Rob Ford's Toronto

[TOvp]

I found these tweets from Jonathon Goldsbie re his visit to the Ford Christmas Party intriguing:

What was Greg Elliott's crime? He was charged with sending "unwanted tweets". Who knew you could be charged for sending "unwanted tweets"? Is there even such a thing (why sign up for twitter?)

Calling what Elliott did "unwanted tweets" minimizes his actions which consisted of threats and harassment. If he had done the same in a dark alley or inside a bar very few would dispute the laying of charges.

I've received some nasty feedback stemming from both my professional work and my personal opinions, nothing quite as vitriolic as what Elliott did but enough to question my safety and my reputation on occasion.

Not once did I have to involve police but I did let employers and contacts know. If anything we need more charges on internet asshats who threaten others from their cloistered keyboard comfort.

 

[Peepers]

Ugh, Peepers. I was kinda rooting for you not to be a troll. But siding with this guy, who clearly harassed women until they felt unsafe to go online or attend events is CRAZY. And of course, him and Ford are good buddies. Well, no surprise there.

Why do you say he "clearly harassed women"? Have you seen his tweets? If not you can read them here: https://twitter.com/greg_a_elliott

What does it tell you that his account with over 50,000 tweets is still active? It tells you that nothing in his tweets constituted a threat or a violation of Twitter's terms of service. If his tweets were in any way threatening Twitter would not waste one minute disabling the account!

Notice the last day before he was lead out of his house in hand-cuffs he engages in a back-and-forth exchange with "@soapboxingreek (aka "Lady snarks alot). He calls her an "idiot" and says "Facebook has a lot more space for you and your criticism". He ends his back and forth exchange with a conciliatory "#PEACE".

The day after GAE arrest "@soapboxinggeek would contact the Toronto Police detective in charge via twitter:

@TPSDetBangild I was harassed by Gregory Elliott as recently as yesterday. I'm willing to provide info should you need it.

Officer Bangild replied...................

Det Jeff Bangild ‏@TPSDetBangild
@SoapboxingGeek thank you for letting me know. I'd be happy to speak to you about this. I'm at court but can be reached at 416-808-1450

So we have a woman who willingly engaged in a back and forth twitter exchange with GAE contacting Toronto Police to say she had been "harassed". Stop and think about how ridiculous a situation this is. This woman - whoever she is - should be charged with public mischief.

As for the "victim" what drove her to "fear for her life" and contact police is GAE had started using spamming using a hashtag she created after she blocked him. She said :

After seeing he had sent dozens of tweets, Guthrie says that “all of a sudden it hit me just how hard this person must be fixated on me in order to be reaching around the block function to get to me via an event hashtag. Up until that point I felt frustration, anger, exasperation. In this moment, I felt fear. That was what made me decide to go to the police.”

Would you go to police because someone started spamming a twitter group you created?

Stop and think about this. If police can break down you door and arrest you in a pre-dawn raid because you "spammed" a twitter group what freedom of speech do you have? I find it amazing that all of the "progressives" who piled on GAE have no clue that their own freedom's are being undermined every day.

 

[Peepers]

Imagine it's 30 years ago and there's no twitter. After a failed business exchange, a man starts calling a woman's phone 5, 10 then 20 times a day. She gets the phone company to block his number, or maybe gets the police to do it, so buddy grabs a roll of quarters and strolls out to the corner and calls from a public payphone. So then she changes her number and in the process of informing friends and clients of her new number, the harasser finds out her new number, and off we go again from square one. Do you really think this wouldn't be illegal? Or that the police would tell her "why have a phone at all?"

you might want to check this:
http://www.crcvc.ca/docs/crimharass.pdf

and this:
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cp-pc/crimhar-eng.htm

Even unwanted communications by snail mail can constitute criminal harassment.

Telephone communication is not the same thing as social media. If you make repeated harassing phone calls yes you will be given a restraining order and if you violate it you will be arrested.

Nobody needs to have a twitter account. If you don't want to see a tweet from someone you can a) block them b) don't search hashtags they use c) get off twitter.

If this nonsense actually holds up in our court of laws they might as well shut-down all social media and commenting sites like this one because the police will have their hands full arresting people every-time someone was "offended".

 

[OSS 117]

I found these tweets from Jonathon Goldsbie re his visit to the Ford Christmas Party intriguing:




Gregory Allan Elliott has been described as a "notorious twitter troll" who used to post tweets to the popular twitter hashtag #TOPoli until November 2012 when - in an early morning raid - Toronto Police descended upon his home and arrested him.

What was Greg Elliott's crime? He was charged with sending "unwanted tweets". Who knew you could be charged for sending "unwanted tweets"? Is there even such a thing (why sign up for twitter?).

This was a story that seemed right off the pages of "The Onion" except it wasn't funny - it was a terrible violation of free speech and an abuse of police powers. It was a story right out of the former Soviet Union.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/0...-troll-faces-new-criminal-harassment-charges/

It is interesting that the Mayor and GAE seem to be good friends. I wonder what the connection is there? I suppose one obvious connection now is Mayor Ford strongly believes that he is being persecuted by Bill Blair's police force and GAE is an actual victim of police persecution (the police officers involved in the arrest of GAE should be charged under the police act for filing bogus trumped-up charges and the feminist who made the complaint should be charged with public mischief).

You can read more about the GAE story here (as always the comments are much more informative then the tripe written by the "victims" girlfriend).

http://torontoist.com/2012/11/onlin...prevalent-and-taken-more-seriously-than-ever/

I know women who were cyber-stalked by this Elliott guy, and since this is one of the rare instances of the police actually getting off their butts and doing something about one of these psychos, I can't applaud them enough. If you think this scumbag is actually worth defending, I'm going to have to put you in the same category as him.

I know we're supposed to watch the language here, but fuck you, Peepers.

And of course, now I'm thinking you might actually be Elliott, given how unlikely it would be for any sane person to come out and defend him so fiercely.

 

[TOvp]

Why do you say he "clearly harassed women"? Have you seen his tweets? If not you can read them here: https://twitter.com/greg_a_elliott

What does it tell you that his account with over 50,000 tweets is still active?

It tells me you made an error because he last used it November 21, 2012.

It tells you that nothing in his tweets constituted a threat or a violation of Twitter's terms of service. If his tweets were in any way threatening Twitter would not waste one minute disabling the account!

Not my experience. Try shutting down an online stripper who tweets underage boys.

So we have a woman who willingly engaged in a back and forth twitter exchange with GAE contacting Toronto Police to say she had been "harassed". Stop and think about how ridiculous a situation this is. This woman - whoever she is - should be charged with public mischief.

As for the "victim" what drove her to "fear for her life" and contact police is GAE had started using spamming using a hashtag she created after she blocked him."

The key words are "willingly engaged." After she was no longer willing to engage, he deliberately misappropriated her hashtag, effectively forcing his unwanted attentions on her.

I find it amazing that all of the "progressives" who piled on GAE have no clue that their own freedom's are being undermined every day.

It's people like GAE who undermine freedom. Perception of women in the public eye is that those who don't speak up against such incidents and attacks are weak and pushovers, and that those who do take action are considered bitchy, thin-skinned and needing special treatment.

The flipside of every right is a responsibility. Our right to free speech comes with a responsibility to not threaten, attack or harass.

 

[Peepers]

Peeper: Can I please have the links to the articles stating the Police looked at Robbie's security tape.

from yesterday's Star:

…I caught this guy on the bricks, over my fence, taking pictures … he had cinderblocks that he had to step on to get over my fence …” Bricks or blocks, sir? It’s a lie either way: I stood on nothing but park grass the whole time. As Det. Johnston has said, I was never peering over the fence — she said I would have been charged if I had even been doing that. Maybe Councillor Doug Ford could bolster his brother’s case by releasing the surveillance footage the councillor falsely said proved my close proximity to the fence? Curious that the police reviewed the footage and came to a different conclusion.

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_ha..._rob_ford_is_lying_about_me_and_its_vile.html

 

[Peepers]

It tells me you made an error because he last used it November 21, 2012.

By "active" I meant it has not been disabled by Twitter which would have happened if his tweets were truly abusive. There is a guy on #TOPoli "the real Damany" who is always harassing people with racist tweets (e.g. calling the Toronto SUN's Lorrie Goldstein "a kike" and spamming @manuvsteele). His account usually get disabled by Twitter within hours (and he quickly creates new ones). Twitter will not put up with people making threats or using racial epithets. They are very strict in this way so I have to wonder what was considered "harassment"? Was Greg Allan Elliott saying "misogynist" things? OMG call the cops there is a misogynist on twitter!

Not my experience. Try shutting down an online stripper who tweets underage boys.'

I'm not sure what sites you are visiting but again regarding Twitter they have a zero tolerance policy for such things.

The key words are "willingly engaged." After she was no longer willing to engage, he deliberately misappropriated her hashtag, effectively forcing his unwanted attentions on her.

You're mixing up "victim's". The women who I said willingly engaged in a back and forth exchange with GAE is not the same woman who called 911 when GAE started spamming twitter using a hash-tag she created (OMG the horror! She must be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder by now).

It's people like GAE who undermine freedom. Perception of women in the public eye is that those who don't speak up against such incidents and attacks are weak and pushovers, and that those who do take action are considered bitchy, thin-skinned and needing special treatment.

The flipside of every right is a responsibility. Our right to free speech comes with a responsibility to not threaten, attack or harass.

People who cannot recognize that their rights to free speech are under attack undermine freedom. They don't know enough to stand-up and fight for their freedoms. And yes I know there are limits to free speech - you can't shout "fire" in a theater and you cannot incite violence but just about everything else is fair game in a truly free society.

 

[salsa]

Ugh, Peepers. I was kinda rooting for you not to be a troll. But siding with this guy, who clearly harassed women until they felt unsafe to go online or attend events is CRAZY.

I know we're supposed to watch the language here, but fuck you, Peepers.

Peep gets paid per every post that he stirs up on this thread. Or maybe he's truly fucked in the head. I think he and Cowboy Logic should go out for a drink. Bring Joe Warmington along too.

 

[OSS 117]

By "active" I meant it has not been disabled by Twitter which would have happened if his tweets were truly abusive. There is a guy on #TOPoli "the real Damany" who is always harassing people with racist tweets (e.g. calling the Toronto SUN's Lorrie Goldstein "a kike" and spamming @manuvsteele). His account usually get disabled by Twitter within hours (and he quickly creates new ones). Twitter will not put up with people making threats or using racial epithets. They are very strict in this way so I have to wonder what was considered "harassment"? Was Greg Allan Elliott saying "misogynist" things? OMG call the cops there is a misogynist on twitter!



I'm not sure what sites you are visiting but again regarding Twitter they have a zero tolerance policy for such things.




You're mixing up "victim's". The women who I said willingly engaged in a back and forth exchange with GAE is not the same woman who called 911 when GAE started spamming twitter using a hash-tag she created (OMG the horror! She must be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder by now).




People who cannot recognize that their rights to free speech are under attack undermine freedom. They don't know enough to stand-up and fight for their freedoms. And yes I know there are limits to free speech - you can't shout "fire" in a theater and you cannot incite violence but just about everything else is fair game in a truly free society.

Free speech doesn't have anything to do with harassment. Free speech is making a statement for all to hear. Harassment is singling out one person and relentlessly haranguing or terrorizing them.

 

[TOvp]

This is an eloquent summation of what many people (mainly women) have to deal with on twitter:

http://www.prothirtyone.com/welcome/

Imagine public reaction if a female mayor did what Rob Ford has - no way would she still have followers.

 

[Peepers]

Free speech doesn't have anything to do with harassment. Free speech is making a statement for all to hear. Harassment is singling out one person and relentlessly haranguing or terrorizing them.

You don't understand what free speech is.

Free Speech is the right to offend. Think about it. Speech that is inoffensive doesn't need protection.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Any word/media reports if any Councillors actually showed up?

 

[OSS 117]

You don't understand what free speech is.

Free Speech is the right to offend. Think about it. Speech that is inoffensive doesn't need protection.

Nope. Free speech is specifically about what you say. Harassment is the way you choose to say it---i.e.: repetitively, threateningly, and abusively. Saying , I don't know---"that's a pretty dress you're wearing" is harmless taken as an isolated out of context statement. But if it's a message left repeatedly on an answering machine or sent in an email to someone who has specifically let it be known they don't want to engage with you, it's harassment.

 

[Peepers]

Any word/media reports if any Councillors actually showed up?

DiGiorgio and Crawford showed up. The rest were party poopers.

 

[animatronic]

Well, the common folk got some xmas goodies from Doug today. He was seen peeling off a wad of cash in a west-end apartment lobby today, showering tenants with twenty dollar bills...

Why doesn't he drop the pretense and just stand in front of polling stations with a barrel of whisky.