🚀 go-pugleaf

On page 28 of WiReD magazine, issue 2.04 (April 94), Anita Brenner and
B.Metson did an extremely disappointing job of reporting on
the Homolka/Teale publication ban in Canada and the role of the Internet.

Perhaps what I find so frustrating is that I corresponded with
Anita Brenner extensively, and she should have known better.
This is just bad journalism.

The most basic facts are erroneous and key bits of information of interest
to WiReD readers are excluded.

Errors:
(1) They state Paul Teale's lawyer requested the publication ban
    as if that is the whole story.  Paul Teale's lawyer quickly
    opposed the ban.  It is Karla Homolka's lawyers, the victims'
    families, and the Ontario Attorney General's office that
    support the ban.

(2) They state: "In August, a group of McGill University students created
    a Usenet group, alt.fan.karla-homolka, to discuss the case."
    This is just false.  That newsgroup was created July 14, 1993
    by Justin Wells <stem@sizone.jaywon.pci.on.ca>.

(3) They demonstrate their ignorance of the publication ban and/or
    disregard for Canadian Law (despite Wired's publication in Canada),
    by violating the very publication ban they are writing about!
    They discuss Karla's plea.  This is clearly prohibited as indicated
    in Judge Kovac's ruling [para 139(3), 141(3), 144(2)].

Missing Information of interest to WiReD readers:

(1) All the articles from foreign publications are periodically
    available via anonymous FTP on ftp.uu.net:/tmp/karla

(2) All the same articles, a short summary, a FAQ, a summary of
    the newsgroup censorship at Canadian Universities, the 77-page
    publication ban itself, pictures digitized from a Maclean's article
    about the case, and an audio file digitized from a CBC Radio
    are all available on a multi-media World-Wide-Web server at: 
    	http://cs.indiana.edu/canada/karla.html

   Gee, do you think WiReD readers would find that of interest?!?  sigh.

One last question to readers in Ontario:

 Will we now see the RCMP and/or Ontario Provincial Police
 rounding up copies of WiReD magazine (since its publication is
 in contempt of court) ?

-----
David Jones
djones@cim.mcgill.ca