Heritage Front redux

The last few days has seen some discussion about the now-defunct Heritage Front, its associates, and its character.

It started with the latest instalment in a series about Marc Lemire by the ARC Collective (the earlier installments are: part 1, part 2, and part 3). The smoking-gun, as Dawg has called it, is a transcript of a relay chat that took place in Sept. 2001 between James Scott Richardson (who had the handle WPCANADA, presumably for "White Power Canada") and Lemire (who has chosen the handle "FdaJEWS" for "F*** the Jews").

Freedominion, too, has chipped in. Connie dismisses this all out of hand (here):

but recycling the same old lies doesn't get you any closer to proving Lemire somehow wrested control of the Heritage Front from CSIS when he was barely out of his teens.

This is a little confused. CSIS control of Heritage Front? Apparently the reference is to the CSIS infiltration of Heritage Front by Grant Bristow. Bristow, however, was exposed and went into hiding in 1994, seven years before the exchange in question. But by then Lemire could hardly be described, as Connie puts it, as "barely out of his teens". According to this Lemire was born in 1975, which will have placed him in his mid-twenties in Sept. 2001 when he called himself "FdaJEWS".

Nor was this the end of Lemire's association with Heritage Front. In June, 2002, Heritage Front's magazine, Upfront (archived here), profiled the activities of its Hamilton chapter, which had distributed 6000 copies of an anti-immigrant pamphlet. The profile included the following picture of Lemire holding the pamphlet in front of Hamilton's Henderson hospital. (Just in case you can't make out that logo see the blow-up on the right -- yes, this is Heritage Front literature.)

Here we have what Connie wants to deny: a fully-adult Lemire presenting himself as the face of a post-Bristow Heritage Front.

Nor is it hard to find other examples of this from these years. In May 2001, for example, Marc Lemire wrote an open-letter to the German-Canadian Congress in support of Helmut Oberlander. His letter was also published at the Heritage Front website (archived here) as a "Letter from the Heritage Front". Again, a fully-adult Lemire presents himself as speaking for Heritage Front.

Was he the leader of the HF? That's less clear, though some within the movement clearly thought so. But regardless of that it is clear that he belonged to the HF and was involved in its leadership.

Why the RCMP dumped the CHRC wifi case (70.48.181.203)

The RCMP has decided to drop its investigation of allegations that the CHRC had hacked the wifi of an Ottawan woman. The RCMP itself has made no announcement, but the woman in question was interviewed by Joseph Brean of the National Post (here):

In a phone interview on Thursday, the woman said the RCMP told her they do not have proof her account was hacked, nor proof that it was not, and to investigate further would involve going after technical data from a website based in the United States, stormfront.org, which they said is not possible.

What does all this mean? The basic problem is that the evidence did not sustain the accusation. To review:

1. CHRC investigator Dean Steacey logged into Stormfront.org using the handle "jadewarr" several times, including on Dec. 8, 2006, the date of the alleged wifi-hacking.
   
2. One of the other times that "jadewarr" logged-in at Stormfront was on Sept. 15, 2006, when he posted the one-and-only message that this account ever posted there (you can see the screen capture of that post here). The IP used to post was 70.48.181.203 (see #4, below).
3. After it became known that "jadewarr" was Steacey's account, however, Stormfront administrator OdinPatrick publicly outed the account (see screen captures here), declaring both the IP that was used to register jadewarr (65.93.75.6) and the "IP used to post" (70.48.181.203).
4. Since jadewarr had only ever posted one message (see #2, above), the IP use to post (70.48.181.203, #3) must have been for the message of Sept. 15, 2006.
5. In March 2007, Marc Lemire emailed Stormfront founder and convicted terrorist Don Black to request jadewarr's Lemire asked Black for the "email address, IP-address, hostname, and access" of the jadewarr account (see Lemire's motion, here, and Black's affidavit, here). Apparently Lemire requested this information without specifying a date.
6. Black informed Lemire that jadewarr's IP was 70.48.181.203 (see Black's affidavit paragraph iv, here).
7. The IP that Black reported (70.48.181.203, above, #6) was the same one that jadewarr used to post on Sept. 15, 2006 (above, #3).
8. Given that Black does not specify a date that jadewarr had used this IP (see #5 and #6, above), he must be giving the IP used for the post of Sept. 15, not the one used to log-in on Dec. 8: the software that he was using, vBulletin, only records the IPs of posts, and not those for log-ins (here).
9. Lemire apparently did not realize that the IP was from the wrong date. On the basis of Black's information filed a motion to subpoena Bell to provide information about the IP for Dec. 8.
10. In a CHRT hearing of March 25, 2008, a Bell technician testified that 70.48.181.203 (which jadewarr had used on Sept. 15) was assigned to an Ottawa woman on Dec. 8, 2006, the day on which jadewarr logged into Stormfront (obviously using some other IP).
11. Once this became known, a theory was elaborated to explain how jadewarr might have accessed 70.48.181.203 on Dec. 8, a theory that including the allegation of wifi-hacking.

So, why did the RCMP drop the investigation? Because the evidence as presented didn't sustain the allegation, and a closer look at the evidence wasn't possible given jurisdictional issues.

Other posts relevant to this controversy:

• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 1: background
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 2: someone else notices Jadewarr
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 3: when exactly did Steacy/jadewarr have 70.48.181.203?
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 4: theoretical possibilities
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 5: Lemire's motion for jadewarr's IP
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 6: what did Lemire ask Black about jadewarr?
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 7: the right IP on the wrong date
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 8: the technician's testimony
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 9: Black affidavit
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 10: the software records posts not log-ins

The spy who didn't shag my wifi 1: background

Those who have been following the Marc Lemire case before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal have seen some weird twists and turns — and a bizarre series of allegations that have been made about the Commission and its employees. One allegation was that human rights activist Richard Warman (who had initiated the complaint against Lemire) had himself posted a racist attack against senator Anne Cools, and allegation that was ultimately proven false. Another weird allegation was that Warman had leaked confidential commission documents related to the Demigorgona case. Again false.

Today we turn our attention to another allegation that Commission employee, Dean Steacy, who is legally blind, had hacked an Ottawa woman's wifi to visit a racist website in December 2006. The details are scattered and complicated, but a fresh look at them will show that there is plenty of room for doubt, and that in fact the evidence suggests that there was no wifi hackery, just a simple miscommunication of facts.

First, some background. In his position at the Commission, Steacy is involved in investigations of websites accused of spreading hate. In these investigations, Steacy has occasionally actually registered in the sites in question -- some sites have areas that are limited to registered members only; others only allow members to view other members' profiles or use the site's search engines.

Such was the case with White Supremacist site, Stormfront, where Steacy registered the pseudonym "jadewarr". To the right is Jadewarr's member-profile there. (He was member number 58160, if you want to go there to look for yourself -- but in order to access the member profiles, you will have to become a member) He joined, as you can see, in February 2005 (note the left hand column, right under "Forum Info").

The wifi controversy arose with regards to a visit made to Stormfront on December 8th, 2006. On that date, Steacy had logged into the Jadewarr account in order to find a specific posting related to a hearing before the tribunal. (Stormfront's own search engine is only available to logged-in members.) He then printed the posting, but without logging-out, which meant that "jadewarr" was included on the print out. When the print-out was submitted as evidence, his pseudonym was exposed.

As I said, Lemire is himself a respondent before the Tribunal, and his defense strategy seems to be to delay, distract, and deflect. Spurious complaints are filed with the CHRC against opponents; allegations are made about CHRC unfairness, incompetence, or corruption. The exposure of Steacy's pseudonym gave him an opportunity to make new allegations. Indeed, given the information available, it should be possible to learn Steacy's IP, and once his IP was known, his actions on other sites might be examined.

Marc Lemire himself, however, had no access to that information -- Stormfont is based in the United States, having been founded by former KKK Grand Wizard, Don Black (who has a fairly nasty history of his own). Lemire, however, was (and is) a long-time member there: indeed, his profile (to the right), shows not only that he is a sustaining member, but also proclaims him to be a "Friend of Stormfront". Presumably it was on this basis that Black supplied him with an IP and hostname: 70.48.181.203 and bas2-ottawa23-1177597387.dsl.bell.ca.

We know all this from an affidavit that Lemire filed with the Tribunal in May 2007, requesting that Bell be subpoenaed to supply the name, address, and phone records associated with that IP address (here). The subpoena was granted, and on March 25, 2008, a Bell technician appeared in court to provide the information that he was asked for.

What the Bell technician reported, however, was a surprise to everyone: on Dec. 8, 2006, the IP 70.48.181.203 was assigned to someone with no apparent connection to Steacy, the Commission, or Stormfront. It was a woman named Nelly Hechme who lived in an apartment building in Ottawa not far from the CHRC offices. Once her name was made public, a reporter contacted her to ask whether she knew how and why her email might be involved in this affair, and the only available explanation was that someone had accessed her wifi. But since her wifi was secured with a pass-word, the usual suspects accused Steacy of having hacked it.

To be continued ....

Other posts relevant to this controversy:

• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 1: background
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 2: someone else notices Jadewarr
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 3: when exactly did Steacy/jadewarr have 70.48.181.203?
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 4: theoretical possibilities
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 5: Lemire's motion for jadewarr's IP
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 6: what did Lemire ask Black about jadewarr?
  
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 7: the right IP on the wrong date
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 8: the technician's testimony
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 9: Black affidavit
• The spy who didn't shag my wifi 10: the software records posts not log-ins

Lemire's motion to subpoena Bell

Below is the motion of Marc Lemire applying that Bell Canada be subpoenaed for information about an IP address that at some point had been associated with "jadewarr", a pseudonym used by Dean Steacy of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. (I've placed copies here to function as archive; the original was posted at Lemire's own site: http://www.freedomsite.org/legal/infiltrators_target_lemire-Motion_filed_for_Bell_Subpoena.html.

Here is a text version that should be easier to search.

Motion by Marc Lemire for Subpoena of Bell Canada ’s Records to Ascertain identity of Stormfront User Account “Jadewarr” May 14, 2007 Re: Warman v. Lemire, Tribunal No. T1073/5405 To: Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, This is a motion by the respondent for a subpoena of Bell Canada for all documents and information concerning the IP Address 70.48.181.203. The facts which form the basis of this motion are as follows: On December 12, 2006, during questioning of Richard Warman by Paul Fromm in the matter of Warman v. Beaumont, he asked about an exhibit filed by the Commission from the Stormfront website which was headed “Welcome, Jadewarr”. Mr. Warman testified that it came from the Commission. T1106-8705 2006-12-12 Warman-Beaumont CHRC attempts to put into evidence a post from Stormfront entitled “ Italy for Italians” at Tab 17. Warman V. Beaumont. The top of the page showed the login name as “Jadewarr’ MR. FROMM: Can you explain what that is, "Welcome, Jadewarr? MR. WARMAN: It appears to be a name that was logged in under. MR. FROMM: By whom? MR. WARMAN: I'm sorry, I don't know. (Page 273, Transcripts) MR. FROMM: Is it your testimony, then, that it's a Commission document? MR. WARMAN: It originates with the Commission. I do not know its providence. (Page 275, transcripts) The person using the account “jadewarr” on Stormfront has attempted to engage Marc Lemire in public conversations on the message board; The person using the account “jadewarr” has engaged a person using the account “fenrisson” numerous times in private conversations on the Stormfront system; The Stormfront “fenrisson” user posts have been used at least twice by the Commission to dismiss complaints against Richard Warman and CAERS as “vexatious”; In March, 2007, Marc Lemire requested and received the e-mail address, IP address, hostname and access to the Stormfront account “jadewarr” from the owner of the Stormfront website, Mr. Don Black The information regarding “jadewarr” provided by Mr. Don Black was as follows: IP Address: 70.48.181.203 Host Name bas2-ottawa23-1177597387.dsl.bell.ca E-Mail address used: jadewarr@yahoo.ca During the hearings in Ottawa on May 10, 2007 , the Commission claimed Section 37 of the Canada’s Evidence Act over questions relating to the Stormfront Account “Jadewarr” The respondent is requesting a subpoena of Bell Canada ’s records to ascertain the user account and subscriber information for the following: User account and subscriber information for the user of IP Protocol address: 70.48.181.203, with hostname bas2-ottawa23-1177597387.dsl.bell.ca, that was connected to the Bell Sympatico and/or Bell Canada network on: December 8th, 2006 at 03:29 PM (EST) (Also Known as: 3:29 PM “ Ontario time” to Bell Canada Corporate Security) It is submitted that this information is relevant to the hearing of the constitutional issues in this case as it shows the activities of the Commission under section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act are going far beyond attempting to ameliorate discrimination, and are impacting the fairness of its procedures, the rights of complainants and respondents both, and the guarantees to Charter rights. The Commission appears to be actively engaging with respondents on message boards, in particular with relevance to this case, Mr. Lemire. The respondent should be able to question Commission witnesses concerning these matters upon the resumption of the hearing in Ottawa in June if in fact “Jadewarr” is proven to be the Commission.

(Note: I've back-dated this in blogger to its original composition date.)