http://www.catholicexchange.com/…

In a decision that foreshadows the possible fate of Fr. Alphonse de Valk, Canada’s leading pro-life voice among Catholic clergy, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal has forbidden evangelical pastor Stephen Boisson from expressing his moral opposition to homosexuality. The tribunal also ordered Boisson to pay $5,000 “damages for pain and suffering” and apologize to the “human rights” activist who filed the complaint.

The complaint stems from Canada’s debate leading up to state legislation recognizing so-called same-sex marriage. In 2002, the pastor wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper in which he denounced the homosexual agenda as “wicked” and stated that: “Children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.”

The activist subsequently filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission — a quasi-judicial body that investigates alleged discrimination within the Canadian province. The government tribunal published its decision [http://albertahumanrights.ab.ca/Lund_Darren_Remedy053008.pdf] on May 30.

While agreeing that Boisson’s letter was not a criminal act, the government tribunal nevertheless ordered the Christian pastor to “cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.” Moreover, the tribunal’s decision “prohibited [Boisson] from making disparaging remarks in the future” about the activist who filed the complaint and witnesses who supported the complaint. Many of Canada’s religious leaders and civil libertarians have expressed concern that the government’s human rights tribunals are interpreting any criticism of homosexual activism as ‘disparaging’.

The tribunal also ordered Boisson to provide the complainant with a written apology for his letter to the editor. This last requirement threatens civil liberties in Canada, said Ezra Levant, a Jewish-Canadian author and lawyer. Levant, himself the target of an Alberta Human Rights Commission investigation, is facing the possibility the state may order him to apologize as well.

What a bunch of horseshit. People like to point to Canada and many of the EU nations as a bastion of civil liberties. With any amount of research you can see that it’s only the liberties of the secular statists who are protected. This is outright censorship and should be condemned. If people want to combat what some could consider hate speech they should work to ostracize those who speak it. Don’t purchase the media publishing it. Don’t use the threat of violence to get people to not speak… use a superior position to make their ideas appear incorrect.

Next step full prohibition… because “we all pay for your unhealthiness.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/…

Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK, it has emerged.The plans, reported in the Times, are at an early stage and may be included in the draft Communications Bill later this year, the Home Office confirmed.

A Home Office spokesman said the data was a “crucial tool” for protecting national security and preventing crime.

Ministers have not seen the plans which were drawn up by Home Office officials.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Communications Data Bill will help ensure that crucial capabilities in the use of communications data for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime continue to be available.

“These powers will continue to be subject to strict safeguards to ensure the right balance between privacy and protecting the public.”

The spokesman said changes need to be made to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 “to ensure that public authorities can continue to obtain and have access to communications data essential for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime purposes”.

But the Information Commission, an independent authority set up to protect personal information, said the database “may well be a step too far” and highlighted the risk of data being lost, traded or stolen.

Assistant information commissioner Jonathan Bamford said: “We are not aware of any justification for the state to hold every UK citizen’s phone and internet records. We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable.

“Defeating crime and terrorism is of the utmost importance, but we are not aware of any pressing need to justify the government itself holding this sort of data.”

A number of data protection failures in recent months, including the loss of a CD carrying the personal details of every child benefit claimant, have embarrassed the government.

The plans also prompted concern from political groups.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: “Given [ministers'] appalling record at maintaining the integrity of databases holding people’s sensitive data, this could well be more of a threat to our security than a support.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne called the proposals “an Orwellian step too far”.

He said ministers had “taken leave of their senses if they think that this proposal is compatible with a free country and a free people”.

And having millions of CCTV cameras are? Tracking people as they walk and drive around? Forcibly extracting DNA samples from people and keeping it on file even after they are found innocent? This guy acts as if this is anymore than a matter of degrees.

“Given the appalling track record of data loss, this state is simply not to be trusted with such private information,” said Mr Huhne.

Yes because that alone is the reason we shouldn’t be handing over all our communications to the monopoly on violence? How about the whole innocent before proven guilty idea we once had?

What scares me is the lack of outrage and the ease at which their version of Homeland Security advocates spying on their entire population. People in those positions of power should not be using 1984 as a roadmap. I think as the government grows in this way one of the responses is going to have to be infiltration of those who develop these systems and sabotaging them. A WMRN database would be far more palatable.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/…

THEIR high-pitched skirl has put fear into the hearts of Scotland’s enemies and sent sensitive tourists reaching for the cotton wool.

Now, however, the bagpipes are to be quietened by an edict from Brussels.

From this month, pipers must adhere to strict volume limits or risk breaking European Union health and safety laws. Bands have been ordered to tone down or wear earplugs to limit noise exposure to 85 decibels.

Pipe majors claim it is virtually impossible to play quietly or to tune a band when the musicians are wearing earplugs, raising the prospect of a cacophony at showcase events such as the Edinburgh military tattoo.

“You can’t play the pipe quietly; they haven’t got a volume switch.”

The rules are part of the control of noise at work regulations, introduced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following a Brussels directive.

The rules cap weekly average noise exposure at 85 decibels, meaning periods of loud play need to be cancelled out by quiet periods. The idea is not to protect audiences at concerts but performers and other staff.

Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister, lead singer of Motorhead, the heavy metal band, said he would resist any attempt to force him to turn down the music.

“The essence of rock’n'roll is loud music,” he said. “How the hell can we be expected to enjoy ourselves if we’ve got to turn it down?”

I’ll really enjoy seeing the officials enforce this on the metal and punk bands. They could end up with riots or the bands just won’t play in the EU any longer. If these people wish to wear ear protection they will. They are fully aware of the damage loud music can cause.

EU states agree that inciting terrorism on the Internet is a crime

Representatives of the EU’s 27 member states formally agreed today to harmonize their respective countries’ definitions of criminally prosecutable acts of terrorism by expanding them to include three new types of crimes: “public provocation to commit a terrorist offence, [terrorist] recruitment, and training for terrorism.” The definition of “public provocation” was especially controversial, and it encompasses content posted on the Internet, including not only direct incitements to violence but also terrorist propaganda and bomb-making expertise.The decision wasn’t without controversy, and misgivings about the possible limits on freedom of expression implied in the Amendment to the 2002 Council Framework Decision on combating terrorism were aired in a round-table session on Monday. An EU Parliament report on the round-table summarized the concerns of one British representative, who recounted how British law enforcement had allegedly threatened to use anti-terror laws to arrest some of the protesters at the London leg of the Olympic torch relay. Her concern, much like those who’ve been raising objections to this “public provocation” language since it was proposed last year, is that the Amendment will push member states down a slippery slope toward criminalizing legitimate political expression.

Even if they did or do it’s not like they would follow it anyway. The USA surely doesn’t with it’s free speech zones, McCain/Feingold and the likes of HR 1955: the Violent Radicalisation and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 nearly passing.

http://www.reuters.com/…

A roommate-finding site cannot require users to disclose their sexual orientation, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday, in the latest skirmish over whether anti-discrimination rules apply to the Web.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Roommates.com, which obliges users to list their sexual orientation, was different than Internet sites where people can volunteer or withhold personal information.

To inquire electronically about sexual orientation would not be different from asking people in person or by telephone if they were black or Jewish before conducting business, the panel said in an 8-3 ruling that partly overturns a lower federal court decision.

“If such screening is prohibited when practiced in person or by telephone, we see no reason why Congress would have wanted to make it lawful to profit from it online,” 9th Circuit chief judge Alex Kozinski wrote. “Not only does Roommate ask these questions, Roommate makes answering the discriminatory questions a condition of doing business.”

Can someone please tell me why sexism is allowed and orientationism is not? How exactly are these people “obliged?” oblige: 1. To constrain by physical, legal, social, or moral means. 2. To make indebted or grateful. 3. To make indebted or grateful. No one is requiring them to use the service. There is craigslist and dozens of other roommate sites. Are they going to outlaw people from asking each other in person next? Or making a descision on that information?