Angry in the Great White North

Early results pop up on Web: Net sites large and small thwart broadcast ban by Elections Canada
The Kingston Whig-Standard
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Page: 3
Section: Community
Byline: Ian Elliot
Source: The Kingston Whig-Standard

It is illegal to broadcast election results until after the last polls in British Columbia are closed, but it was more difficult Monday night to avoid seeing the developing results than to find them.

Despite the legal blackout on reporting results until 10 p.m. EST, innumerable websites, both in Canada and offshore, began posting and discussing live results shortly after they became available at 7 p.m.

Details on east-coast races were also easily obtainable through foreign newswires available through electronic newsfeeds, chatrooms and newsgroups.

Elections Canada lumps all the new technology under the category of "broadcasting" and forbids it so westerners are not discouraged from voting after learning results of earlier time zones.

A major Supreme Court case on the issue is pending but most Canadian bloggers - people who post news and opinion on personal websites - respected the federal ban, while at the same time saying the law seems an awkward attempt to govern 21st century communications with 19th century legislation.

"What Elections Canada has here is a piece of legislation that is clearly not created for modern technology," said Tamara Small, a PhD candidate in political studies at Queen's University whose specialty is the role of the Internet in Canadian elections.

She noted postings on a web blog or electronic bulletin board do not fall into the traditional idea of "broadcasting" and that the law is aimed at institutions or large private broadcasters - not individuals sitting at a computer in Halifax posting results from their riding on a web site in the United States.

"It's a very complicated issue, and Elections Canada has not really made a decision on the role of Internet communications," she said.

"I don't even know if Elections Canada really likes this law," agreed Romeo St. Martin, a blogger and operator of Ottawa website Politicswatch.com, which has been closely following the issue.

"The fact is, it's an information age, and unless Elections Canada starts prosecuting every blogger, there isn't much they can do.

"As long as someone in Atlantic Canada has got a phone and they know someone who has an Internet application who can post the results to the web, there isn't really anything they can do about it."

Steve Janke, whose Angry In The Great White North blog was one of the highest-profile ones in the campaign, also respected the blackout but noted it seemed wrong to call websites "broadcasting" under the Elections Act.

"It's one thing to broadcast it on television, but if it's on a website, you have to hunt for it, it's not like television which is a passive medium that you can be exposed to because someone left it on," he said.

"I can agree with the principle of what they're trying to do, but at the same time, the Internet is different from broadcasting ... I would argue if you don't want to see what's on a website, don't look."

Ironically, the CBC was the highest-profile offender on election night. For nearly an hour, Radio Canada International streamed an east-coast election newscast through its site until the error was noticed and it was shut down.

Elections Canada wouldn't say yesterday whether the agency planned any action against the CBC or other violators, but bloggers themselves say it would be next to impossible for officials to prosecute the thousands who did, or to prevent a more widespread violation of the blackout during the next election.

The American news agglomerator Fark.com, on which users can post and comment on news articles and which has a large and vocal Canadian following, featured several long discussions about east-coast results posted before the blackout ended, all available to Canadians with the click of a mouse.

Drew Curtis, the founder of the site, said yesterday that website owners can only be held responsible for obeying the laws of the country in which they live.

With nearly two million page views on weekdays, and users free to post articles and comments, it would be practically impossible for website operators like him to screen out all content to which someone would object, he noted.

"It's like if China contacted us and said there's something on our site that offends them and they want it taken down," he said.

"If China wants to block it, we see it as their problem, not ours. Or take Uzbekistan - its president banned the wearing of fuzzy underwear today. If the president of Uzbekistan called me and said I'm running an ad for fuzzy underwear on the site and I have to take it down because it broke their law, I wouldn't."

Ed Morrissey runs the U.S.-based Captain's Quarter's blog, which broke a publication ban on the Gomery inquiry. He made no secret of his plans to publish Canadian election results as fast as he could get them Monday, which he did.

"The public is less likely to respect embargoed information, especially when it's public information that's embargoed," he said yesterday.

But nearly everyone agrees the gag-order laws will be rewritten or blocked, in part because of what happened Monday.

ielliot@thewhig.com

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