statism watch

Last Updated: Thursday, May 15, 2008 | 10:42 PM
CBC News

Jury rules police violated Willow Kinloch’s legal rights

A jury at a civil trial awarded a teenager $60,000 in punitive damages Thursday for the way two Victoria police officers treated her while she was in their custody.

Willow Kinloch was 15 when her hands were cuffed behind her back and her legs tied together before she was tethered to the door of a padded cell for four hours on May 7, 2005.

The jury ruled on Thursday it was “false imprisonment” on the part of the Victoria Police Department and found the two police officers involved — Const. Brian Asmussen and Const. Ryan O’Neil — had used “excessive force” on Kinloch.

The jury said the police officers violated Kinloch’s legal rights under Sections 7, 9 and 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, including the right not to be arbitrarily detained and not to be subjected to cruel and unusual treatment.

“I knew at the time that it wasn’t OK and people kept trying to tell me it wasn’t a big deal and I knew that it was,” Kinloch, now 18, said outside the Victoria courthouse.
A police surveillance tape shows Willow Kinloch, then 15, being tethered to a cell door.A police surveillance tape shows Willow Kinloch, then 15, being tethered to a cell door. (CBC)

Tammy Kinloch said she never doubted her daughter and supported her fight.

“I never saw the videotape until this year, and it was exactly like she told me it had happened that day,” the mother said.

Full Story

The Toronto Star
May 15, 2008 04:30 AM

TOKYO–Cigarette vending machines in Japan could soon start counting wrinkles, crow’s feet and skin sags to see if the customer is old enough to smoke.

The legal age for smoking in Japan is 20 and as the country’s 570,000 tobacco vending machines prepare for a July regulation requiring them to ensure buyers are not underage, a company has developed a system to identify age by studying facial features.

By having the customer look into a digital camera attached to the machine, Fujitaka Co.’s system will compare facial characteristics, such as wrinkles surrounding the eyes, bone structure and skin sags, to the facial data of more than 100,000 people, says Hajime Yamamoto, a company spokesperson.

Full Story

democracynow.org
May 14, 2008

…

AMY GOODMAN: And so, here we are, moved into the sixth year of the war with Iraq, longer than the US was involved in World War II.

GORE VIDAL: Yes, incredible. That was such a huge operation on two great continents against two modern enemies. And we’re fighting little jungle wars for no reason, because we have a president who knows nothing about anything. He’s just blank. But he wants to show off: ‘I’m a wartime president! I’m a wartime president!’ He goes yap, yap, yap. He’s like a crazed terrier. And look where he got us.
I didn’t realize—I think I’ve always had a good idea about my native land, but I didn’t think that institutionally we were so easy to overthrow, because it was a coup d’etat, 9/11. The whole went crashing. And when we got rid of—when they got rid of Magna Carta, I thought, well, really, this wasn’t much of a republic to begin with.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, Magna Carta?

GORE VIDAL: Well, you know what Magna Carta means?

AMY GOODMAN: Explain it.

GORE VIDAL: Tell your readers, your viewers. It’s the basis of our law. Out of it comes the whole theory, practice, on which our—certainly judicial system is based: due process of law. You cannot deprive somebody of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, because that is a right, constitutional right. And that is—I mean, every proper American, that’s graved on his psyche, certainly was on mine. There wasn’t a day passed—I was brought up by my grandfather in Washington—hardly a day passed that he didn’t want to talk about due process. And he was blind from the age of ten…

Full Story

CBC News
Last Updated: Thursday, May 15, 2008 | 7:03 PM ET

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion pitched his controversial proposal to tax carbon emissions, despite warnings from his own caucus that such a policy would be politically risky.

Dion laid out the broad goals of his plan in a speech Thursday to the Canadian Club in Toronto, saying Canadians are ready to accept tax changes to fight climate change.

He revealed few details, saying only it would involve shifting taxes toward things Canadians want less of: pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, smog and waste.

“We need to make polluters pay and put every single penny back in the hands of Canadians through the right tax cuts,” Dion said.

“The time has come for Canadians to pay less tax on good things, such as work, savings and investment. The time has come to put the price on waste and pollution. The time has come to do what is right, not what is easy.”

Some Liberal strategists have warned Dion that his plan could be portrayed negatively as a tax grab and will also lead to higher prices at the pump.

“Mr. Dion is interested in a massive punitive increase in gasoline taxes in Canada,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said. “That’s the last thing Canadians need.”

But Dion rebuffed his critics, saying “Canadians have been ahead of their politicians in knowing what needs to be done to move this country forward.”

…

Dion later told reporters that convincing voters of his plan could take time.

…

John Williamson, of the Canadian Tax Federation, told CBC News that a carbon tax will not deal with the problems of greenhouse gasses. He said in Europe, for example, where carbon taxes have been implemented, emissions continue to rise.

Full Story