Publication:    TORONTO COMPUTES!
Date:           March 1994
Title:          Stalking Queen's Park with fax and computer
Writer:         Ken Campbell
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        In deepest darkest East York lurks a beast that stalks
Queen's Park.
        His name: Jose Luis Baptista, bane of bureaucrats.  Uttering
this name to an Ontario civil servant usually elicits a groan or an
expletive deleted.
        Most government employees enjoy a close relationship with Joe
Baptista, because when Baptista complains to the government he
notifies all 85,000 of its workers electronically.
        Baptista's most infamous volley at the government was a Jan.
9 letter he sent simultaneously to a thousand Ontario government fax
machines and 600 government electronic-mail accounts.
        An official-looking three page letter, it was called "How to
not use the Government of Ontario's Gopher service to access banned
trial details from your terminal."
        It detailed how easy it can be for government workers to
access banned information about the Homolka trial on the Internet
network, with a disclaimer noting those who looked at the information
might be breaking the law.

                        Just havin' fun

        "I'm just someone who likes to have fun," Baptista chuckles
in a phone interview with TC!.  He says his phones are tapped: "But
that's okay, I love the fact they tap my telephones.  It let's me
keep an archive somewhere.
        "I like to experiment with communications.  And I'm very
concerned that government isn't up to speed.  That's all."  But
there's a bit more to it then that.
        Baptista lives on disability payments due to a memory problem
he says stems from a violent altercation years ago.  Because of the
condition, interviews with baptista can be a bit bewildering.  He
loses his place in conversation often.
        But the fixed income leaves Baptista with considerable free
time, which he puts to use terrorizing bureacrates with his computer
and fax, launching class action suits against DuPont Canada for
pollution and supporting causes like marijuana legalization, anti-
circumcision campaigns and free fax services for citizens wanting to
contact government.
        Baptista says when government is forced to perform by its own
rules and regulations, it crashes.
        If government was a computer operating system it would have
been discarded years ago, he says.
        His war with government started several years ago over
problems with the water supply in his apartment.  "To get anything
done, bureaucracy requires you make this extraordinary amount of
effort.  I thought, there must be an easier way."
        So he began barraging slow-moving bureaucrats with faxes.  If
they still didn't respond, he faxed copies of complaints to other
bureaus.  Soon, a torrent of his faxes was hitting government.
        Documents released through the freedom of information act
reveal Baptista's campaign has cost the government $3.5 million in
fax paper.  And when he began targeting Metro police fax machines,
the response was much different: they arrested him for mischief.
        "That was a fatal mistake," Baptista says.  "They arrested
me, I declared war and now we are here," he grins.
        Baptista is hard to ignore.  People have very strong opinions
about him, and he's made numerous enemies even outside the
government.
        "I think he's a net-loon," says Chris Lewis, a Usenet
administrator in Ottawa.  Net-loon is a label for cranks found on the
Usenet who are obsessed with various issues.  The Usenet carries the
conferences and mail on the global Internet system.
        "Joe appears to have a personal grudge and he goes on fishing
expeditions through freedom of information requests and the Internet
itself to embarrass the government," Lewis says.
        Lewis points out some "wild accusations" by Baptista, such as
his contention that Metro police computer-networks were tied into a
mysterious California company that could read priviledged information
on Toronto citizens.
        "Oh that", Baptista says with obvious embarrasment.  "It
happens.  I get excited.  I realize that.  I had to kick myself in
the ass.  But I appreciate it and now view things a little better."
        He's been proved false in several of his "Internet exposes,"
Lewis says.  "But as long as he can make it look like something is
going on to people who don't know how to use the Internet, as long as
he can embarrass the government, whether the facts are true or not,
he's content.