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Naming names
Put it all online!On Canada-a.m. the other morning (January, 1999) was a snippet about a couple of southern U.S. states (Texas and Virginia) who now post criminal records on-line. Deirdre and Dan discussed whether they thought it was an invasion of privacy and speculated about whether it would happen here. injusticebusters hopes that it does happen here, and the sooner the better! These records are not secret now so why not put them on line? Anything which makes public information easier to get is a step forward. Deirdre and Dan discussed problems arising from people checking on their neighbours. So? As things stand right now, people are all too willing to express their suspicions about almost anything at all. Along with molestation, vicious gossip is a provincial sport! If we were able to check our facts on the internet, truth might get into the gossip and some of the filth might get cleaned up. Don't worry. injusticebusters is not joining a witchhunt campaign. Anyone would have the opportunity to challenge false material which is up there! It would tend to stop witchhunting. The cloak of secrecy has always been the garment of inquisitors.The internet is the perfect medium to remove that cloak and let us see who is underneath. While we are on this topic, maybe the RCMP and CSIS could publish all the information they gather about citizens and save us the effort of filling out those endless forms under the freedom of information act! |
The Public's right to know and our right to inform them One of the first items we posted when we launched injuticebusters' website in June, 1998 was a profile of Michael Ross who we named as a dangerous sex offender. Since the police, social services and Sask. Justice were well aware of Michael and seemed to be hiding him, we had no confidence that the public was safe. We took the only step we saw open to us: to make the public aware of this dangerous criminal in our midst by posting him on the net. We are well aware that this controversial move is related to Sympatico pulling the plug on us, although we are not sure who was pulling the strings on Sympatico. Sgt. Brian Dueck certainly seems to be more interested in keeping the lie alive than he is in Michael's safety. The entire Saskatchewan government apparatus and justice system have a clear vested interest in keeping the lie alive. The lie is simple: they have, for more than six years, said and continue to say that the vicious and malicious charges of sex crimes against the Klassen and Kvello families were stayed because the children were too traumatized to continue the court proceedings. In so saying, they have clearly led the public to believe that the accused persons were guilty of at least some of the crimes! In the same vein, there is the vicious rumour that the DNA evidence which exonerated David Milgaard proved only that he didn't rape Gail Miller, even though it has never been suggested that more than one perepetrator was involved in the brutal rape-slaying. These lies spill out of the Saskatoon Police Department like swill onto Saskatchewan streets and we have become a province where far too many people tolerate a high level of injustice! injusticebusters received e-mail charging us with witchhunting and saying we had chosen a dangerous path by publishing Michael's name. We publish this letter and injusticebusters' reply, where we ignored the implicit threat, followed by a letter by John Lucas. The original writer's response reveals they are from Saskatchewan and are closely connected to this case. We close this part of the discussion with the observation that Michael's esteem issues are not likely to be helped by anyone who is inflaming him against us. Until those who damaged him are called to account for their crime in doing so, and until he fully accounts for what he did, no one can be free of the damage. We applaud him in his first steps in telling the truth, and encourage him to set himself free by continuing on this path. We are not backing down on anything we have done or said. injuticebusters point out that we did not create the dangeous situation. Everything that we have done has been in the direction of resecuring public safety and bringing to justice a reckless cop and all those who would enable and encourage Michael in his dangerous ways. On a radio talkshow in North Battleford in 1994, then Justice Minister Bob Mitchell inadvertantly blurted out the name of a young offender -- who the Supreme Court eventually established was not an offender at all in the Martensville fiasco. He resigned for a couple weeks, was reassured that no harm had been done, and resumed his portfolio. The child complainants in the Martensville charges are protected by court-sponsored anonymity. Protecting them as liars is somewhat different from protecting them as victims. The public should be informed of their identities as well, if for no better reason than to know they are more likely than the average citizen to tell damaging lies.
On October 4, injusticebusters received the following email, shortly after Michael was seen in the building where Sheila Steele lives: Shortly afterwards, the following email showed up:
From: Jack P Fehr <friendsinrecovery@shaw.ca> 9/27/99 10:39 PM Subject: Re: This message is from Jack P. Fehr The message you received on Wed,15 1999.01:12-000 was not written by me.
Subject: Your WebSite To: injusticebusters@home.com
"MacLir's" final word (with Steele's letter in red):
The threat to charge us suggests police are involved. We will leave the discussion here and pass all the correspondence on to the proper authorities and the media for further investigation. Meanwhile it is important to remember that Michael Ross was given a licence by the province, Sgt. Brian Dueck and Social Services to carry on his raping of his sisters for 43 months while they knew it was going on. Michael's weaknesses were exploited to allow the Crown and Brian Dueck to build a case against others they were manufacturing a malicious case against. At the age of 20, Michael realized that the terrible things he did were not entirely his own fault. He set about to make things right. Some of his correspondence with injusticebusters was part of that process. Michael is not proud of the acts he committed between the ages of ten and fourteen. But he realizes that he cannot live with the threat of being "exposed" by Dueck or Diane Ens or the minister of justice hanging over his head for the rest of his life. On November 19, 2000, the whole country saw Michael on the fifth estate admitting to his actions and apologizing to those he had wronged. injusticebusters' open letter to Michael
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This page created April 22, 1999
