statism watch

The rationalizations for ‘pain compliance’ – that is, torture to get you to go along with police orders – will likely only ramp up from here. Need DNA for a case? How about doing some investigative police work, do y0ur job, and lifting it from a clean surface the same as one would a fingerprint. Torturing someone to get it is unconscionable. With these rules of engagement there will be no professionalism required of our ‘peace officers‘ – any thug with a TASER will be sufficiently qualified as a state enforcer.

Flashback: UK: Police ‘arrest innocent youths for their DNA’, officer claims | UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | UK: DNA details of 1.1m children on database | Controversial US measure would require DNA sampling at arrest | Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street, vendors say face scanning next | Tasers being used for pain compliance during interrogation, suit alleges | Family sues police claiming Taser raid on autistic son in own bedroom | India’s use of brain scans in courts dismays critics | Police to demand blood, urine at roadside stops | Newborn Blood-Storage Law Stirs Fears of DNA Warehouse | Man spends 18 hours in police cell and has his DNA taken for ‘dropping an apple core’ | U.S. to collect DNA at border | Widen DNA dragnet: Police Chief Blair

Thomas J. Prohaska, News Niagra
June 4, 2009

LOCKPORT — It is legally permissible for police to zap a suspect with a Taser to obtain a DNA sample, as long as it’s not done “maliciously, or to an excessive extent, or with resulting injury,” a county judge has ruled in the first case of its kind in New York State, and possibly the nation.

Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza decided that the DNA sample obtained Sept. 29 from Ryan S. Smith of Niagara Falls — which ties him to a shooting and a gas station robbery— is legally valid and can be used at his trial.

Smith was handcuffed and sitting on the floor of Niagara Falls Police Headquarters when he was zapped with the 50,000- volt electronic stun gun after he insisted he would not give a DNA sample.

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Diabolical is an understatement. This is criminal and disgusting. There aren’t even words to describe how fascist and evil this is. The UK is trying to get everyone in the country into a genetic tracking system. The number of potential ways this could lead to abuse in a totalitarian eugenics nightmare are staggering, and that’s the direction we’re headed unless it stops. Right. Now.

Flashback: UK: Fury as Commons denied vote on DNA database | UK: DNA details of 1.1m children on database | Controversial US measure would require DNA sampling at arrest | Police to demand blood, urine at roadside stops | Newborn Blood-Storage Law Stirs Fears of DNA Warehouse | Man spends 18 hours in police cell and has his DNA taken for ‘dropping an apple core’ | Widen DNA dragnet: Police Chief Blair

Murray Wardrop, The Telegraph
June 4, 2009

Hundreds of teenagers are having their DNA taken by police in case they commit crimes later in life, an officer has disclosed.

Officers are targeting children as young as 10 with the aim of placing their DNA profiles on the national database to improve their chances of solving crimes, it is claimed.

The alleged practice is also described as part of a “long-term crime prevention strategy” to dissuade youths from committing offences in the future.

The claim comes amid widespread criticism of government proposals to store DNA profiles of innocent people, including some children, on the database for up to 12 years.

Civil liberty campaigners have condemned the tactic of as “diabolical” and said it showed contempt for children’s freedom.

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They’re not sure if they’re missing gold?

Flashback: Bank crisis spawns new kind of gold rush | Gold Tops $1,000, First Time Since March as Recession Deepens | Gold surges past $900 mark | Manipulation Of Gold And Silver Prices Further Exposed | Analysts Predict Hyper-Inflation To Push Gold To $2000, Oil to $300 | Ottawa warns on gold-backed Web trades

Les Whittington, Toronto Star
June 4, 2009

OTTAWA–The hunt for the gold is on. The missing gold, that is.

The world-renowned Royal Canadian Mint has called investigators to look into what could be the theft of a significant quantity of gold, silver and other precious metals.

“We’re conducting a review. We’ve asked a third party to assist us with that and we should have the results within the next few weeks and by the end of month we’ll be making them public,” said mint spokeswoman Christine Aquino.

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That’s one little ray of sunshine this week, at least. That one ruling alone could have destroyed the free access to information we presently enjoy online. But this is only a five year reprieve.

Flashback: Time to regulate online content, cultural groups tell CRTC | CRTC Internet regulation proposals take shape | CRTC to consider Internet regulation, invites public comment | CRTC revisits Internet oversight

CBC News
June 4, 2009

Broadcasting content such as music and video distributed over the internet and mobile devices will continue to be exempt from regulation, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced Thursday.

The decision is a blow to artist groups who were hoping the CRTC would regulate internet content the same way it does television and radio to ensure Canadian content is represented.

It’s welcome news, however, to internet service providers, who bristled at the notion they might have to monitor the amount of Canadian content on the internet and were opposed to the suggestion that a levy might be imposed on them to go toward a Canadian content new media fund.

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Flashback: Committee calls on Cannon to let Abdelrazik appear in Ottawa | Canadians secretly interrogated Abdelrazik, papers show | Parade of excuses continues as Ottawa denies citizen’s repatriation | Supporters defy law, buy plane ticket for Montrealer stuck in Sudan | Ottawa balks at travel permit for man trapped in Sudan | CSIS faces review in Khadr case | Family of Canadian stranded by no-fly list to make public appeal

CBC News
June 4, 2009

Government left 47-year-old Montrealer a ‘prisoner in a foreign land,’ judge writes

The Federal Court of Canada on Thursday ordered the federal government to allow the return of a Montreal man stranded in Sudan for six years as an al-Qaeda suspect, ruling his charter rights have been breached.

Abousfian Abdelrazik, 47, was arrested and detained while visiting his mother in Sudan in 2003 and for the last year has been living in the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum.

Both the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service have cleared Abdelrazik of any terrorist connections, but the Conservative government refuses to issue him travel documents to return home because his name was added to a UN Security Council list banning travel for terrorist suspects.

His lawyers successfully argued the government has violated his right to mobility under Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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Somehow I don’t think we’ve heard the last of Mr. Emery and his crusade to decriminalize one of the drugs the state can’t control as readily as alcohol and tobacco.

Flashback: The Post editorial board: Emery should be a free man | Canada “Prince of Pot” reaches deal on U.S. charges

CBC News
June 4, 2009

No hope of avoiding extradition, plea deal made

Some objective coverage of the evil, evil hemp from unintentionally hilarious 1936 film ‘Reefer Madness‘. Compare with: ‘Hemp for Victory‘

Marijuana activist Marc Emery says he plans to drop his fight against extradition to the U.S. and plead guilty to one charge of drug distribution in a Seattle courtroom next month.

Emery’s extradition hearing in Vancouver was adjourned on Wednesday so his lawyer could negotiate a deal with the U.S. district attorney in which Emery could spend up to eight years in jail for one charge, while two other more serious charges are dropped, he said.

“I will be making a guilty plea to one count of marijuana distribution this summer, and then when I’m sentenced the U.S. district attorney is going to be asking for five to eight years in a federal U.S. penitentiary,” he told CBC News on Wednesday.

After the guilty plea, Emery expects he will be sentenced in August or September and is hoping he will eventually be transferred to a Canadian jail.

Joint U.S.-Canada bust

This is not the first time the marijuana activist has said his lawyers are cutting a deal with U.S. prosecutors. In July 2008, Emery said he had made a deal in which he would serve a minimum of five years in jail, but he later blamed Canadian authorities when the deal fell through.

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Flashback: Chair to have final say as residential schools commission jobs rewritten | Remaining 2 members resign from residential schools commission | Commission to Probe Graves at Native ‘Residential School’ Sites | Government to hold talks over future of residential-schools commission | Chairman quits troubled residential-school commission | Truth commission tied too closely to government: aboriginal groups | Canada hears of native abuse pain | Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed for the First Time; Independent Tribunal Established

CBC News
June 4, 2009

Justice Murray Sinclair, an aboriginal judge in Manitoba, is expected to be appointed the new chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for residential schools, according to a report.

Marie Wilson, a senior executive with the NWT workers compensation commission, and Wilton Littlechild, Alberta regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, are also expected to be appointed commissioners, the Globe and Mail reported Thursday.

Sinclair, Canada’s second aboriginal judge, became Manitoba’s first aboriginal associate chief justice in 1988.

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Flashback: Tiananmen Square: briefly, anything seemed possible | China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | Tibet’s best friend? China, of course | Monks taken for ‘re-education’ before Tibet uprising anniversary | Psychiatric treatment used to ’silence’ Chinese critics | Beijing peasants bullied, beaten off of family farms by state-developer blocs | Rounded up into torture camps: the ‘undesirables’ China doesn’t want you to see | Beijing Taxis Are Bugged ‘For Driver Safety’ | Journalists beaten for reporting on separatist attacks in China | Chinese citizens dutifully file protest applications in Beijing, suffer detention | Mass Arrests as Beijing Prepares for Olympics | China creates mobile execution vans, organ theft suspected

Bill Schiller, Toronto Star
June 4, 2009

BEIJING – At the south end of Tiananmen Square shortly after noon today, uniformed policemen grabbed a man brusquely by the arms and started dragging him off to a police cruiser.

“There must be some misunderstanding!” the man was yelling in Mandarin. “There’s no misunderstanding,” a policeman shouted back. “Get in the car!”

Suddenly about 20 men, who moments before had seemed like tourists, began converging on the scene. They were all packing walkie talkies: undercover policemen.

“But it’s a misunderstanding,” the man pleaded as more and more police closed in. “Can’t we just talk here?”

“We’re not talking about this in public,” the uniformed cop shouted. “Get in the car!”

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