statism watch

A sidebar, a blurb… don’t expect to see much more coverage of this meeting in the mainstream media until its decisions are a done deal. This site will, however, endeavour to ferret out as much as can be found in terms of backstory, context, and finally pronouncements at this continental summit. Let’s be clear – any treaty ought to be put to referendum, if indeed any treaties other than to declare war or peace are legitimate between states. Our elected representatives are elected to govern the country, not sell it out. This journal supposes that if the Canadian public is too stupid to protect its interests in a public referendum, that’s its own lookout – but at least the demands of electoral representation would have been served.

Flashback: Obama should rename the SPP, set up two speeds on integration with Canada and Mexico, says new report | How to fix the mess at the Canada-U.S. border | Happy North America Day?

CBC News
July 17, 2009

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will meet with the leaders of the United States and Mexico next month in Guadalajara.

White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs on Friday confirmed Harper, U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon will attend the North American Leaders Summit Aug. 9-10.

Issues on the agenda will include the economy, energy, the environment, swine flu and other “shared interests,” said Gibb.

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RED ALERT – now charter injunctions against the violations of your civil liberties are optional, if it can be shown they were only violated a little bit. This sort of pragmatic, ‘whatever works’ approach to the principles underpinning a free society is in actual fact the death of your inalienable rights, of principle, and of what charter protections we had in Canada. You either have a right to be protected from search and seizure in the absence of any reasonable suspicion that you have broken the law, or you don’t: an interpreted right is not an absolute right, there is no middle ground, no ‘balanced approach’ when it comes to this. It will only embolden further testing of the threshold: ‘accidental’ roadside searches, detentions for questioning, and bag searches under ’special circumstances’ like Canada Day (ironic). Finally, in a masterstroke of doublethink, the judgement is simultaneously hailed as a victory for charter rights at the end of the article since it dispenses with ‘categorical’ injunctions. The fact remains that supposedly ‘minor’ violations of your charter rights, including not informing you of them, are now allowed. (Note that the US, too, just weakened a suspect’s right to an attorney during questioning. Coincidence?)

Flashback: Toronto TAVIS special police corps demanding ID on city streets | RCMP pipeline bomber hunt draws harassment compliants, comparisons to secret police | 50 Toronto high schools to have armed police presence | Illegal Victoria Transit bag searches reinstated under new policy for Canada Day | Toronto police board challenges chief on CCTV deterrence, demands ‘phase-in’ | Entrapment becoming standard procedure for police | UK Big Brother police to get ‘war-time’ power to demand ID in the street | Papers Please: UK cops stopping millions in streets

Kirk Makin, The Globe and Mail
July 17, 2009

In a quartet of cases it decides that evidence obtained by police in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be used to convict an accused, unless the violation is blatant

The Supreme Court delivered a mixed victory today in a landmark tussle pitting advocates for criminal rights against those who favour a law-and-order agenda. [Ed. Note: A ridiculous dichotomy. Respect for individual rights is respect for the basis of the law.]

It ruled in a quartet of cases that evidence obtained by police in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be used to convict the accused, unless the violation is blatant. The Court voted to permit the use of tainted evidence in most of the test cases, which ran the gamut from possession of a loaded gun, to cocaine trafficking, possession of stolen property, and impaired driving.

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Third time’s the charm? Before, the Conservatives did little more than crib from the American DMCA, or ‘Digital Millenium Copyright Act’, which might explain why Jim Prentice, then the Industry Minister, seemingly incapable of answering questions on the bill posed to him by the show Search Engine, hung up while on-air. We’ll soon find out what they have in store for us this time, but this journal suspects it will be our first peek at the content of the ACTA treaty – a secret international copyright treaty worked out behind closed doors between industry and government.

Update (2009/07/17): Tech Daily Dose also reported today that the latest round of ACTA talks, held over the past two days, has just wrapped up. Now, isn’t that the damndest thing? Participants, including Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States talked about ‘international cooperation’, public transparency, and agreed to release draft laws in their national jurisdictions prior to the next meeting. So there you have it.

Flashback: Time to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharing | Think tank plagiarizes, pulls report on Canadian piracy | Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets | Latest Round of Closed-Door ACTA Copyright Negotiations Wrap Up | Digital rights groups sue for access to secret ACTA treaty | Critics waging a cyber offensive to fight copyright changes | Canadian Industry Minister lies about Canadian DMCA on national radio, then hangs up | The Canadian DMCA: Check the Fine Print | Government ready to drop copyright bomb | Transparency needed on ACTA | Revamped copyright law targets electronic devices | New Attempt to Align Canada’s Copyright Act with USA Coming Soon | Canadian DMCA To Be Introduced Tomorrow Morning?

CBC News
July 17, 2009

Heritage Minister James Moore announced the location of the first public forum on copyright through the social messaging service Twitter, prompting ’suspicion’ from one expert on intellectual property. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The federal government will begin consulting Canadians on the issue of copyright reform next week, starting Monday in Vancouver.

The consultation, scheduled to run from Monday until Sept. 13, will give Canadians a chance to have their voices heard through roundtable discussions in locations across the country, a webcast townhall and an online discussion forum.

Industry Minister Tony Clement and Heritage Minister James Moore will officially launch the public consultations at a news conference at the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library on Monday at 12:45 p.m. PT, according to a release issued Friday afternoon.

Further details of the consultation process are not yet known, although there is also expected to be a roundtable meeting in Calgary on Tuesday.

The Conservatives’ previous copyright-reform legislation, Bill C-61, died on the order paper last year when the federal election was called. But the Conservative government has been firm that it would reintroduce the legislation to amend Canada’s copyright laws in order to satisfy the country’s obligations to the World Intellectual Property Organization, which it signed on to in 1997.

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Related: Record quarterly profits and bonuses: Goldman Sachs makes out like a bandit on taxpayer’s dime | Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine | Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress | Wall Street’s Big Takeover | Congress Accuses Federal Reserve Bagman Of Bailout “Bait and Switch” During Angry Hearing | Morgan Chase Exec Brags Bailout Is for Takeovers, Restructuring, Not Lending | Behind the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power | Representatives Were Threatened With Martial Law In America Over Bailout Bill | Why Paulson’s Plan is a Fraud | Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System

Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
July 17, 2009

More information concerning ex-Goldman Sachs CEO’s blackmail of Congress revealed

More information has come to light regarding former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s threats to Congress last fall that martial law would ensue unless they passed the bailout bill.

During Paulson’s first appearance on Capitol Hill since he left office yesterday, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs said he told Congress privately that if they rejected the bailout bill another great depression would ensue, that there would be a breakdown in law and order as well as food riots and civil unrest, adding that he couldn’t reveal such things publicly for fear that the situation would “terrify the American people and lead to an even bigger problem”.

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Flashback: Latest TASER victim looked ’scared’ as officer approached with knife

Oliver Moore, Globe and Mail
July 17, 2009

Special Constable who wielded stun gun says Howard Hyde, who later died, must have said the words himself, although Hyde’s sister says it was not his voice on tape

The police officer who tasered Howard Hyde denied uttering a profane threat that the prisoner would be “doing the … dance next,” testifying yesterday that the comment must have come from the mentally ill man himself.

Only three people were in the room – two officers and Mr. Hyde, who was being booked in late November of 2007 – when the microphone on a nearby surveillance camera recorded the contentious words.

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They subjected Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to hardcore torture for so long, he even ‘confessed’ to plotting to bomb buildings that hadn’t even been built yet. So these particular families (as opposed to, say, those pressing for a new 9/11 investigation) probably don’t have much to worry about – we can expect these show trials to drag on for a very long time.

Flashback: Guantanamo’s closure window dressing – overseas CIA ‘black sites’ to stay | CIA waterboarded 2 al-Qaida suspects 266 times | Document lays bare CIA torture techniques | Obama administration: Guantanamo detainees have ‘no constitutional rights’ | Obama shuts network of CIA ‘ghost prisons’ | Obama requests Guantánamo Bay tribunals suspension | Sept. 11 suspects want to “confess” | Guantanamo 9/11 suspects on trial | 9/11 widows call for new investigation after revelations of White House, commission ties

Michelle Shepherd, Toronto Star
July 17, 2009

Relatives attending hearing for 5 terror suspects urge Obama not to close Guantanamo prison

GUANTANAMO BAY, cuba–The first military commission under the Obama administration for the five alleged 9/11 conspirators began with a boycott, was beset by delays, and ended with a tossed paper airplane passed from one defendant to his co-accused.

The hearing yesterday had little legal impact since the case is essentially in limbo until a U.S. Justice Department task force decides where detainees will be tried once this prison closes in January.

But as U.S. President Barack Obama confronts criticism that he moved too swiftly in vowing to shut Guantanamo, what happens here could matter politically.

The nine relatives of 9/11 victims the Pentagon brought to witness the hearing say they want Obama to reverse his decision and they plan to loudly take their message home.

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