Firefighters obtain IDs of anonymous Internet critics, ponder libel suit
Posted May 3, 2010 04:22:59 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The lawyer for two Halifax firefighters considering a defamation lawsuit has obtained the names of anonymous commentators who criticized her clients on the website of a weekly newspaper.
Michelle Awad, the attorney for Halifax fire chief Bill Mosher and Deputy Chief Stephen Thurber, applied for the identities of the online commentators in a series of court appearances.
The first step was on April 14, when a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge ordered Coast Publishing Ltd. to provide identifying information about the commentators.
They complied, providing Awad with the Internet protocol addresses identifying numbers for the Internet connections to a
computer.
She then applied to service providers BellAliant and Eastlink for the actual names and addresses of the people using those computer addresses.
Awad says she now has all the information needed about the people who posted comments on the Coast and her clients can consider whether to sue them for libel.
