statism watch

We already know it’s an electronic dragnet. And the push is on to expand it further, not only in the US but in Canada as well.

Flashback: Put NSA in Charge of Cyber Security, Or the Power Grid Gets It | Following Bush lead, Obama moves to block challenge to wiretapping program | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | New law to give police access to online exchanges | Whistleblower: NSA even collected credit card records | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Big brother to track all emails, internet history and telephone calls under UK plan | Bush approves surveillance bill | Sweden approves wiretapping law | Secretive Canadian spy agency to get $62-million HQ | Whistle-Blower: Feds Have a Backdoor Into Wireless Carrier — Congress Reacts

Eric Lichtblau, James Risen, NY Times
April 15, 2009

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.

The legal and operational problems surrounding the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees and a secret national security court, said the intelligence officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because N.S.A. activities are classified. Classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts.

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Evan Perez, Siobhan Gorman, Wall Street Journal
April 15, 2009

Top Officials at Odds Over Whether to Withhold Some Details on Interrogation Tactics

CIA Director Leon Panetta

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is leaning toward keeping secret some graphic details of tactics allowed in Central Intelligence Agency interrogations, despite a push by some top officials to make the information public, according to people familiar with the discussions.

These people cautioned that President Barack Obama is still reviewing internal arguments over the release of Justice Department memorandums related to CIA interrogations, and how much information will be made public is in flux.

Among the details in the still-classified memos is approval for a technique in which a prisoner’s head could be struck against a wall as long as the head was being held and the force of the blow was controlled by the interrogator, according to people familiar with the memos. Another approved tactic was waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

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Jurriaan Maessen, Infowars.com
April 15, 2009

For whoever may still doubt the fact that Barack Obama is a creature of Wall Street financiers and New World Order chieftains, another statement by one of the transnationalists has come to light that reaffirms this sad but undeniable reality.

In a meeting of the Counsel on Foreign Relations on June 18, 2008, current New Mexico Governor and former democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson has stated that Barack Obama was favoured for the American presidency by a majority of bankers at the Bilderberg-meeting near Chantilly, Virginia. Although Richardson himself didn’t attend the meeting that year, the revealing statement was apparently confided to him by attendee Marie-Josée Kravis, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, who did indeed participate in the elitist get-together in 2008.

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See the press release on Harper’s website here. Quote: “The CentrePort Canada initiative involves using the James Armstrong Richardson International Airport and surrounding land as a hub to import goods from Asia and Europe and then distributing those goods throughout North America by air, rail and road. The governments of Canada and Manitoba are jointly funding the next phase of this project, which involves building a high-speed transportation corridor.” Just another step on the treacherous road to continental integration and a North American Union on the European model. See also this journal’s coverage of the ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership’

Flashback: Ignatieff on Obama visit: Crisis an opportunity for continental, global integration | $12B for infrastructure forms key pillar of stimulus package | Architect of North American integration urges reboot | New bridge slated for Windsor-Detroit corridor: sources | Border ‘two-headed monster,’ industry minister says | “North American Parliament” Meets At Integration Forum | Continental Business Lobby Releases List of Priorities for Government to Address at SPP Talks | New Documents Reveal North American Union PR Campaign | North American Union plan headed to Congress in fall

Patrick White, The Globe and Mail
April 15, 2009

Area mayor questions wisdom of CentrePort plan in region frequently flooded

WINNIPEG — With long stretches of Manitoba’s roads and rails submerged beneath floodwaters that continue to baffle forecasters, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced his government’s support yesterday for the construction of a Winnipeg-based road and rail hub.

The federal and provincial governments will chip in more than $100-million each to build a four-lane expressway that would link CentrePort – a 20,000-acre manufacturing, warehousing and transportation depot slated for construction near the Winnipeg airport – with major rail and highway networks.

The announcement was made as flood-protection officials upgraded crest forecasts along the Red River to the third-highest levels in the past 100 years.

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Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com
April 15, 2009

Congressman takes on Obama’s claim that only solution to economic crisis is more government spending

Ron Paul has slammed Barack Obama’s claim that reckless government spending and taxation is the only way to alleviate the economic crisis by pointing out that the end of the great depression only came after taxes and spending were drastically cut.

Obama told a Georgetown University audience yesterday that critics were wrong to accuse the administration of spending with “reckless abandon,” claiming that the worst thing a government could do during a severe recession was to cut spending.

“History has shown repeatedly that when nations do not take early and aggressive action to get credit flowing again, they have crises that last years and years instead of months and months – years of low growth, years of low job creation, years of low investment, all of which cost these nations far more than a course of bold, upfront action,” claimed Obama.

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This particular trial – inquiry, rather – has all the makings of a national spectator sport. For the sake of perspective however, it is worth mentioning that this sort of thing goes on all the time. It might be too much to hope for, but an ideal outcome of the inquiry would be a raised awareness of this fact in Canada – and a call for greater transparency and accountability of our political leaders and their international connections. The damage done to the independence of civil institutions by conflict of interest and influence peddling is only amplified when one realizes that much of what we perceive as incoming Canadian law is actually promoted by transnational mechanisms – international conferences and treaty processes that are conducted above the heads of your elected MPs. Witness: ACTA, G20, DMCA, NAFTA, and so on, ad nauseum. These arrangements have as much or more to do with interpersonal and monetary entanglements as they do with the wishes of the electorate, who are allowed input to their political system only once every four years. It seems that is no longer enough. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilence.” – Thomas Jefferson

Flashback: Schreiber says he paid Mulroney because he’d need him ‘sooner or later’ | Moores linked to Airbus before Mulroney came to power, memo reveals | Schreiber Inquiry: Premier’s wife testifies bank account was to be hers, not Mulroney’s | 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

Harvey Cashore, CBC News
April 15, 2009

A page from Karlheinz Schreiber’s 1988 daily planner, made public on Tuesday by the Oliphant commission, contains an entry referring to then-German chancellor Helmut Kohl, then-prime minister Brian Mulroney and Airbus Industrie, ABI.

Schreiber completed the first day of a weeklong examination at the Oliphant inquiry on Monday, but has yet to be asked about a particular notation he made on May 25, 1988 — “Kohl-ABI-Brian.”

For years, the former prime minister has denied any involvement in Air Canada’s decision to purchase 34 Airbus aircraft in 1988. He received a $2.1 million settlement after his name was publicly mentioned in connection with a 1995 investigation into the sale.

The daily planner entry, in Schreiber’s handwriting, appears to suggest that the Airbus middleman believed that Kohl and Mulroney would be discussing Airbus.

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Flashback: Moores linked to Airbus before Mulroney came to power, memo reveals | Schreiber Inquiry: Premier’s wife testifies bank account was to be hers, not Mulroney’s | 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

Canadian Press
April 15, 2009

OTTAWA — Arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber says he gave Brian Mulroney a second cash payment of $100,000 in December 1993 because he thought he’d need his help “sooner or later.”

Mr. Schreiber said Mr. Mulroney still had powerful friends, even though the federal Conservatives had been crushed in the election a month earlier.

He said he felt Mr. Mulroney could still sway Liberals “behind the curtain, not on the outside” and could help with political connections in Quebec.

At the time, Mr. Schreiber was still promoting the establishment of a factory in Montreal to build light-armoured vehicles and believed Mr. Mulroney could help.

“I was convinced I would need him sooner or later,” he testified.

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Keeping a physical sample of DNA but deleting a data profile is like saying we’ll take your fingerprints off our file but we’re going to need your fingers.

James Sturcke, The Guardian
April 15, 2009

DNA scientist: drop innocent from database, father of genetic fingerprinting says thousands ‘branded as criminals’

The inventor of genetic fingerprinting, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, today warns that the government is putting at risk public support for the DNA national database by holding the genetic details of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

Jeffreys, whose pioneering discoveries revolutionised police investigation techniques, condemned the government for leaving innocent people “branded as criminals” by its insistence on keeping the details of everyone arrested, regardless of whether they are later convicted.

He said he was left “almost speechless” by reports that the government planned to respond to a recent European court ruling – that storing innocent people’s genetic details broke their right to privacy – by simply removing their profiles from the database but keeping the original DNA samples.

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