statism watch

Flashback: Ignatieff seeks Harper-like control of party message | Watchdog alarmed by Harper’s information clampdown | Comedian begins asking Harper question, cuffed by RCMP | Information lockdown: How Harper Controls the Spin | Parliament losing power, author says | Harper to create government-run media centre: report

Michael Geist, MichaelGeist.com
May 11, 2009

In the spring of 2007, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, the well-known broadcasting advocacy group, began to post videos and podcasts of Parliamentary committee proceedings on their website. When officials at the House of Commons caught wind of their activities, they promptly sent a cease and desist letter, demanding that the videos and podcasts be removed from the Internet. A lawyer for the House of Commons argued that posting excerpts from committee proceedings could be treated as “contempt of Parliament.” The group responded that they did not want to remove the videos, but would be willing to follow a reasonable procedure to obtain the necessary permissions. That response did not sit well with the Chairs of the Finance and Canadian Heritage Standing Committees, who upon learning that the group was offering webcasts and downloads of their proceedings, asked the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (SCPHA) to examine the issue to prevent further infringement.

My weekly technology column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that the idea that videos of committee hearings constitute proprietary content that when used without permission raise the potential for allegations of contempt of Parliament or copyright infringement will undoubtedly come as news to many Canadians. Using these excerpts in YouTube videos, webcasts, or podcasts has emerged as an important and powerful tool for business and consumer groups to educate the public on policy issues and legislative proposals. Yet House of Commons lawyers maintain that many of these activities violate the law and have sent notice and takedown demands to YouTube seeking the removal of videos that include House of Commons and committee proceedings. These include clips that involve satire and parody, since they are seen to “distort” the video itself.

(more…)

Flashback: US air strikes kill dozens of Afghan civilians | NATO denies air strike killed Afghan civilians | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | Don’t-ask-don’t-tell Policy: Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes

Noah Shachtman, Wired.com
May 11, 2009

Al Qaeda is so spooked by CIA drone attacks that Osama’s crew is staging spectacular bombings in Pakistan, in an attempt to get America to call off its unmanned attack fleet, former U.S. officials and counterterrror advisers say. And the CIA is apparently so spooked about the possibility of a withdrawal that they’re spilling details about their supposedly-secret drone strikes to the New York Times.

On April 19th, agency sources tell the paper, a CIA drone hit a truck parked inside an al Qaeda compound in Pakistan’s tribal province of South Waziristan. Packed with “high explosives, apparently to be used as a bomb,” the truck “erupted in a fireball” when it was struck. “A second, empty truck destroyed in the same attack may also have been there to be outfitted with explosives,” intelligence officials say. “In another significant attack, on April 29, missiles fired from a C.I.A. Predator killed Abu Sulayman al-Jazairi, an Algerian Qaeda planner who American intelligence officials say they believe helped train operatives for attacks in Europe and the United States.”

In other other words: Pay no attention to those reports of civilian casualties, like those reports of “25 bodies” in the latest unmanned attack. These drones are killing terrorists.

(more…)

Come one, come all – invest with us. But we still face ‘deteriorating conditions’. But it will be different this time. If George Soros says so, it must be okay. The doublespeak to be found below is pretty thick, so, proceed with caution.

Flashback: A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF | Harper Pledges to Double Funding to International Bank at Americas Summit | Which Banks Will Rule? | UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails new world order (again) | Wall Street’s Big Takeover

Brian Milner, The Globe and Mail
May 11, 2009

The global economy has stopped its steep slide and is on the verge of making the long, slow climb back toward stability, the world’s leading central bankers say.

It is the latest in a vote of confidence from key financial policy makers that aggressive government intervention is thawing the frozen credit markets and beginning to arrest the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. The economy, they say, is at a key turning point.

(more…)

The stench of death, bodies bloating in the sun in a government designated ’safe zone’ – this is the charnel endgame of apartheid, of the police state, of all our apathy – an efficient little genocide in a pen. Upset at the Tamil protests? Don’t worry, it will all be over soon.

Flashback: Tamil protesters blockade Gardiner expressway to highlight Sri Lankan plight | Cars moving, but Toronto Tamil protest questioned | UN satellite imagery attests to shelling of Tamil ’safe zone’ | Tamil civilians slaughtered as army shells ‘no-fire zone’ | Seventh Tamil suicide by self-immolation to protest Sri Lankan genocide | Sri Lankans protest genocide at Toronto’s Union Station

Gethin Chamberlain, Mark Tran, The Guardian
May 11, 2009

Doctor reports hundreds of bodies being brought to hospital as UN says feared bloodbath has become reality

A doctor working inside the no-fire zone in Sri Lanka today told the Guardian that more than 1,400 people were believed to have been killed in two days of air and artillery attacks.

Dr V Shanmugarajah said 381 bodies had been brought in to the temporary hospital inside the government safe zone yesterday, and another 55 today.

He warned that reports from survivors led him to believe that as many as 1,000 more people could have been killed.

Shanmugarajah, speaking from inside the no-fire zone, said a further 225 casualties had been received by the hospital during the day today.

He said shells were continuing to fall on the area in which civilians were sheltering. “Still the shelling continues and the fighting is going on,” he added.

(more…)

Flashback: Cars moving, but Toronto Tamil protest questioned | UN satellite imagery attests to shelling of Tamil ’safe zone’ | Tamil civilians slaughtered as army shells ‘no-fire zone’ | Seventh Tamil suicide by self-immolation to protest Sri Lankan genocide | Sri Lankans protest genocide at Toronto’s Union Station

CBC News
May 11, 2009

Thousands of Tamil Canadian protesters who blocked all lanes of a downtown Toronto highway for several hours Sunday evening began walking away from the area around midnight.

A spokesman for the protesters told TV station CP24 that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s deputy chief of staff has promised to bring up their concerns Monday in caucus about the civil war in their native Sri Lanka and the possibility of economic and diplomatic sanctions by Canada.

The demonstrators were happy with the response and said they’d leave the Gardiner Expressway and take their protest to the Ontario legislature at Queen’s Park, he said.

The eastbound and westbound lanes of the elevated expressway were completely blocked by people, including mothers with children, who marched up the ramps at Spadina Avenue about 6:30 p.m. ET and on to the highway that runs across the south end of the city.

(more…)

These crooked tactics have been completely exposed, time after time after time. Maybe it’s time for the police to serve and protect the people for a change.

Flashback: Amateur video blasts G20 death coverup | G20 protests: Riot police, or rioting police? | UK: Police warn of ’summer of rage’ due to recession | 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” | OPP officer posed as journalist during 2007 Mohawk protest | Police inspector posed as militant protester | Quebec police admit agents posed as protesters

Jamie Doward, Mark Townsend, The Observer
May 11, 2009

MP demands inquiry into Met tactics at demo

An MP who was involved in last month’s G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds.

Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.

Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.

(more…)