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The Current Transcript for February 17, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

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Prologue

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KARA SQUIRREL: If I had known that she got out the day, I would have kicked her up that day. I would have brought her back to my reserve to help her get off of that stuff.

MATT GALLOWAY: In late January, Kimberly Squirrel was released from prison and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Her family, hundreds of kilometres away, had no idea that she'd even been freed. And three days later, Kimberly was found frozen to death in Saskatoon. Her story is once again raising concerns about what women, Indigenous women, in particular, face when they are released from custody. In 30 minutes, a conversation about the supports they need and how the correction system itself might change. Also, this morning,

KASHMIR HILL: There's so much disinformation and misinformation online. And, you know, it's not just happening on the political stage. It's happening on a very personal stage to individuals.

MATT GALLOWAY: Our online reputations are increasingly important in everything from job prospects to finding housing. So imagine what it would be like to learn that the first thing that comes up when someone Googles you are websites accusing you of being everything from a fraud to a criminal. In an hour, the story of how one Canadian woman stands accused of torpedoing the online character of hundreds of people and why it's so difficult to protect your good name. In the heart of this winter, though, we'll start with a checklist for the future of travel that you might be dreaming of right now. Tickets, sunscreen, vaccine, passport. Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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Vaccine passports are raising privacy and equity concerns

Guests: Brian Behlendorf, Alison Thompson

MATT GALLOWAY: Well, it might seem like a pipe dream right now, but imagine going to the airport and boarding a flight to Europe. You eat in restaurants, you see some live music, and then you return to Canada with no quarantine required. Your passport to all of those activities might not be your actual passport, but a vaccine passport, a code on your phone that proves you've been vaccinated against COVID-19. Some countries are already making this a reality. Lars Ramme is head of tourism for the Danish Chamber of Commerce.

LARS RAMME: When COVID-19 has left society then it'll be too late. So with this project we are very positive that we will have a summer. A summer of joy, of football, music.

MATT GALLOWAY: A summer of Joy. Denmark announced last week that the vaccine passport system will roll out by the end of this month. Sweden, Israel and Iceland have all announced that they are working on vaccine passports as well. Brian Behlendorf is managing director of blockchain, healthcare and Identity at the Linux Foundation. It's working on a vaccine passport software. Brian, good morning.

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: Good morning, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: At a very basic level, can you explain how a vaccine passport would actually work?

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: Sure. Well, many of your listeners might be familiar with the yellow card issued by the WHO. That's that's been in existence since 1933, and it's been used to fight cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus, you know, all these diseases that we've hoped to eradicate from the face of the planet. In some cases, we've succeeded. In others, we're still working on it. The idea of the digital version of that is pretty compelling as a way to fight this pandemic, perhaps prepare us for mutations of this pandemic. And there are a bunch of us in the technology industry who felt, if you're going to do this, you need to do this in a way that is very different than what we've seen on the Internet with regards to the fight... with regards to cookies and the surveillance economy, that sort of thing.

MATT GALLOWAY: Right.

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: And so a bunch of us are working on a very privacy-preserving approach to this that I'd be happy to talk about.

MATT GALLOWAY: This would live on my phone?

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: Yeah, so the idea is you would have a certificate on your phone held in some sort of digital wallet, something that maybe is close to you in the same way that your email is close to you, rather than being something sitting on a remote server somewhere. And you present that when you cross a border, perhaps in other circumstances, too. When you want to book a flight, you know, you might have to prove you have this. If you... if there was a movie theatre or a concert that wanted to limit attendance to people who were vaccinated for simply, you know, risk management reasons, you present this and be able to badge in. And the important way is figuring out how to do that in a way that doesn't create a traceable trail of your activities across all these different circumstances.

MATT GALLOWAY: But those are all the circumstances you think it could be used in? I mean, Israel is looking at perhaps using it for gyms and malls and hotels. Do you think that this would be, you know, applicable not just for governments but for businesses as well?

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: I think there's a certain amount of inevitability to it. And to be clear, you know, there's a lot of us who have deep concerns about issues of equity, issues of obviously privacy, as I've mentioned, if you were to implement the system. And there's a set of us who are trying to say, instead of doing the typical Silicon Valley approach of move fast and break things, how do we be thoughtful about how these technologies get deployed?

MATT GALLOWAY: How do you go about... and I want to ask you about equity and privacy, but how do you go about ensuring that there's a standard? Because as I mentioned, it seems like different countries are working on their own versions already. So how do you make something that's acceptable everywhere?

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: There's a very long-standing joke in the technology industry, which is the great thing about standards is that there's so many to choose from. [Matt chuckles] The there there's been about 10 years of work going into a particular approach in the digital identity domain, which is very different from the login with Facebook, login with Twitter approach. It's gone roughly under the name self-sovereign identity, sometimes called user-centric. There's actually been deployment's of this in British Columbia, where it's been used for something called the OrgBook BC that's been running for two years, issuing digital identities to over half-a-million companies that are registered in British Columbia. And it's... it's now coming to a crescendo at roughly the same time when these technologies are really being called for in the fight against this pandemic. So we're working.... what we're doing is not only working with a set of organizations on what are the right set of standards up and down the stack to be able to allow true interoperability? You know, truly, this should work like email where you can send and receive email to anybody that... that is on the Internet, so to speak. But then also working with the companies to build common software, open-source software that accelerates the adoption of this technology in a standardized and harmonized way.

MATT GALLOWAY: Who should and shouldn't have access to the information that would live on my vaccine passport? This is in many ways at the heart of the privacy concerns.

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: It certainly is. And that's... that's actually a question I don't feel qualified to answer [laughing] because I think it will vary, and different governments will have different answers to that. The countries of Singapore, perhaps even China, will have a different answer to that than Canada, than the Netherlands, you know, and other places, than the United States. And so what we need to make sure is that at the plumbing layers, the ways that these wallets talk to each other, the way that you issue these credentials, that you verify it, that you practice risk minimization. In fact, there's a principle called privacy by design that was really pioneered. I want to give credit to Ann Cavoukian, who is originally one of the private.... one of the I guess she was the third privacy commissioner for Ontario, who pioneered this concept, has really led that. In fact, she's been involved in an initiative called the Good Health Pass Collective, closely associated with something else called ID2020.

MATT GALLOWAY: So what... what.... what would privacy by design look like in my vaccine passport?

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: Privacy by design means when you present this credential to somebody, you might choose to... you can choose to reveal information about yourself. And you're aware of that information being shared. And it's possible to do it in a way that does not create this click trail that allows, you know, the three people you shared it with to collaborate, to figure out, you know, the same person was used. Let me put it this way. When you go to a concert, if it's at a 21-and-over-type of place, and you present, in the States, a driver's licence, right? That bouncer doesn't keep a record of your home address, even though it's there on the... on the card. The bouncer just wants to look at the fact that you're over the age of 21, right? And there's a picture on that card. It matches up to the person presenting this. OK, you're in, right? How do we do that in a digital setting where it's cheap and possible for, you know, somebody running a website like that to save everything they ever presented? And this is what is at the heart of the technology. And there's all sorts of fancy cryptography behind what's going on here, zero-knowledge proofs, all that sort of thing. But what we're trying to do is reduce it to something approachable to to average users.

MATT GALLOWAY: Well, and to convince average users that this is something that they should buy into. I mean, there's a COVID contact tracing app in Canada that I know that the Linux Foundation was involved in helping to create some of the source code for. The pickup on that is not particularly great. Six million downloads in part because, we've heard this, there are a number of people who don't trust this technology. So how do you go about ensuring that... that you can win the public trust?

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: Yeah, and certainly the tech industry as a whole has not done itself many favours when it comes to building trustworthy technologies. Look, open-source software it's not a panacea for this, but it is table stakes. It's essential to being able to know that the code is... is public, that it's been scrutinised, that it can be scrutinised by people without needing special permission to do that. That's one piece that's at the heart of it. The second, though, is making it something integrated with, in the case of exposure notification, something like the contact tracing systems inside these by the public health authorities, right? So that there's this closed loop. When people are exposed, they share their codes. Those codes get out and broadcast. And... and the third piece is showing that it works. So there's now emerged evidence out of the United Kingdom where they've used this app now to help contain some of the recent spread. In New Zealand, where it's been used to catch some of these first reappearances of the disease out there. We've got to show that it's efficacious, right? And now that it has been shown, there still continues to be a lot of work. And actually, I think these kind of apps will come back to being important as we get to the tail end of this pandemic and hope to keep it from becoming endemic so we can get back to test, trace and isolate. But that's a very important question.

MATT GALLOWAY: Just in the last minute or so, the big question that a lot of people also have is around equity. There are a lot of people who don't have access to a smartphone or a computer or even photo ID. So wouldn't an app like this essentially just leave them behind?

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: For those who don't have smartphones, for those who are concerned about their privacy, there absolutely has to be a paper-based approach that works harmoniously with the rest of the system, right? And this is a hot topic of conversation amongst the experts, the WHO, others who are pulling this technology together is how do you make this compatible with such an approach? And and the good news is there's... there's a lot of good work going on in this domain. There's a purpose being defined. And this is not... not the part that worries me, getting the technology deployed in a consistent manner in a way that doesn't create vendor-specific lock-in. That's the that's the biggest one, I think, that can be used to help ensure equity, how we can sure that these apps can be as ubiquitous as they as they need to be.

MATT GALLOWAY: Is it inevitable that we will have something like this as we get closer to some sort of reopening?

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: I think if you could show me a digital, you know, certificate of your vaccination status as an individual, I, you know, might demand the right to be able to see that to let you into my restaurant or into my theatre. And that degree of inevitability leads us to say, if you're going to do it, how do you do it safely and with privacy preservation at its core? And that's... that's... that's what we're working on.

MATT GALLOWAY: Brian, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

BRIAN BEHLENDORF: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Brian Behlendorf is the managing director of blockchain, health care and Identity at the Linux Foundation for Public Health. Alison Thompson is a bioethicist and associate professor at the University of Toronto and has been listening in, particularly with an ear to some of the concerns around privacy and equity. Alison, good morning to you.

ALISON THOMPSON: Good morning, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: What do you make of what you've just heard from Brian Behlendorf there? Do you think that this sort of technology is inevitable if we want to truly re-open society in the wake of the pandemic that we're living through right now?

ALISON THOMPSON: Well, I guess there is a technological imperative at work here where we see a number of countries moving forward with this kind of technology. And it's great to know that people like Brian are working on these issues because it sounds like, you know, there's a lot of thought going into the design of these. But there are.... there are so many concerns that these technologies raise not just around privacy but also around discrimination and stigmatization of people who don't have a vaccine passport. And around the restriction of people's liberties. So I think even though it sounds like it may be inevitable, I think we do need to have a very serious conversation about whether we really want to head down this road because history is littered with examples that did not go well.

MATT GALLOWAY: What specifically, when you talk about stigma and you talk about equity, what specifically are you concerned about?

ALISON THOMPSON: Well, I think that there are a number of issues. You know, when you create a sort of stratified society like this where you have people who have a passport and people who do not. And, you know, really, what we're talking about here is allowing people with passports, rights and privileges that won't be available to the people who don't have a vaccine passport. And given that there are huge inequities in access to vaccines globally and even within Canada, you know, this raises all kinds of concerns about whether this is going to be fair, not just whether it'll be confidential information.

MATT GALLOWAY: What should a vaccine passport be used for? If we can get this right, and we'll talk about, again, whether that's even possible. But if something like this were to come into play, what do you think it should be used for?

ALISON THOMPSON: Well, I think that, you know, if you could make a compelling argument that they would add something that the current test, trace and isolate kind of protocol for managing a pandemic. You know, if it's really that much better in controlling the spread of COVID-19, then then perhaps there is a public health argument to be made for them. But, you know, it's not clear at this point that the benefits of that would outweigh the risks.

MATT GALLOWAY: People are already talking about this being used for it. And we've talked about this in the introduction. Travel, for example, if you want to go to certain countries or you want to go and stay at a certain hotel, that you would need to have this. But could you imagine that this could be used, for example, for employment as well, that if you want to come into the office again, having worked from home, that you need to have the check on your phone?

ALISON THOMPSON: Exactly. And so, you know, there may be some workplaces where that's appropriate. For example, in the health care setting, we may want our health care workers to be immunized. But, you know, there are... there are many situations where you could imagine the scenario where people with the vaccine passport are being exploited to do the work that needs to be done in the public sphere, while those who don't have it may find themselves unemployed, unable to get a job because they don't have that that certification or they may have other... other restrictions on, you know, ability to get insurance or even, you know, their just normal ability to move around in society and socialize.

MATT GALLOWAY: Who would determine the parameters of a vaccine passport so that you don't end up in that sort of, you know, dystopian nightmare that a lot of people have already been speculating about?

ALISON THOMPSON: Well, that's a great question, and, you know, this is a conversation not just for policy-makers, but also for the public to have, you know, what kind of a society do we want to live in post-COVID or even at the tail end of COVID? Assuming that we can get all of these sort of technological challenges out of the way, you know, do we really want to live in a society like that? So this is a broader conversation that needs to take place. You know, ultimately, it will be likely a decision for lawmakers. And, you know, there'll have to be some some real hard looks at discrimination law and basic human rights law to determine how you could use this kind of technology appropriately. But, you know, this is a really big decision, and I think it warrants a lot of public conversation that we just haven't seen to date.

MATT GALLOWAY: I just wonder how quickly those lawmakers would need to act because you can imagine there's a business imperative to this as well, that... that businesses that have been shuttered or, you know, seen their... their revenue decline precipitously during the course of this pandemic would want to get back in the game. If they're running a hotel, for example, and if this is the the key to them being able to allow people to stay in in their hotel, that this could change, you know, the calculus in terms of how long it's going to take to... to have that conversation. So how quickly do governments need to move on this?

ALISON THOMPSON: Well, I think we should have been having this conversation yesterday. [chuckling] You know, I think, you know, we've got to balance the need for a sort of smooth return to economic and social functioning with these equity and fairness concerns. And so, you know, we need to strike a balance there between getting back to normal and... and not doubling down on the inequities that we've seen from COVID, you know, with the disproportionate burden falling on particular segments of society.

MATT GALLOWAY: Brian talked about the international system for vaccine records, and those have existed, the Yellow Book, for many, many years now. How would something like this be different?

ALISON THOMPSON: Well, I think what the primary difference is, is that, you know, there are more serious privacy concerns with a digital version of that. And... and sort of there are people who are concerned about the amount of scope creep that could happen. You know, what other health information might be captured by that kind of an app, you know, your... your location data, your other... other health information and that kind of information. So, you know, unless we do this the right way, there's there's definitely the possibility that all kinds of information that we might not be aware of is being collected and shared. And so you just don't get that with the paper version, although with the paper version, you have the problem of... of people committing fraud because they want to be able to move around. So, you know, there's... there's trade-offs there between the paper and the digital version.

MATT GALLOWAY: I was going to say, you could imagine that there would be all sorts of people who would be gaming the system if they don't have the golden ticket, that they would work to try to figure out how to game that or game that for other people.

ALISON THOMPSON: Exactly. So, you know, do we really want to put the infrastructure in place that would be needed to police that kind of, you know, black market in these kinds of certificates? We need to think about, you know, the costs of doing that versus just following the normal sort of test, trace, isolate kind of protocol, which works well. We've seen it work well in New Zealand and in other countries, you know? So what... what is the value added here is my question?

MATT GALLOWAY: Is there an inevitability to this? If some countries are moving ahead on this idea already, and yet here in Canada, the prime minister has said that the idea is divisive. Do we... can we stop that train from rolling?

ALISON THOMPSON: Absolutely, we can stop it. You know, I think that the countries where they are moving ahead with this without really thinking it through are going to find themselves dealing with some some serious ethical issues. And perhaps people will just not be travelling there anymore. So it'll be interesting to see what the... what the ramifications are of people implementing this. And certainly, there are lots of historical examples where... where various versions of health cards have been used to restrict immigration. And you know that that is never really a fair way to do things.

MATT GALLOWAY: Just finally, before I let you go then, is there any version of this idea of a vaccine passport that you think could be done ethically?

ALISON THOMPSON: I think that it would require a serious consideration of how to support people who are not able to access the vaccine and who are not able to get that certification? What can we do to make sure that they are not going to be unfairly discriminated against? And so until that happens, I think we need to be very cautious about moving ahead.

MATT GALLOWAY: Alison, it's good to speak with you about this. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

ALISON THOMPSON: Thanks for having me.

MATT GALLOWAY: Alison Thompson is a bioethicist and associate professor at the University of Toronto. Your thoughts on this. Would you be willing to have this sort of vaccine passport on your phone if it would allow you to embrace some sort of return to normal life? Or are you, as many people, including Alison are, concerned not just around the equity issues and around the privacy issues, but perhaps other issues as well about having that check mark and needing that check mark to be able to engage with travel and the rest of so-called normal life. You can email us : thecurrent@cbc.ca. Tweet us: @TheCurrentCBC. Or go to the website: www.cbc.ca and click on the "contact" link. Your CBC News is up next. And then,.

WOMAN: You can't keep somebody in custody longer just because they are struggling. You don't want to keep them detained when they don't need to be.

MATT GALLOWAY: Kimberly Squirrel's body was found frozen in Saskatchewan just three days after she was released from jail. What is our criminal justice system doing to help people get back on their feet? Not enough, say many activists. We'll talk more about that coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to "The Current" on CBC Radio One.

Saskatchewan woman died following release from prison

Guests: Aleida Oberholzer, Patti Pettigrew, Kim Pate

MATT GALLOWAY: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to "The Current".

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MATT GALLOWAY: Still to come, these days, your online reputation can be the difference between getting the job and not getting the job. In 30 minutes, the harrowing story of how hundreds of people were falsely accused online of everything from being a thief to a sexual predator. And why it's so difficult to make those posts disappear. That's coming up. But first, released from prison all alone.

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KARA SQUIRREL: If I had known that she got out that day, I would have picked her up that day. I would have brought her back to my reserve to help her get off of that stuff, you know? She was just a really great person to be around. She, like, you could be down and out and she would be right there just bringing you back up to where you need to be, you know? She was a very honest person, too. And she was also my... my... my protector in school. [hearty laughter] I loved being around her.

MATT GALLOWAY: That's Kara Squirrel talking about her sister, kimberly. The mother of six, had been in jail before. At the end of January, though, Kimberly was found frozen to death in Saskatoon. She had left Saskatchewan's Pine Grove Correctional Centre three days earlier. Aleida Oberholzer is a criminal defence lawyer in Saskatoon. Aleida, good morning.

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: Good morning.

MATT GALLOWAY: When you heard this story, the death of Kimberly Squirrel, what went through your mind?

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: Well, I have lots of clients, obviously, that go through similar situations after the displacement that comes naturally with an arrest or incarceration, reintegration, obviously, of our society's most vulnerable, can be really difficult. And I had voiced my opinion of the safety of some of my clients earlier before this happened. And so when I heard about it, I was obviously devastated, and like the rest of everyone's reactions. But I was also not that surprised that something like this would ultimately happen.

MATT GALLOWAY: Tell me more about that displacement. What have your clients gone through when they are released from jail, a facility like Pine Grove, for example?

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: I think it's important to note that when individuals are arrested, the displacement really starts there. You're stripped of your personal belongings. You're not prepared to be arrested. And in Saskatchewan, there's only, if you're a female, there's only one institution that you're taken to. So you're taken from your community, where you're from and where you've been arrested. Your cell phone is taken from you. All your personal belongings are taken from you, and then you are transported to Prince Albert no matter where you are from and placed there. During COVID, you get you get 20 minutes out a day to make phone calls that are not free. The only free calls you get are to a lawyer. And so it's a big displacement, especially for those that don't have that many connections in the community or come from underprivileged backgrounds.

MATT GALLOWAY: When you're released, I mean, what are you released with in terms of personal belongings?

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: Most of the time, you will get released with what you are arrested with. However, if they do need that for evidence and it's seized, then they might keep your cell phone. So the police might keep your cell phone for evidence. And you might not have those contacts that are with you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Kimberly Squirrel's family didn't know, for example, that that she had been released. How common is that, that somebody would be set free and that their immediate contacts, the family that perhaps they would be returning to, wouldn't actually know that they had been set free?

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: I think that's fairly common. Lots of times people want to get out as soon as possible, and they don't want to spend longer in the correctional when they need to to make these phone calls. But also, these phone calls aren't free, like I said. And sometimes, phone calls aren't the way that they connect with family. They connect the family through, for example, Facebook or email or WhatsApp. And so not having access to Internet, I think, is the biggest... another big problem for these inmates because it's just... it's... it's very difficult. I think if Kimberly had access to a safe residence that wasn't a correctional facility with an access to a computer or unlimited phone calls, it really would have made a difference for her.

MATT GALLOWAY: You told the story of one of your clients who walked, what, 140 kilometres after being released? Kimberly's body was found about 130 kilometres south of Pine Grove. How common is that, that once released, the individual would just try and get out and could end up having to walk through, I mean, you know, the cold winter to try and get south?

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: I think that's fairly common right now. They do have buses that leave from the facility; two buses, one in the morning, one in the evening. However, it is COVID, there's limited capacity in those buses. And like I said, they only take you to certain points in the province, and their community might not be from there at all. So it's very common that my clients, especially in the mental state that they're in after incarceration, are not thinking straight and just want to get home and are very determined just to get out of the correctional. And they'll often hitchhike and put themselves in a lot more vulnerable positions. They are already so vulnerable being released from custody and trying to reintegrate.

MATT GALLOWAY: How does this affect Indigenous women and their families, in particular, this situation that you're describing?

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: I think it... it targets Indigenous families more. They're already far more vulnerable. They are our society's most vulnerable. So especially Indigenous women that have been incarcerated. I think if you're looking at stats that make somebody more vulnerable to society, those are ones that you're looking at. And then, of course, the displacement and any addictions issues or mental health issues that these inmates could be dealing with, I think it's... it's easy to see what kind of mental state these individuals are in and how vulnerable they are when they are trying to reintegrate into society. And hitchhiking or trying to get into any type of safe community connections, I think, it's certainly lacking there.

MATT GALLOWAY: What could have been done differently, do you think, to better assist someone like Kimberly Squirrel when she was released?

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: I think free phone calls would have really assisted her while she was in custody. And I think it was when she was released, if there was a residence, I think residence is very important. A safe all-female residence that's close to the correctional where she could spend even a couple hours on the computer, on a phone, where she could have just established herself and made those connections. A couple of days would assist, too, to get your property back, to get your identification back, to get connected back to social assistance. I think it's very important. Often, my clients are coming from unstable backgrounds and getting stabilized is difficult... Is more difficult for them. And I think residence, a safe, warm place to stay that's close to the correctional is very important.

MATT GALLOWAY: Interesting. Finally, I mean, there's a lot of resonance that people will hear in this to what we read about and what people learned about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report. And would just wonder why in the wake of a report like that, something like this would continue?

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: Right, and I totally agree with that.

MATT GALLOWAY: You see you see those parallels right there in front of you?

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: Absolutely, yeah.

MATT GALLOWAY: Yeah. Aleida, it's good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

ALEIDA OBERHOLZER: Thank you for having me.

MATT GALLOWAY: Aleida Oberholzer is a criminal defence lawyer in Saskatoon. We did reach out to Saskatchewan, Ministry of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety. They sent us a statement, although they would not comment on the specifics of Kimberly Squirrel's release. The statement reads, In part, "It is up to the individual to decide what level of involvement their family may have in their release. Corrections may provide transportation for offenders or individuals back to their home community upon release. The first responsibility to obtain transportation lies with the offender. Once all personal efforts have been exhausted, the offender can seek assistance from Corrections. This policy has been in place for a number of years." As Aleida was saying, Kimberly Squirrel's death highlights the danger that many women face when they get out of prison. Many don't have a place to go or a person to pick them up, and they're left to fend for themselves. Patti Pettigrew is one of the people trying to change that. She is founder of the Thunder Woman Healing Lodge Society in Toronto and a member of the Algonquins Algonquian of Pikwakanagan First Nation. And that is where we have reached her today. Patti, good morning to you.

PATTI PETTIGREW: Good morning.

MATT GALLOWAY: This story to a lot of people, and this is what a lady was saying in some ways, reaches back through history and connects with a narrative that was highlighted in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report. How often, in your experience, does it happen that the women that you work with would be released from prison without anyone to pick them up and help them get settled?

PATTI PETTIGREW: It's happening quite often. And first, I'd just like to extend my condolences to Kara and Kimberly's family... is that... I believe that's... we just read the news. And it's not... this is not... not uncommon. And it's unfortunate that it's gone to this extent that some attention has to be paid to it. Thunder Women Healing Lodge, we have a van, and we go out to Vanier, the provincial women's correctional institute, and we pick up Indigenous women who are being released. And we have a process that we follow. We take them first to be COVID tested. And we have a temporary lodge right now, and they come to our lodge where they can enter into programming. But I can tell you that in the few months that we've been doing this, women are being released at 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 and one at 10:30 at night.

MATT GALLOWAY: What happens... so what would happen at 10:30 at night when those women are being released? If your van wasn't there to pick them up, what would happen?

PATTI PETTIGREW: Well, our van wasn't there. And because we... Our outreach worker goes out there around 11:00 in the morning to see if the women are being, you know, when they're going to be released. And she waited until 8:00, and just assumed that she wasn't going to be released after 8:00 at night. And there was no communication. And we found out from the client the next day, she called us and said she was released at 10:30 at night.

MATT GALLOWAY: Can you help me understand that? Why would somebody be released at 10:30 at night?

PATTI PETTIGREW: Well, I think that, you know, it's the system. The system is really lacking. And you know during, COVID, to release someone at that time and then expect them to find their way into Toronto, it's absurd. I don't know if they're understaffed in the institutions or they're just slow. I don't know. And I don't know, and I want to say this, I don't know because there's no transparency and there's a real lack of communication.

MATT GALLOWAY: And in some ways, I mean, it sounds obvious, but there are real risks that those women would face when they're released from prison without a drive or a plan. And those risks, as Aleida was saying, would be exacerbated for Indigenous women in particular.

PATTI PETTIGREW: Absolutely. I mean, the risk of, you know, women being released and traffickers just waiting for them, you know, the risk of being released and drug dealers waiting for them, there's all sorts of risks involved. And it's... it's not acceptable.

MATT GALLOWAY: Stay with me. I want to bring in another guest into our conversation. Senator Kim Pate is the former executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society, and she's been working for decades through Elizabeth Fry and beyond to reform the correctional system for women's Senator, good morning to you.

KIM PATE: Good morning, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: How common is it, I mean, we've just been hearing from... from Patti and from Aleida as well, how common across this country is it for women to be released like that, without support, without warm clothing, without a drive, without any any sense of support?

KIM PATE: Unfortunately, it's far too common, particularly in the winter. If people have been picked up in the spring or summer, they don't have sufficient clothing. And I do want to join you and your guests and say, you know, I send out my heart goes out to the family and... and certainly Kara, Kimberly's sister, it's a horrific time. And this happens far too often. And as you've highlighted, we should know better. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry told us this. And we know that in Saskatchewan, it vies with Manitoba for the highest number of Indigenous women in prison. And I think we should be asking why was she there in the first place? And if she was there for four months, that means it was something fairly minor that got her there. If she had mental health issues and addiction issues, as it's described, then likely she also had past trauma. In Saskatchewan alone the numbers of indigenous women in prison are upwards of 80, 90 per cent. If their young girls or young women, it's 98 per cent of those in custody. Almost all of them have histories of past abuse and trauma. Almost all of them then have resulting alcohol and drug issues that are about anaesthetising themselves to that reality, as well as the realities of poverty. Many of them develop mental health issues, often in the prisons. And the obvious question is why aren't we instead setting up treatment programmes, housing options, support systems instead of taking people, plucking them out for, you know, one month, two months, three months, four months or a few years, and then sending them back into the very same situations they had without the supports. And in this case, released without, it seems, even adequate clothing, without any access to her communication devices, which we know. I mean, I'm a dinosaur. I'm... I'm not as reliant on my phone, but yet I am. And... and yet, most young people now don't even use telephones in the same way. And... and so to remove the very devices, the very option, she has to be able to be in touch. We've just had Bell Let's Talk. And we know that the prison systems, they the calls are exorbitant. And so here we have a situation where she's not even provided with that access. If she was, then did she have her phone numbers? I'm terrible. If I didn't have automatic dial in my phone, I don't remember half the numbers, including, I'm sorry to say, even my family members. And so.

MATT GALLOWAY: And there are questions about responsibility. I mean, that statement from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Corrections said it's up to the individual to decide what level of involvement their family may have in their release. We got a statement from Ontario's Solicitor General's Office who said inmates are encouraged to work with corrections staff to plan for their release from provincial custody in Ontario. However, participation in discharge planning is not mandatory. Ministry staff will, when operationally feasible, make reasonable efforts to support inmates to travel to their home community, help them find housing and other supports. So, Patti, why is that not happening? And why do you think the responsibility has been put back on the inmates to try to figure out once they get out what happens after they step out the gate?

PATTI PETTIGREW: Well, you know, Corrections and correctional facility is an entity unto itself. And as I said, it's not very transparent. And there's not a whole lot of cooperation going on. I know that with the... the institutes that we deal with, they have a Nilo, which is the Native inmate liaison officer. And we've been working with the Nilo, who is about the only person that we can work with to try and connect with the women. But the Nilo, you know, finishes work at 5:00. And right now, there's an outbreak of COVID at Vanier. And so the Nilo is not going into work. So we're... we're just trying to work with lawyers. And they say, OK, my client's going to be released on such and such a date, but we don't know what time. So we go there and we wait. And it's just.... it's just absurd. It's... It's... it just seems to be there's no... there's really no care for Indigenous women. They're being released and --

MATT GALLOWAY: Is that was at the heart of this, Senator Pate? Is a lack of care? I mean, I think a lot of people are still trying to wrap their heads around why something like this would happen, why somebody would be released with no way to contact family, perhaps, as Patti was saying, at 10:30 at night.

KIM PATE: Mm-hmm. Well, certainly supporting prisoners is not a vote-getter. And so the people who are in prison are often not treated as though they are worthy of the same protections as those who are not in prison and certainly not those who are middle-class and and working. And we've seen that during this pandemic, one in 10 of the people not assisted economically are those living under the poverty line. Overwhelmingly, those are individuals who are Indigenous, Black, others who are also way more likely to be in prison than than non-Indigenous or non-racialized people. And I think when you talk about the policy that you read out, you have to ask who benefits from that? It certainly isn't the individuals who are being released from prison. It actually is a protective device that the, you know, the government has put in place to avoid responsibility. And I can't imagine how many calls Patti has been getting. But certainly even still in my office, I'm getting many, many calls from people who can't get hold of their case management team workers. These are the people who are supposed to be developing these release plans because they're all working at home and the individuals are stuck often in conditions that amount to solitary confinement because of the COVID lockdowns. And even without the COVID lockdowns, if you're in a provincial remand centre or a jail, you're more likely to be in those kinds of lockdown conditions a lot, if not most of the... most of the day. And so they can't.... even when they can get out, they don't have access to the numbers, the ways to be in touch. And they actually don't have access to the very people who are supposed to be assisting in planning their release or their programS.

MATT GALLOWAY: Patti, tell me about the traditional housing that you've set up in Toronto, Patti. What do you offer women who leave prison?

PATTI PETTIGREW: So we've set up it's more a temporary lodge until we can complete the build on Kingston Road, rebuilding the lodge on Kingston Road that will also have transitional housing. But currently, we kind of put up this pop-up space. And because of COVID, we can only accommodate seven women. And we have programming within the lodge. They... they have traditional counselling with an elder. We have a mental health and trauma worker. We give them cultural programming. They do like drumming and sewing and the things that are really important for within the culture. And they have access to anger management programs, addiction programs. And we've just signed with the Ministry of the Attorney General's Office to offer bail beds. And we have provincial beds. And we're just going to be getting our first federal woman. So that's what we're doing right now. And I can tell you that we have a waiting list. It's... it's just I can't wait until our lodge is built because we'll have more room. But even at that, we won't have enough room. But it's, you know, I just want to say, you know, the people... the people who are releasing these women, they wouldn't release their dog to some of the conditions that they send these women out into. They wouldn't put their dog out in the cold, but they'll release a woman out in the cold and vulnerable. And we really have to get some communication going.

MATT GALLOWAY: Senator, in the last minute that we have or so, I mean, given what Kim's just said and the conditions that she has created and is creating through the lodge, what do we need to be thinking about coming out of the story, do you think?

KIM PATE: Well, I think we should be pulling back and saying, what do individuals need to be able to thrive in our communities? And they need a place to live, they need support systems, they need money. And we don't provide those right now. And I think we really have to step up and ensure that those supports are in place. And then if someone is in situations where they're causing difficulties, pose a risk to public safety, provide the option of the type of healing program that Patti and her team are setting up, not in addition to prison, but as alternatives, as a meaningful way for people to actually address the issues that have caused them to be in the situation they are and then to remedy them so that when they go back out into the community, they're able to participate, contribute and be part of the community, not to continually put them in conditions that actually make things worse for them. And that's what's happening right now.

MATT GALLOWAY: Senator, it's great to speak with you about this. Thank you very much for your time.

KIM PATE: Thank you very much, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: And Patti Pettigrew, thanks for the work that you're doing and for talking to us about it this morning. I appreciate it. Thank you.

PATTI PETTIGREW: Thank you, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: Patti Pettigrew is the founder of the Thunder Woman Healing Lodge Society in Toronto and a member of the Algonquian of Pikwakanagan First Nation. Senator Kim Pate is a former executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society. She was in Ottawa this morning. Your regional update is coming up next. And then,.

KASHMIR HILL: What is the responsibility of technology companies and platforms of speech online to monitor what is happening?

MATT GALLOWAY: Lies and libel online. What does it take to get rid of false information on the Internet? We will talk about online harassment, the cost that it weighs on people, but also the difficulty in cleaning up your reputation online when people post things about you that aren't true. I'm Matt Galloway. We're back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

New York Times investigation into online harassment

Guests: Kashmir Hill, Christina Wallis, Luc Groleau

MATT GALLOWAY: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to "The Current". Thief, fraudster, pedophile. Imagine if you Googled your name and your picture pops up with those words next to it and it turns out there's nothing you can do to erase those posts. That is just a small sample of the online harassment that dozens of people have experienced. All the victims say targets of the same Canadian woman. This month, Nadire Atas was criminally charged for the first time in connection with hundreds of online attacks. I'll speak with two of her victims in just a few moments. But first, I'm joined by Kashmir Hill. She has investigated the story for The New York Times. Kashmir, good morning.

KASHMIR HILL: Good morning.

MATT GALLOWAY: Tell me a little bit about who Nadire Atas and what you were able to find out about her?

KASHMIR HILL: So she's a 60-year-old woman. She lives in the Toronto area. She grew up in Hamilton. I've talked to her, but she didn't want to tell me a lot about her life. But I was able to gather that she worked as a real estate agent in the early 90s. She was quite successful. People told me she had kind of broken through in a male-dominated industry. But then she had some troubles in her life. She lost her job in the early 90s. She had owned property, but in the early 2000s, she wasn't able to make her mortgage payments. And so it was repossessed. And she started having a lot of conflicts with people, people who had employed her, people she was in litigation against. And these conflicts escalated quite a bit.

MATT GALLOWAY: They escalated to attacks online. Tell me what she was posting online and how this all started?

KASHMIR HILL: It's hard to say exactly when it started. She she actually had kind of done these attacks on people pre-Internet. There was a family that had employed her. And after she lost her job there, it appears that she sent them anonymous letters in the mail after the mother in the family died, saying horrible things about her. And she sent, it seems, letters to their neighbours saying that the father in the family had been seen roaming the neighbourhood at night and masturbating. And they had thought at the time that it was Nadire Atas, but they were never able to prove it. And then, years later, she basically took these same types of attacks online. And she would write that people, they were frauds, that they were scammers, that they were thieves. And it kind of kept getting worse and worse, calling them sexual deviants and pedophiles. And she was writing about lawyers that she was engaging litigation with, this family that employed her 30 years ago, and just writing so much about them, hundreds of posts, thousands of posts till it really just took over their Google footprints.

MATT GALLOWAY: Where was she making these posts? What websites were they appearing on?

KASHMIR HILL: In some cases, she made her own websites, like WordPress blogs. But oftentimes, she was using these sites that exist kind of for this purpose. People have different names for them, complaint sites, gripe sites, cheater sites. There's this whole constellation of sites that just exist for people to write bad things, negative reports about other people. And the idea is, you know, if you date somebody who cheats on you, you can write about it on one of these sites. And then some future person who encounters that person will know they have this bad history. The problem is these sites are not fact-checked. There's no one making sure that what's written on these sites is true.

MATT GALLOWAY: So anybody can post anything on a site like this.

KASHMIR HILL: Yes, it is just a service that is offered. And the sites are, you know, making money in various ways. They're... they're making money on ads or like, you know, any media site. But they have another business model, which is a lot of them will let people remove negative posts about them if they pay for that service. So there's a certain kind of extortionary nature to these websites.

MATT GALLOWAY: You write about this in the piece in the Times, I mean, about how widespread these posts were, and how it was a range of things that were being said on these posts. It's kind of a nightmare scenario in some ways. When someone says these things about you, calls you a fraudster or a thief or pedophile and puts your photo up on one of these sites, what happens to your online name and your online reputation?

KASHMIR HILL: I mean, on one level, there's just a psychological trauma involved to have these things appear about you and, in many cases, not know who wrote it. But it also affects your opportunities in life. People tend to Google someone before they meet them for the first time to decide, you know, who to hire, who to rent their apartment to, who to date. I talked to one of the people in this group, who I kept anonymous because she was afraid it would provoke more attacks. But she was applying for jobs and applied to tons of jobs and just was not getting any kind of response and realized that they must be Googling her. So she changed her name, used her maiden name and immediately had interviews, two job offers. I mean, it was clear that this was having a real impact on her life. And I just heard that from so many victims.

MATT GALLOWAY: Just because when somebody puts their name into the search engine, this is the first thing that comes up?

KASHMIR HILL: Yes. And, you know, people say like, oh, those sites, they don't look reputable, I'm sure it's not true, but I talked to people who saw the results, and they said, you know, I didn't think it was true. But at the same time, I thought, where there's smoke, there's fire. And so if you have two candidates and one has this horrible online reputation, and the other doesn't, you're going to go with that other person.

MATT GALLOWAY: How many people were being targeted?

KASHMIR HILL: It is hard to say for sure. It looks like it was at least 145 people. And as I reported out the story, I started having posts written about me and my husband and my editor on the piece.

MATT GALLOWAY: So it's not just the people who are directly related to the story that you were saying about Nadire Atas, it's people who would be associated with those people?

KASHMIR HILL: That's what was so troubling and striking about this story. It wasn't just the direct people that she was interacting with. There would be posts about their sisters, their brothers, their aunts, people they worked with. It was truly this kind of contagion, and it would just spread from one person to anybody she could find connected to them on... on social media or online Kashmir.

MATT GALLOWAY: Kashmir Hill, stay with us. I want to bring in two of the people who were harassed online, along with several of their family members. And they have been active in trying to to put a stop to this activity online. Christina Wallis is a lawyer in Ontario. Luc Groleau works in I.T. in Quebec. Good morning to you both.

BOTH: Good morning.

MATT GALLOWAY: Luc, how did you find out that your family was being attacked online like this?

LUC GROLEAU: In September 2018, my wife was talking to her father, and her father told her that members of his social club had received emails telling them that her father an sons, so her brothers, were pedophiles. And obviously, he was not taking that well, very understandably so. So from there, I Googled our names, myself, my wife and our son, and found some horrible posts about us. For us, it started on September 30th, 2018, the first day that our nightmare began.

MATT GALLOWAY: The first day your nightmare began. What was your relation and the relationship of your family to the woman at the centre of this story, Nadire Atas?

LUC GROLEAU: My in-laws owned a real estate company in Hamilton in the 1990s, where Nadire Atas was employed at. And earlier, Kashmir mentioned Atas of losing her job. That's where she was employed at the time.

MATT GALLOWAY: What was it like putting your name into the search engine and seeing those results come up? I mean, what was... if you don't mind me asking, what was being associated with your name?

LUC GROLEAU: With my wife's name, it was the silly things. The one that stands out the most in my mind at the time was somebody claimed that my wife had sold her some Katy Perry tickets online. And after receiving the money, my wife never delivered on those tickets. We don't do any kind of this stuff, so it was all laughable. My initial instinct was just to let it slide. You can't win these battles. And then I saw that she claimed that our son was a pedophile. And that's not a fight that, as a father, you can back away from.

MATT GALLOWAY: Yeah. What about for you, Christina? I mean, how did you end up being a target in this?

CHRISTINA WALLIS: I acted for a lender that held the mortgages for Nadire Atas. She had two properties, one in Hamilton and one in Toronto. The one in Toronto was a fourplex. And she lived in one of those units. She was defaulting on her mortgages. And in 2008, my client took mortgage enforcement proceedings against her, took possession of the properties. So she lost her properties, was evicted from her unit. And one of the things she was doing was lashing out at my law firm and my colleagues. And one of the junior lawyers that I had working with me on these matters, she had copied his email signature and was responding with his signature to Craigslist ads for gay solicitation outs and then forwarding to the lawyer these responses. We suspected it was her. We happened to look at the metadata behind these emails, and we found her name. So this was already starting back in 2009, this type of lashing out.

MATT GALLOWAY: Was there anything you were able to do to try and stop that, and stop the things you choose?

CHRISTINA WALLIS: Well, I wrote to Ms. Atas at that time and showed her the metadata behind the email proving it was her, and I asked her to immediately stop, or we would contact the police. That stopped. She didn't do that anymore. As things went on, there was many litigation lawsuits. There's probably over two-dozen. A lot of them commenced by Ms Atas. Anybody who she came across, basically any lawyers who acted for her or against her, most of them were eventually sued. There was various parties, mostly lawyers, who are becoming completely frustrated with the legal system and how Ms. Atas had been able to basically use the system against us. And we brought what we call a Section 140 application to have her declared a vexatious litigant, which means that in order to continue any lawsuits or to commence any new ones, she would have to get permission of the court. But it was after the hearing on September 11, 2015, where we brought the application that these defamatory posts really became evident. And we started looking on the Internet and finding many postings about myself, other members of my law firm or my law firm in general. And once we discovered this, we really looked into it and found the extent of the postings online. And we started a lawsuit against her for defamation to attempt to stop this and to have the content removed. The type of postings at that time were my images, my professional images, another image that she had to obtain. If you search Google, you would get the images with fraudster written across it, or theif, or other such comments.

MATT GALLOWAY: And you can imagine, I mean, professionally, I mean, that would be... that would have a huge impact if that's what somebody found out when they searched your name.

CHRISTINA WALLIS: Absolutely. And, of course, I mean, i's something you could never quantify. I'll never know with somebody who was searching for a lawyer found my name and saw fraudster written across. They're just going to go to a different lawyer. And I'll never, you know, know how much business I lost or anything like that.

MATT GALLOWAY: Luc, you work in IT. How did you go about trying to figure out, you know, what was going on here and how you could sort of trace this back?

LUC GROLEAU: Initially, I only knew about our own family and my wife's family that we're being attacked in this manner. And just by doing Google searches within the next few weeks, I found out that there were actually a lot of posts. So what I did is I wrote a program. That esentually simulated Google searches and documented the results. Eventually, the list of people that I searched grew very, very large. And now it's close to about 150, as Kashmir was saying. I would manually look at every single search result that my program returned, open up the website and determine if that was an attack or not. I probably looked at somewhere between 80,000 and 120,000 different webpages manually that I read.

MATT GALLOWAY: Wow! And this work that you were doing online this actually helped police find Nadire Atas?

LUC GROLEAU: Yes, the work that I did online helped in establishing a link between all the victims and Nadire Atas, as well as a timeline of events.

MATT GALLOWAY: And what did... what did police do with that information?

LUC GROLEAU: Well, they didn't actually do anything just yet. So we got lucky. After Kashmir's article came out in The New York Times, the administrators oR the owners of the website received a lot of posts, defamatory posts against us, and they alerted us of that and provided us with the individual's IP address, where it came from. And once I received that, I was able to trace that IP address as belonging to a hotel in Toronto. At that point, we knew that we had her at that location.

MATT GALLOWAY: After she was arrested, What sort of relief did you feel?

LUC GROLEAU: It's hard to describe, a lot of joy. But we knew that she'd be out at some point, and we can assume that she'll also resume her attacks. So it's a relief, but I know that something is going to happen at some point.

MATT GALLOWAY: Christina, how have you coped through all of this? I mean, the saga that you detail sounds exhausting.

CHRISTINA WALLIS: Yeah, well, it actually got worse because then Ms. Atas started attacking my family members. My father died in June of 2015. And I believe she got the family members names from my dad's obituary. So she started a viciously attacking most of the male members of my family and calling them pedophiles. It's been... it's been difficult. And she actually sent an email to my daughter's work, and she works for one of the major banks, and told her team members, which was just horrible. And I've had to speak with my family members' employers to explain where these posts are coming from and that they're not true and such. So it's been... It's been a very difficult time.

MATT GALLOWAY: What for you would be resolution coming out of this? I mean, again, she's been arrested, and the court proceedings will unfold as they do. But what for you, Christina, would be some sort of resolution here?

CHRISTINA WALLIS: Oh, well, we struggle with this because that's part of our problem, is the current justice system, I believe, doesn't have a remedy for this type of action when there can be no monetary because she doesn't have any money, she is bankrupt. I think the only thing we can seek is jail time and the removal of these posts and stop her from using the Internet for these purposes.

MATT GALLOWAY: I mean, in some ways, this is a story about, you know, posting online, but it also feels like a story about mental illness and somebody who's hit rock bottom and... and is lashing out in this way. Is there anything in that regard that you think should be considered?

CHRISTINA WALLIS: I do. I mean, obviously, I think she there must be mental illness involved in order to ruin your life by making litigation and untruthful attacks on people your life mission. There's something wrong with someone who does that. Definitely.

MATT GALLOWAY: Luc... are you afraid, I mean, what happens now to go online and put your name into the Internet? Do you worry about what would come up?

LUC GROLEAU: I don't worry about myself. I worry about my son. He's only 22 years old. He's still at university. And at some point, will start a career. That's what keeps me up at night, is what are the impacts on him. I made the decision very early on that I wasn't going to let these attacks control me, but I was going to control the message as much as I could. So I shared what was happening with my employer fairly quickly. And I also shared this information with my neighbours. And I've also spoken to my clients about it as well. My track record is very long and very good. So they all understood, and they all sympathized.

MATT GALLOWAY: It's good to speak with you both about this. Thank you very much.

BOTH: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Luc Groleau and Christina Wallis are victims of online harassment. Kashmir Hill has been listening in to this. Nadire Atas is now facing criminal charges. What is she charged with?

KASHMIR HILL: She is charged with criminal harassment and libel. It's about these posts that she has been writing for years.

MATT GALLOWAY: In the context of what we've been hearing about and what you've been describing, what's the significance of those charges? In particular?

KASHMIR HILL: This was a situation where you had these people who had just been really suffering for years, not being able to do anything, they had reported this to police over the years, and no one had helped them, they were trying to solve it in the civil courts. This was a very powerful moment for them that finally, someone in law enforcement is doing something about it. But it really is a difficult case. You know, like at the end of the day, this is a woman who's writing horrible things online. Is the solution to that jail time? And, you know, she does have mental health issues she's told the court. I talked to a relative who said she has mental illness and they've tried for years to help her. It's a difficult problem on... on many different levels. And society kind of hasn't had a good way to deal with it.

MATT GALLOWAY: You've spoken with her a few times?

KASHMIR HILL: I have. I spent quite a few hours on the phone with her.

MATT GALLOWAY: What does she say about these posts? I mean, does she understand the impact, as we've been hearing, that the posts would have on people's lives when you call somebody a pedophile or you call somebody a fraudster, and this impacts, you know, their... their personal lives, but also their professional lives. Did she understand that?

KASHMIR HILL: She denies that she authored the vast majority of these posts. She admits to, you know, basically, some early post calling Christina Wallis and other lawyers fraudsters and says, you know, that's her opinion, and she's allowed to have that opinion. She claims she didn't write the other posts. And she... she seemed to have no empathy for the victims. And she sees herself as the victim. You know, that this is destroyed her life, that she has been involved in this litigation for so many years. She's lost her homes. She's had to declare bankruptcy.

MATT GALLOWAY: You mentioned those sites where these posts were made, sites that just allow people essentially to get back at somebody if they've been wronged or they've been harmed to post up information that's unverified, that's un fact-checked. What is the responsibility of those sites for monitoring or removing posts that end up being false and defamatory?

CHRISTINA WALLIS: So these sites are claiming protection by an American law, which is very controversial here is called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. And it is really credited with allowing the Internet to thrive because it protects websites from what their users post. So if somebody comes on to the New York Times and posts something defamatory or illegal in our comment section, we, the New York Times can't be sued for it. You know, a person that was defamed on our website would need to sue the person who wrote the defamatory comment. So all of these websites claim that protection. They say, you know, we're not responsible for what our users post, and you're welcome to sue the users themselves, but you can't sue us. And this has really protected some pretty horrible things being written online. Every single one of these websites, these cheater websites, these complaint websites, if you go to the contact us section, [chuckle] they will say we're protected by Section 230.

MATT GALLOWAY: So are there any laws then that would protect somebody from having these sorts of posts made about them?

KASHMIR HILL: The advice that's given to these people is find the person who wrote it, sue them, get a takedown order and, you know, over years and an expensive legal battle, you can get it taken down. In recent times, Google has decided to remove these things from search results. They in 2019, added a little provision that you can remove something from search results if it has an exploitative removal policy, meaning if they charge you to take something down, Google will remove it from your search results. But, you know, I talked to people who have tried that route, and they've had, you know, uneven results. And so I just I don't know how well Google is doing at fulfilling that. The people that I talked to in this case had tried for years. They had contacted all these tech platforms multiple times, explaining the situation, providing the court documents, and they just really were not able to remedy the situation.

MATT GALLOWAY: Are there laws that could be put into place more broadly then, do you think, to protect people? I mean, beyond the, you know, the right to be forgotten piece that Google has... has floated and the people have been calling for for for many years now?

KASHMIR HILL: This is just a huge debate in society right now. I mean, I think we're talking so much about what is the responsibility of technology companies and platforms of speech online to monitor what is happening. It's happened around the elections here. There's so much disinformation and misinformation online. And we're putting a lot of pressure on the tech platforms to remove that and create safer and healthier and truer speech online. And that is what I thought was so powerful about this story, is that, you know, it's not just happening on the political stage. It's happening on a very personal stage to individuals. And that's just the huge debate right now, particularly around Section 230, whether it should be reformed, whether we should require these companies that have become really the public square to do more to ensure that there are fewer lies in the public square. And that is incredibly controversial. And I don't know where it will land, but that is one of the huge policy debates right now in the U.S. and around the world.

MATT GALLOWAY: Just finally, you hinted at this at the beginning. What happened to you when you started reporting this story?

KASHMIR HILL: You know, I was somewhat prepared for this, but after I spoke to Nadire Atas several times on the phone, and she tried to dissuade me from doing the story, she said she wasn't responsible. She encouraged me to write about another case where something like this had happened. And once I made it clear to her that I was going to tell this story and that she was going to be in it, she got very angry at me. And a week after the last time I talked to her in November, these posts started appearing about me, saying that I was a plagiarist. I had slept with my boss for a year to get promoted. There were posts about my husband calling him a sex addict and a drug addict. I mean, I have a lot about me online. I have very strong Google results from all of the, you know, news stories I've written over the years. But these results actually started appearing on the first page of my results. And I was shocked. Like, I just didn't think that they'd be able to break through. Over time, they disappeared. And then Nadire Atas asked to speak to my editor, and after she talked to my editor, posts appeared about her as well.

MATT GALLOWAY: Kashmir Hill, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

KASHMIR HILL: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Kashmir Hill is a New York Times technology reporter. We did try to reach Nadire Atas for comment on this. The criminal lawyer representing her told us he is not able to reach Nadire Atas because her bail conditions restrict her from using her cell phone or her computer. You're listening to "The Current" on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. This pandemic has made it hard for almost everyone to see family and friends. Coming up on the program, we're going to visit a community in Quebec, where there is an extra challenge: a border. Stanstead, Quebec, sits right on the border with Vermont. So depending on where you live in the community, you actually can't cross over to the other side. This week on "Canada's Road Ahead", we take our virtual road trip to Stansted, and we'll hear what it's like for families like the Woods, where three generations, including a baby, are on the Canadian side. And great grandma is just a few blocks away in the U.S.

JASMINE WOOD: My name's Jasmine Wood. I'm 23.

REPORTER: And tell me about your daughter.

JASMINE WOOD: Well, she's Elizabeth. She's about, well, she's four months now.

LAURA WOOD: I'm Laura Wood. And I'm 43.

JASMINE WOOD: Um, basically where we are is near the post office.

LAURA WOOD: A minute walk high and the library.

REPORTER: OK, so about a minute walk from the high school left is the bridge that goes towards the customs. OK, let's walk up the hill. We'll go to the library. The RCMP officer up there already saw me taking pictures earlier.

LAURA WOOD: Yeah, they might come and ask us questions or.

REPORTER: How many times have you been able to come and meet up with your mom at the border in the last year?

LAURA WOOD: Maybe twice, and I think she's done it three times. I don't do it too often because it's hard. [laughing] Her baby shower was when we did it, when I did it the last time. And I don't know, she wants our Grammy there,Which makes me want my Mommy, and then emotions because, you know, that's my kid. And it's hard.

REPORTER: OK, well then let's walk. Let's go see her, yeah.

JASMINE WOOD: Yeah.

MATT GALLOWAY: More of that visit with four generations of one family meeting on the Canada-U.S. border. Coming up on "The Current". That's it for "The Current" for today. Coming up next on your CBC Radio One, it's "q" the legendary Canadian VJ Master T. and Jesse Jones join Tom Power to talk about their upcoming tribute to Bob Marley, and why a month-long celebration is as much about reggae music as it is about the legacy of Jesse's mother, the late Canadian reggae promoter Denise Jones. Denise Jones changed music promotion in many ways in Canada, and it'll be great to hear her being celebrated. That's coming up on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to "The Current". Take care.

February 17, 2021 Episode Transcript

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