Fire bosses learn IDs of anonymous critics

Two senior Halifax fire officials now know who criticized them anonymously on an online news site.

Fire Chief Bill Mosher and deputy chief of operations Stephen Thurber went to court to unmask sevencommenters who had responded to a story about allegations of racism in the fire department.

A judgeordered the Coast weekly newspaper to release any information that could identify the commenters who posted on its website, including log-in information and computer IP addresses.

Michelle Awad, lawyer for Mosher and Thurber, said she now has five names to pursue in a potentiallawsuit.

"If there is a next step for our client, it would be a new lawsuit that would be the defamation action that was the reason we were trying to find out who the authors of the defamatory remarks were," she said.

Mosher and Thurber have a year to decide what to do.

The Coast published the article about the fire department in April 2009. Over the course of several months, dozens of commenters responded to the online version on thecoast.ca.

Mosher and Thurber argued some ofthe posts containedallegations of racism, cronyism and incompetence, and they needed to identify the writers in order to defend themselves.

The Coast complied with a Nova Scotia Supreme Court decision on April 14to hand over any information it had on the anonymous commenters, who posted under names such as "thetruth" and "intheknow."

Awad later obtained a court order requiring Bell Aliant and EastLink, two internet service providers, to hand over whatever identifying information they had.

Awad did not release the names ofthe commenters in question. She said she doesn't know if they are connected to thefire service.

"So far, I think we have five," she said. "We're still waiting for some additional information."

Awad said she'swaiting forthe identityofthe person whoemailed from aGoogle Gmail account urging firefighters to post comments on the Coast website. Sheexpects that by Friday.