As people who want to change the world, we often disturb, and that gets the attention of the medias, usually in the wrong way. Revolutionaries bother the status quo and thus the medias love us because we make good print, if they twist it a little. Often they go as far as infringing on our privacy, human rights and there is alot of lack of respect.
Two of my raelian friends recently (and finally) won a court case where their privacy was criminally assaulted, causing loss of money, job and lots of moral distress. Here's what I've been sending to the papers as a note:
Quebec Court Judgement proves Sun Media Corporation unlawfully published individual’s personal information and profited from it
In a small claims case, two individuals demanded reparations from Sun Media Corporation for having their pictures, personal and work information as well as a description concerning them published in the Journal de Montreal and the Journal de Quebec (both papers owned by Sun Media Corporation) without their permission, and through unlawful and quite unnecessary infiltration techniques.
The actual original judgement can be found here along with further details (in French only): http://www.iijcan.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=sun+media&language=fr&searchTitle=Qu%C3%A9bec&path=/fr/qc/qccq/doc/2009/2009qccq3263/2009qccq3263.html or www.mediashit.org (look for english version).
I wanted to cry out in disgust for the lack of journalistic integrity and especially for thousands of dollars in contract losses and emotional duress suffered by the victims after the publication appeared. What’s more is that the journalist that apparently “infiltrated” the very open philosophical group (in this case, the Raelian Movement) in which the two individuals belonged to, to get their personal information and photos as well as other’s photos and personal info. The Raelian Movement routinely accepts journalists and walk-ins in their events and continually tries to invite as many people as possible to all of their events. A specialist on philosophical minorities and the Raelian Movement, M. Alain Bouchard, even mentioned that any information on the Raelian Movement is easily obtainable from multiple others and that the result of the so-called “infiltration” yielded no more information than what could be obtained through multiple other public sources. In essence, the infiltration used by the journalist of Sun Media was clearly unnecessary. The judge on the case agreed under the weight of evidence.
The really deplorable part of all this is that the two individuals in the case lost several thousand dollars in lost contracts each, and have suffered much professionally and socially since October 12th 2003 when 1.3 million readers of the Journal de Montreal and the Journal de Quebec were told they were hiding critical and astounding information about the Raelian Movement, making them look like criminals, and they were treated as such. Never forget that there were a dozen other innocent individuals similarly exposed in the aforementioned article.
I’m quite happy that the judge chose to compensate the two individuals with $4 000 total in punitive damages and $10 000 total in compensation, close to the maximum it could order Sun Media to provide. However, I would like to see Sun Media Corporation give back as punitive costs all the extra sales they received following the extraordinarily fantastical week of articles on the Raelian Movement (the week of October 12th 2003), plus any gains they may have received after the “infiltrating” journalist, Brigitte McCann, had her book published on her experience relating the “uncovering of the truth” about the very transparent Raelian Movement, including Mrs. McCann’s appearance on CNN and other large medias… But of course, it would be too much to hope for.
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Suffice to say I've very happy that for once, the judge wasn't biased and there is a good first precedence to protect us revolutionaries agains journalistic abuse.
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