statism watch

CBC News
December 19, 2008

Illicit drug use and the “high probability” that members of the Canadian Forces are involved in the drug trade are among the major concerns of military officials, according to documents obtained using access to information laws.

Those concerns are illustrated in one military briefing note, obtained by CBC News, that focuses on an incident in which military police, acting on a tip and assisted by a drug dog, searched a convoy that had returned from the Kandahar town of Spin Boldak.

The drug dog detected the scent of drugs on two of the vehicles in the convoy, but the search did not result in any seizures, the briefing note says.

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Michael Geist, MichaelGeist.ca
December 19, 2008

The Department of Foreign Affairs has issued a release that provides an update on the most recent round of ACTA negotiations (the release will be mirrored by other countries).  It reports that governments met last week in Paris to continue ACTA negotiations.  In addition to the three issues addressed at earlier meetings (international cooperation, enforcement practices and institutional issues, as well as criminal enforcement), Internet issues were now added to the mix.

The release notes that governments are aware of the concerns with the lack of transparency in the process and plan to discuss the matter further (presumably when they next meet in Morocco in March 2009).  Transparency does not require discussion, it requires action.  This is quite clearly an intellectual property agreement (not a trade agreement) with negotiations that are conducted in secret to avoid the spotlight and possible objections from developing countries and civil society.  The time has come for Canada to stand up and say that this is wrong and that it will not continue with the process until it meets appropriate standards of transparency.

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Michelle Shephard, Isabel Teotonio, Toronto Star
December 19, 2008

Monitoring of calls between terror suspect, lawyers called ‘invasive’

Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub is shown with his children before he was detained. Mahjoub is accused of being a high-ranking member of a radical Egyptian organization and having ties to Al Qaeda.

Canada’s spy service has been intercepting telephone conversations between a terrorism suspect and his attorneys for more than a year and defence lawyers now want to know how these recorded communications were used and if this practice is widespread.

A federal court justice stunned lawyers in a Toronto courtroom yesterday when she revealed that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had monitored conversations between Egyptian refugee Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub and his lawyers since his release on bail in the spring of 2007.

Mahjoub’s lawyers demanded that the monitoring immediately stop, calling the practice a breach of the fundamental right of solicitor-client privilege.

“I feel as though my house was broken into,” said his Toronto lawyer, Barb Jackman, outside the courtroom. “It’s incredibly invasive.”

Justice Carolyn Layden-Stevenson summoned a conference call in court late yesterday where CSIS lawyer Jim Mathieson agreed the monitoring would stop and that any conversation inadvertently recorded would be erased.

Layden-Stevenson then said she would amend the order for Mahjoub’s bail conditions to explicitly prohibit such recordings.

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That’s the method. And now these guys are letting us know it.

Steve Watson, Infowars.net
December 19, 2008

Says global necessities should foster an “age of compatible interests”

Bilderberg luminary Henry Kissinger has repeated his routine call for a new international political order, stating that global crises should be seen as an opportunity to move toward a borderless world where national interests are outweighed by global necessities.

Speaking with Charlie Rose earlier this week, Kissinger cited the chaos being wrought across the globe by the financial crisis and the spread of terrorism as an opportunity to bolster a new global order.

“I think that when the new administration assess the position in which it finds itself it will see a huge crisis and terrible problems, but I can see that it could see a glimmer in which it could construct an international system out of it.” Kissinger said, referring to the transition between the Bush and Obama administrations.

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The systemic problem is – the government has no desire to share information any more.

CBC News
December 19, 2008

Canada’s food watchdog is withholding files documenting its handling of the recent nationwide listeria outbreak, citing the high volume of freedom-of-information requests and limited staff resources.

As part of a joint investigation, the CBC and Toronto Star first made requests for the files in August. The files detail meetings between the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, meat processor Maple Leaf Foods Inc. and public health officials. None of the files have been released and the CFIA is seeking extensions that could hold back the release of records for more than a year. Standard extensions typically range from one to two months.

“Currently, we’re not looking at a very good year,” said Cynthia Richardson, the CFIA’s director of executive support and co-ordination.

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It’s too late, and the inflationary approach to halting a deflationary spiral just doesn’t work anyways. It can’t. Like giving an addict more junk to stop her agonies, all you’ve accomplished long term is further erosion of economic fundamentals.

Brian Laghi, Karen Howlett, Globe and Mail Update
December 19, 2008

OTTAWA/TORONTO – Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty will unveil details Saturday of an auto aid package expected to reach into the billions of dollars.

The Canadian package follows on the heels of the U.S. plan announced Friday, worth $17.4 billion (U.S.).

“This is good news,” said an official with the prime minister’s office.

Officials would not disclose the amount.

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“The turnabout for the German motor industry came about in the 1930s with the election of the Nazi Party to power. The Nazis instituted a policy known as Motorisierung, a transport policy which Adolf Hitler himself considered a key element of attempts to legitimise the Nazi government by raising the people’s standard of living. In addition to development and extensions of major highway schemes, the Volkswagen project was also conceived to design an construct a robust but inexpensive “people’s car”.” – Wikipedia

Deb Reichmann, Associated Press
December 19, 2008

WASHINGTON – Citing danger to the national economy, the Bush administration approved an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry Friday, offering $17.4-billion (U.S.) in rescue loans in exchange for deep concessions from the desperately troubled carmakers and their workers.

The government will have the option of becoming a stockholder in the companies, much as it has with major banks, in effect partially nationalizing the industry.

At the same time, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Congress should release the second $350-billion from the financial rescue fund that it approved in October to bail out huge financial institutions. Tapping the fund for the auto industry basically exhausts the first half of the $700-billion total, he said.

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