statism watch

The US cybersecurity chief quit over this… it’s pretty bad when Homeland Security officials resign over the Department of Defence and the NSA being given too much domestic power.

Flashback: Munk Centre researchers discover botnet, call for international cyberspace ‘legal regime’ | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | Do We Need a New Internet? | Defense Contractors See $$$ in Cyber Security | John Manley, committed globalist, to chair Munk Centre’s School of International Studies | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Law Professor tells tech conference: plans to shut down Internet already on deck

Dan Goodin, The Register
April 1, 2009

US senators have drafted legislation that would give the federal government unprecedented authority over the nation’s critical infrastructure, including the power to shut down or limit traffic on private networks during emergencies.

The bill would also establish a broad set of cybersecurity standards that would be imposed on the government and the private sector, including companies that provide software, IT work or other services to networks that are deemed to be critical infrastructure. It would also mandate licenses for all individuals administering to strategically important networks.

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Flashback: Did Pharma Giant with Gardasil HPV Patents Buy Nobel Prize? | Political Intrigue in Merck’s Push for Mandatory HPV Vaccinations

Milanda Rout, The Australian
April 1, 2009

AN international drug company made a hit list of doctors who had to be “neutralised” or discredited because they criticised the anti-arthritis drug the pharmaceutical giant produced.

Staff at US company Merck &Co emailed each other about the list of doctors – mainly researchers and academics – who had been negative about the drug Vioxx or Merck and a recommended course of action.

The email, which came out in the Federal Court in Melbourne yesterday as part of a class action against the drug company, included the words “neutralise”, “neutralised” or “discredit” against some of the doctors’ names.

It is also alleged the company used intimidation tactics against critical researchers, including dropping hints it would stop funding to institutions and claims it interfered with academic appointments.

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Flashback: Rioters Were Paid To Provoke the Police in Bulgaria | Greek Cops Caught on Video Posing as Anarchists | ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest | Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The Shit Out Of Protesters” | Massachusetts Police Get Black Uniforms to Instill Sense of ‘Fear’ | Police inspector posed as militant protester | Quebec police admit agents posed as protesters | Canadians who trust our secret police should think again

George Monbiot, Monbiot.com
April 1, 2009

At the G20 protests in London only one group appears to be looking for violent confrontation – and it’s not the protesters

The trouble-makers are out in force again. Dressed in black, their faces partly obscured, some of them appear to be interested only in violent confrontation. It’s almost as if they are deliberately raising the temperature, pushing and pushing until a fight kicks off. But this isn’t some disorganised rabble: these people were bussed in and are plainly acting in concert. There’s another dead giveaway. They are all wearing the same slogan: Police.

The police have been talking up violence at the G20 protests for weeks. They briefed journalists and companies in the City of London about the evil designs of the climate campaigners intending to demonstrate there, but refused to let the campaigners attend the briefings and put their own side of the story. They also rebuffed the campaigners when they sought to explain to the police what they wanted to do.

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Truncheoning sit-down protesters… real nice. Naturally, the protesters will be placed on a terror watch list. Enjoy your new freedom.

Flashback: UK media primes London for violence in advance of G20 summit | UK police maintain databank on thousands of protesters | British Secret Service, Army Alert on Bank Riots

Sam Jones, Jenny Percival and Paul Lewis, The Guardian
April 1, 2009

Police move on peaceful demonstrators, thousands of protesters held in containment pens, RBS branch stormed as bloody skirmishes erupt

The G20 protests in central London turned violent today ahead of tomorrow’s summit, with a band of demonstrators close to the Bank of England storming a Royal Bank of Scotland branch, and baton-wielding police charging a sit-down protest by students.

Much of the protesting, from an estimated 4,000 people in the financial centre of the capital, was peaceful, but some bloody skirmishes broke out as police tried to keep thousands of people in containment pens surrounding the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street.

A minority of demonstrators seemed determined to cause damage, seeking confrontation as they surged towards police lines. Late tonight, much of the City remained cordoned off.

By about 8pm, running battles between riot police and demonstrators were taking place across London Bridge. Bottles, sticks and bricks were thrown.

Nearer the heart of the City, police moved in to break up a ‘climate camp’ on Bishopsgate, with baton-wielding officers said to be pushing through a line of tents and bicycles. At least five armoured police vehicles were also at the scene.

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Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
April 1, 2009

Bilderberg elitist Zoellick calls for IMF, WTO & World Bank to regulate national policy

World Bank President and Bilderberg elitist Robert Zoellick openly admitted the plan to eliminate national sovereignty and impose a global government during a speech on the eve of the G20 summit.

Speaking about the agenda to increase not just funding but power for international organizations on the back of the financial crisis, Zoellick stated, “If leaders are serious about creating new global responsibilities or governance, let them start by modernising multilateralism to empower the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank Group to monitor national policies.”

In other words, give global institutions the power to regulate national policy as part of the creation of global government.

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Way to pass the ball, Harper. This shot would have been better taken at midnight in a contrasty London fog at the centre of the bridge, the lights of London twinkling below through the mist. “Pssst… Did you bring the money?” Harper gives this issue ‘right cover’ in Canada… Obama is equally well giving it ‘left cover’ in the US. Is socialization of the banking establishment by the banking establishment a bipartisan cause? It would seem so.

Brian Laghi, The Globe and Mail
April 1, 2009

LONDON — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called on leaders of the world’s largest economic powers to err on the side of more intervention rather than less to pull out of the current crisis.

“I think, if anything, leaders should overact rather than underact at this point,” Mr. Harper said in an interview today with CNN as he prepared for a crucial meeting of G20 leaders. “I think there would be a risk of underacting. Let’s assume we need dramatic action. Let’s do it.”

It was unclear, however, what the PM meant by taking dramatic action. Although he has supported the call by U.S. President Barack Obama for more stimulus, his government has said it has already done its share and called on other nations to live up to their own obligations made last November at a previous meeting.

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Squint a little and ‘bold leadership moves’ look a lot like institutionalized influence peddling and centralization of power in an industry nationalized long ago – so it’s a natural for bailout cash. What will be interesting to watch is the influence of bailout cash on any private industries that receive it. (Watch where those contracts go carefully). GM already stands on the verge of nationalization.

Jeff Gray, The Globe and Mail
April 1, 2009

TORONTO — Nothing says “I’m sorry” like $9-billion.

Two days after Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty kicked municipal politicians, including Toronto Mayor David Miller and York Region chairman Bill Fisch, off his Toronto-area transportation body, he showed up with a massive cheque.

At a new bus garage in Vaughan, Ont., on Wednesday, with both municipal leaders looking on, the Premier announced billions – originally pledged before the 2007 election – for the two politicians’ key public-transit projects, which they say will transform the Toronto area.

For Mr. Miller, the highlight is a $4.6-billion, 31-kilometre, partially tunnelled light-rail line across Eglinton Avenue from Kennedy subway station to Pearson airport, the central component of his Transit City light-rail plan. In all, Toronto was promised $7.2-billion, with the province paying the entire capital costs of the projects.

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A fascinating court duel: Mulroney (outed as a Thyssen lobbyist) and his network of suspect friends looks like it’s on the ropes… and Schreiber telegraphs another lunge, due on April 14th. But seriously – this inquiry is doomed to be a whitewash, look at how it’s been neutered: No legal authority, and certain areas of inquiry are forbidden. So how do we learn the truth?

Flashback: Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry steers clear of ‘Airbus affair’ on first day | Mulroney-Schreiber probe has no jurisdiction to find liability | Mulroney confidant knew about Airbus commissions: CBC News investigation | The Mulroney Affair: Why politicians seek out the rich | The Fifth Estate: Money, Truth, and Spin

CBC News
April 1, 2009

Schreiber to testify when probe resumes April 14

The widow of one of Brian Mulroney’s confidants told a federal inquiry Tuesday that a Swiss bank account set up by her husband in 1986 was meant for her, not for the former prime minister, as Karlheinz Schreiber’s accountant has said.

Beth Moores, the widow of former Newfoundland premier Frank Moores, spoke to the inquiry probing the business dealings between Schreiber, a German-Canadian businessman and Mulroney.

Frank Moores, who was named by Mulroney to the Air Canada board of directors in March 1985, had to step down six months later after reports surfaced that his lobbying firm — GCI International — was working for two of Air Canada’s rival airlines. Moores was also lobbying for Airbus at the time.

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Well, there goes another rationalization for the war in Afghanistan…

Alexander Panetta, Canadian Press

April 1, 2009

Tories in Ottawa contact Karzai officials over legislation allegedly lax on human rights

OTTAWA – Canadian officials contacted the Afghan government yesterday to express concern about new legislation that would reportedly allow men to rape their wives.

The Canadian government reacted with outrage following reports that the Karzai administration has approved a wide-ranging family law for the country’s Shia minority.

The legislation is believed to contain articles that make it illegal for Shia women to refuse their husbands sex, leave the house without permission, or have custody of children, the London-based newspaper The Guardian reported yesterday.

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This is April Fools, right? That’s perhaps the most credible explanation why the article below seeks to destroy rights (under cover of defending them), by equating them with collective attributes of groups rather than with the shared attributes of every individual. This journal can scarce see another reason The Guardian chose to publish this. The fact of the terrible lack of respect and implementation of these rights does not make them any less real: this this reason, it is difficult to regard the following subjectivist screed as a serious study in political philosophy. Equating the gropings of the enlightenment philosophers towards an idea of human rights with any of the roots of Nazism is intellectually perverse. It was precisely the German philosophers, including Hegel, that lead the world into the modern era that adopted your thesis, Douzinas: that rights, being relative, must be the product of the collective, since the individual is ephemeral.

“A single person, I need hardly say, is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. Hence if the state claims life, the individual must surrender it.” – GW Hegel

Interested in these issues? Why not come debate them in our forums?

Costas Douzinas, The Guardian
April 1, 2009

Those of the wrong class, gender, colour or sexuality have always been left outside locally defined ‘humanity’ – where does this leave a bill of rights?

A number of posts responding to this series have argued that human rights are self-evident, that they are expressions of the good society or, more extravagantly, that they are natural properties attaching to people like arms or legs. Common to these arguments is the assertion that rights belong to humans on account of their humanity and not of a narrower membership such as nation or state. This is a comforting thought. But when we examine it closer, it appears to be one of these paradoxical half-truths that litter our understanding of human rights.

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