Bush saw when on the ground in Canada was the two of us and about thirty other Free Dominioners, all waving American and Canadian flags and our hands at the president. Security trusted us enough that the president’s car passed within fifteen feet of us. A couple of hours later in a presser Mr. Bush quipped that he enjoyed seeing us waving to him “with all five fingers.”

For the next three years we continued doing exactly as we had been doing all along, but something changed. The government turned against Free Dominion, and by extension, against us. We were unaware of this at the time, so much of what follows is from a perspective from 2014, from a barrage of legal attacks and from Freedom of Information requests. In 2007 a massive influx of government officials and lobby groups joined Free Dominion anonymously and under false pretenses. Agents from the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Department of Defense, at least two police departments, the Southern Poverty Law Center (from America), B’nai Brith Canada and the Canadian chapter of Anti-Racist Action all began registering on our site.

Within months a “hate crimes” complaint had been filed against us by the Canadian Human Rights Commission because one of our members had posted a link (that’s right, a link) in our forum. They ultimately had to drop the complaint against us but we have since learned that within the bowels of that government agency Free Dominion had been labeled a hate site.

Shortly after the Canadian Human Rights Commission was forced to stop its attack on us due to the fact that the complainant dropped her complaint, an ex-employee of the Commission, who by then was working for the Department of Defense, began suing us. Four defamation cases were filed in two different cities (so we would have to run back and forth to defend ourselves), and a fourth in federal court in Ottawa over a copyright claim (we won that one without a lawyer but the plaintiff appealed so we will be in the Federal Court of Appeals in a couple of months).

While this was going on, members of the lobby groups were vandalizing our site with hate-filled posts and at least one fraudulently altered document. We deleted and banned as was necessary but it was so bad that we had to temporarily shut down our registration function to stop them.

Because we had the foresight to locate our server in Panama, beyond the reach of the Canadian government, the guns of state were turned on us personally.

Free Dominion has been successfully censored, but Connie and I are not beaten yet. We will fight on.

None of us are so naïve or new to the world that we haven’t seen a Leftist spout some of the most ugly, defamatory things this side of God’s green earth. As believers in Free Speech, we put up with it, and many of us actually like the rough and tumble of it all and relish a good fight. We are confident that TRUTH will prevail. We have no desire to see other men’s thoughts repressed, no matter how stupid—just proved wrong.

So my question is, are there Leftist sites we can go after?

In this case it would seem that turnabout is fair play...

Lincoln once said the quickest way to be rid of bad law was to strictly enforce it. I wonder if Leftist sites were challenged the same way, would a cry of outrage and desire to repeal government censorship overwhelm these courts and jurists?

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Conservative website shuttered after libel ruling

Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman wins long-running legal battle