From: brewnoser2@gmail.com   
      
   Don't get excited, guys... not a dating or porn site.  A story worth reading.   
   __________________________________   
      
   CTV Calgary - Saturday, June 13, 2015   
      
      
   The price of free speech online: $20,000   
      
   Leilani Saad has been fighting for a long time to tell her story. It begins   
   with a nightmarish experience at a local dog kennel, and ends with a $20,000   
   legal bill that she says was worth every penny.   
      
   In 2009, Saad, a registered veterinary technician, took her 13-year-old   
   arthritic German Shepherd named Shep to Chasin' Tails boarding facility in   
   Calgary, while she was away on holidays for six days in Banff.   
      
   She called the kennel every day to make sure things were going smoothly and   
   every day she was told that they were.   
      
    But, when Saad arrived to pick up her pet, staff told her that Shep hadn't   
   been eating, or sleeping on his dog bed.   
      
   Saad remembers the animal looking dehydrated, with a bleeding pressure sore on   
   his elbow -- he was taken to a vet right away.   
      
   The vet's exam confirmed the dog had lost more than five pounds.   
      
   "I felt horribly sad that he had been left in that condition, and nothing had   
   been done about it," said Saad. "I was so angry that nobody told me, and   
   nobody sought veterinary attention."   
      
   Saad wrote about her experience on a now-defunct online review website called   
   "Review Blue."   
      
   Not long after it was posted, the Kennel threatened to sue both Saad and the   
   website for defamation if the negative review wasn't taken down. Review Blue   
   had it removed.   
      
   Shep died about four months later and the episode quickly faded from memory --   
   until 2012. That's when surveillance tape from inside Chasin' Tails showed   
   then-employee Marc-Olivier Labonte abusing a small dog so badly, it vomitted   
   blood.   
      
   "I just felt so guilty that I hadn't fought harder to keep that review up,"   
   said Saad. "Maybe if that puppy's owners had seen my review, they could have   
   made an informed decision about boarding their dog there."   
      
   Knowing what the consequences were likely to be, Saad went ahead and wrote   
   about her experience with the kennel on Yelp and Google.   
      
   "I had a horrible experience here," she wrote on Yelp in 2012, three years   
   after the incident. "I would strongly advise against this facility. Don't   
   carry the guilt that I have carried with me for years."   
      
   Not long after, she was once again staring down a lawsuit -- this time Chasin'   
   Tails was seeking $70,000 in damages. Saad was pregnant with her first child   
   and her young family wouldn't have the money to pay if she lost the case.   
      
   She hired Calgary lawyer Jonathan Selnes who told her that if they could prove   
   that everything in the online posts was true, she would win.   
      
   Saad ultimately decided to fight the suit, no matter the cost.   
      
    "It was purely principle," she said.   
      
   The case never actually made it to the inside of a courtroom. After two years   
   and plenty of delays, the matter was finally settled in November 2014. Saad's   
   reviews are still posted online.   
      
   Saad has won the right to speak freely about the case and her experience with   
   Chasin' Tails, but it comes at a heavy cost.  Legal bills piled up to $20,000.   
   She has paid off some of that debt, but still has $12,000 to go -- paid in   
   monthly instalments of    
   $500.  She had no regrets.   
      
   "For me, my freedom of speech is priceless," she said. "They shouldn't be able   
   to sue you for telling the truth... nobody should be able to bully anyone into   
   censorship."   
      
   Chasin' Tails management declined to be interview for this story, but allowed   
   CTV News cameras to tour their facility -- which appears clean and sterile;   
   and is staffed around the clock.   
      
   In a written statement provided to CTV News, assistant general manager Ashley   
   Barton wrote in part, "The views of this past client is [sic] not   
   representative of how Chasin' Tails upholds their policies and procedures,   
   which is why legal action was taken    
   to try and remove reviews from a client that used our services over 6 years   
   ago."   
      
   There have been other negative reviews similar to Saad's posted to the   
   kennel's Yelp page, but the company says its defamation case against her is   
   the only time its threatened or filed a lawsuit against a client for a   
   negative review.   
      
   Ubaka Ogbogu, an assistant law professor at the University of Alberta says   
   lawsuits like this one happen all the time. There's even a name for them,   
   "strategic lawsuit against public participation," or SLAPP. In most cases,   
   companies never expect the    
   suit to actually make it to court.   
      
   "What they want to do is not necessarily succeed in the lawsuit, but to just   
   intimidate or censor the person who wrote the review," said Ogbogu.   
      
   He says people who post nasty reviews online should expect to be challenged by   
   the company, but if it's true and you can prove it, there's no reason to panic.   
      
   "If what you publish is factual and the truth, that's an absolute defence to   
   defamation," he said.   
      
   In Quebec and many U.S. states, legislation has been passed to try to prevent   
   frivolous SLAPP cases.   
      
   Saad says she intends to lobby Alberta's new NDP government to enact similar   
   laws.   
      
   http://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.2421791.1434251109!/httpImag   
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   http://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.2420915.1434164117!/httpImag   
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   ________________________   
      
   Ms Saad will certainly have more luck striking down, or severely limiting the   
   SLAPP lawsuits under the new NDP government than she would have under the   
   rightwing Conservative one.  Only the lawyers win under those.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)