Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site kontron.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!voder!kontron!cramer From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Television coverage and censorship in Canada (in net.columbia??) Message-ID: <603@kontron.UUCP> Date: Thu, 13-Mar-86 13:48:07 EST Article-I.D.: kontron.603 Posted: Thu Mar 13 13:48:07 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 23:28:28 EST References: <6396@utzoo.UUCP> <514@kontron.UUCP> <814@alberta.UUCP> Distribution: net.politics Organization: Kontron Electronics, Mt. View, CA Lines: 137 > >> > The Constitution says "freedom of speech." This is what I believe in. > >> >Without conditions. > >> > > >> > -- David desJardins > >> > >> :-{) The constitution also allows groups like the KKK to exist, as well as the > >> American Nazi Party. > >> > > > >And the various communist factions as well. This is called "freedom". > >Freedom to go along with the majority view isn't freedom -- it's > >totalitarianism. > > So let's see here, the majority thinks it's wrong to kill, not they outlaw it > and the majority thinks that it is wrong to steal so it is outlawed as well. > Maybe I am being a little extreme here, but I could also find some not so > extreme views. There are people that believe theft is fine as long as they > can get away with it. > I'm arguing that human rights are not subject to majority rule. (Although if too large a majority disagrees, there's no way to get the legal system to protect those rights.) If you insist on arguing that human rights exist by democratic consensus, what criticism can you possibly have a society that democratically redefines Jews to not be people, then exterminates them? As has been done in this century. > >> Aparently their are laws in the US which will allow you to prosecute someone > >> that violates or breaches or is a threat to national security. > >> > > > >Rather narrowly defined, though. That's why the Progressive was allowed > >to publish their article about H-bomb building. > > > >> I also do not believe in censorship, but in my message I described how I > >> would choose between the lesser of two evils. > >> > >> Asides from this I would like to mention some things that are different in the > >> Canadian and American systems of justice. > >> > >> In the US you tend to lean very heavily towards protection of the accused, and > >> freeedom of the individual. In fact you lean in this direction so heavily, > >> that there are cases in which guilty persons have been set free because the > >> police violated the rights of this individual. > >> > > > >I make no apologies for this. Better than 10 guilty go free, than one > >innocent man go to prison. Besides, criminals seldom commit one crime -- > >if they don't go to prison on the first crime, they will on the second or > >the third. > > Real criminals commit hundreds of crimes and are never arrested for any of them. Burglary, yes. Murder, very seldom. > I have heard many learned lawyers refers to the US legal system as the knee > jerk system. Everything is very automatic. If X then Y. > There is no discretion involved. I believe the term used is legal machine. > I believe the term is "rule of law". In fact, it doesn't work that way. Judges have lots of discretion, and spend much of their time abusing that discretion. This is why lots of American states have passed mandatory sentencing laws -- to take away the discretion of judges. > >> In Canada we lean towards the protection of society as a whole, and we place > >> less emphasis on the rights of the accused that we do on the rights of > >> society. The arm of the law in Canada is much heavier in Canada than it is > >> in the US. The biggest problem is that most Canadians know more about the > >> American Legal System than they know about the Canadian Leagl System. I > >> myself was one of these, luckily I have been told or taught what the > >> differences are. Canada now has a constitution of its own. Could you believe > >> that we existed for over a hundred years without a constitution. Imagine that. > >> :-) Somehow we haven't gone to hell in a handbasket, we haven't become > >> socialists or communists or Nazi's. We did not have 'Freedom of Speech' as > >> a right. Yet we had it somehow. We had no CIA or FBI or NSC . When we got > >> our constitution though we soon after got the CSA (Civilian Security Agency) > >> They are probably not related, but sometimes I wonder. > >> > >> Jim Boritz > >> > > > >Your comments above about the Canadian legal system leaning towards > >society's protection, and less emphasis on the rights of the accused, > >would seem to argue that you needed more protections. > > I don't know what lines you read between to get this but let me tell you > that the Candian system also feels that it is better to let ten guilty go > free rather than have one innocent person go to jail. What we don't > believe in is having 1000 people go free to save the one innocent person. Your comments above about the rights of the accusedf suggested that the Canadian legal system would rather take some chances sending innocent people to jail. If I misunderstood, I'm sorry. I doubt that 1000 criminals go free to save one innocent person here. > You could say that theoretically a justice system should never send an innocent > person to jail, but this happens in Canada and in the US. You could also say > that if an innocent person goes to jail tyhe justice system is not working > properly, but you don't. You can also say that it is better to have any number > of guilty people go free, than to have a single innocent person go to jail. > This is very nice, theoretically, but somewhere the line has to be drawn. > If this were what we used (you guys in the US too) then we would only have > a couple hundred people in jail, because we would have to have video tapes > of the guy committing the crime to prove his guilt. > Not true. I wasn't arguing that the system has to be as crazy as it is here -- we have a lot of judges in this country who can't distinguish between protecting the rights of the accused and just letting criminals go free. > Let me followup on what I meant by knee jerk system. If I am correct you > have cases in which police procedure got somewhat or very out of hand. > These cases went to court and the accused were released because of their > treatment or the method which the police used to get their evidence. These > cases which have names I do not know, but could learn from television, have > become precedents in the US legal system. Apparently, it is now enough to > site the precedent, to get the evidence dissallowed. In Canada each case > is taken separately. Each case is given its own consideration. I like this > a lot better than a system in which the guilty go free because they know they > will get off on some technicality. > > Jim Boritz You are talking about the "exclusionary rule". Until 1911 in Federal cases, and sometime in the 1960s in State cases, our legal system worked on the principal that if a police officer made a mistake, the evidence that was illegally gathered could still be introduced, but the officer was civilly and criminally responsible if he violated the rights of the accused. But police officers were practically never held responsible. The "exclusionary rule" was created by the courts because it seemed to only way to get the police to behave. Perhaps in our considerably more litigious times, we can get rid of the exclusionary rule and rely on fear of civil litigation to make the police behave. We have gotten a long ways off the original topic Censorship in Canada.