statism watch

Flashback: MPAA Says Critics of Secret Copyright Treaty Hate Hollywood | ACTA Threatens Made-in-Canada Copyright Policy | More ACTA Details Leak: It’s An Entertainment Industry Wishlist | Six Days Left: Canadian Net Users Caught As Copyright Consultation Nears Conclusion | MP Charlie Angus on copyright: industry lobby pulling for ‘dead business model’ | Ottawa denies altering public’s ECopyright Consultation submissions | Security guards stop MPs, students from distributing fair use flyers at Toronto copyright townhall | Can The Public Be Heard On Copyright Issues? | Copyright Consultation Launches: Time For Canadians To Speak Out | Third stab at copyright law ‘reform’ to kick off with consultations | 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?

Michael Geist, MichaelGeist.ca
November 30, 2009

The European Commission analysis of ACTA’s Internet chapter has leaked, indicating that the U.S. is seeking to push laws that extend beyond the WIPO Internet treaties and beyond current European Union law (the EC posted the existence of the document last week but refused to make it publicly available). The document contains detailed comments on the U.S. proposal, confirming the U.S. desire to promote a three-strikes and you’re out policy, a Global DMCA, harmonized contributory copyright infringement rules, and the establishment of an international notice-and-takedown policy.

(more…)

Flashback: U.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets | Report: Massive FBI database set to quadruple in size | EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” | US Police to get access to classified military intelligence | Obama Backs Extending Patriot Act Spy Provisions | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | US Federal Judge Tosses Telecom Spy Suits | Showdown in NSA Wiretap Case: Judge Threatens Sanctions Against Justice Department | NSA Surveillance Exploding, Americans Wiretapped Beyond Congressional Limits | Put NSA in Charge of Cyber Security, Or the Power Grid Gets It | 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 | US military targets social nets | ‘Einstein’ replaces ‘Big Brother’ in Internet surveillance | UK Security services want personal data from sites like Facebook | Secret EU security draft risks uproar with call to pool policing and give US personal data | Vision 2015: Consolidation of U.S. Intelligence Into Global Intel Network | 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 | Canada working with FBI on ’server in the sky’ | Listening in on the enemy: Canada’s master eavesdroppers

Elizabeth Gorman, ABC News
November 30, 2009

House Defies White House and Renews Two of Three Expiring Provisions

Rushed into law by Congress just weeks after Sept. 11, 2001 three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act granting officials far-reaching surveillance and seizure powers in the name of national security, are due to expire this New Year’s Eve.

Two differing bills passed by the House and Senate judiciary committees in recent weeks will have to be reconciled in Congress, but only when the Senate isn’t backlogged by health care, Democratic aides told ABC News.

“This critical legislation protects our national security, as well as our civil liberties, and the clock is ticking,” said Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., an author of President Bush’s 2001 Patriot Act and former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee during the Bush administration.

Sensenbrenner urged the House and Senate to act quickly in reauthorizing the provisions before they expire at the end of this year.

That timing is unclear. With so few weeks left in the year and the health care debate just beginning in the Senate, it’s possible that Congress will first vote for a temporary extension to prevent certain Patriot Act authorities from sunsetting, according to an aide.

With full support from the Obama administration, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill last month reauthorizing the law that has in recent years sparked much controversy over rights to privacy protected under the Constitution, with some minor tweaks.

(more…)

The expansion of the APEC summit’s mandate to include regional economic integration as a part of its agenda fits within a broad international pattern. Political and economic pressures both legitimate and contrived have led to the rise of trans-national ‘unions’ that promise positive changes driven by economies of scale, but often deliver degraded national sovereignty and a race to the bottom as existing safety and trade standards are ‘harmonized’. Other current movements towards regional or continental integration include the former Security and Prosperity Partnership (now rebranded the ‘North American Leader’s Summit‘), the African Union, the South American Union, and the European Union. Those readers interested in pursuing the potential motivations and deep history of this drive towards regional economic councils are referred to the tripartite balance of warring powers in George Orwell’s 1984, Allied plans for a New World Moral Order to follow the end of WW2 (note the inclusion of Canada in the USA), the aims of the National Socialists in creating a european union, the Fabian drive to globalization as typified by HG Well’s books The Open Conspiracy and The New World Order, Marx and the goals of the Third international, etc. Broad social ideologies of this sort may persist across generations as their activist adherents move into establishment circles and influence future decision makers. But they all seem to neglect one simple fact of human nature – that rationalized national borders represent natural firewalls to the human corruption and tyranny that takes root when institutions are granted absolute power.

Flashback: Australian PM Wants an Asian Union

Dana Gabriel, NAUResistance.org, StatismWatch Contributing Writer
November 30, 2009

Although some may have viewed President Barack Obama’s recent Asian trip as uneventful and perhaps unsuccessful, he appears to have recommitted to the principles of globalization as the answer to the world’s economic woes. Obama declared his intentions for the U.S. to be fully engaged in Asia economically, politically, and in areas of security. He announced that America would join negotiations for a Trans-Pacific deal. This could be used as an opportunity for the U.S. to reassert its leadership in regards to trade initiatives and might also serve as a stepping stone for a larger free trade agreement.

The recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit was held in Singapore and marked its 20th anniversary. It brought together world leaders, foreign, finance and trade ministers, along with other delegates from its 21 member nations. APEC was founded to promote greater trade and integration in the region, but its scope has expanded to include environmental, climate change, energy, as well as other issues. In a Statement by APEC Leaders, they agreed to a new growth paradigm for the Asia-Pacific region, endorsed the goals of the G20 Framework and rejected protectionism. The Leaders, “launched a pathfinder initiative led by Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United States to practice self-certification of origin so that businesses can better take advantage of free trade agreements in the region.” This is in an effort to cut costs for exporters and further boost trade. APEC Leaders also agreed to, “continue to explore building blocks towards a possible Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific in the future.”

(more…)

The story isn’t just Dubai. The story is tottering commercial real estate worldwide.

Flashback: Dubai’s ‘big pyramid scheme’ grounded by debt load | A world awash in debt | Ottawa on track for largest-ever deficit | U.S. markets fall on Dubai crisis | 1 in 10 Americans delinquent in paying mortgage | Personal bankruptcies still soaring | Credit card debt balloons | US credit shrinks at Great Depression rate prompting fears of double-dip recession | Canada’s $1-trillion debt baby | Credit delinquencies up 24% in June | Bank of Canada declares recession over | Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working | More Canadians in arrears on credit payments | Canadian households $1.3-trillion in debt | Credit card changes benefit families, Flaherty says | Credit companies seek to avoid regulation, create global debit system | Canadian credit card delinquencies rising | All maxed out? Budget measures would improve credit access | Now the consumer crunch: falling credit limits, rising interest rates | Bank of Canada adds $8B to credit markets | $25B credit backstop for banks ‘not a bailout’: Harper

John Irish and Tamara Walid, Reuters
November 30, 2009

UAE provides liquidity window to banks in Dubai; Abu Dhabi to selectively support Dubai firms

United Arab Emirates stocks dived on Monday as investors waited for clarity on Dubai’s plan to delay repaying billions of dollars in debt and government word on how it would tackle a crisis that has rattled global markets.

Dubai raised fears of a second bout of financial turmoil last week when it asked for a six-month repayment freeze on debt issued by state conglomerate Dubai World and its unit Nakheel, developer of three palm-shaped islands.

But global stocks steadied on Monday after the UAE central bank promised additional liquidity to local banks and an official in Dubai’s oil-exporting neighbour Abu Dhabi said it would offer selective support to Dubai firms.

“Investors are likely to hold on to their shares after a sharp sale last week as worries over the ripple-effect of Dubai’s debt eased over the weekend,” said Eddy Chen, a vice president at National Investment Trust Co Ltd in Taiwan.

“There’s a gradual realization that Dubai was an exceptional case and does not reflect the global economic situation.”

(more…)

So much for MacKay’s latest excuses.

Flashback: Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

Richard J Brennan, Toronto Star
November 30, 2009

Evidence in 2008 court document indicates that allegations were simply passed on to Afghans

OTTAWA–Claims by senior Conservatives that Canadian officials investigate credible claims of torture in Afghan jails are called into question by court testimony last year, documents obtained by the Star show.

Kerry Buck, former director general of the Afghanistan Task Force, testified Canadian officials in Afghanistan don’t investigate the credibility of torture allegations involving detainees handed over by Canada, but simply pass along the claims to the Afghan government.

“It is not our role to determine the credibility of the allegations, to determine the veracity of the allegations. We don’t investigate those allegations. We record them,” Buck stated in a January 2008 court document.

Buck, now assistant deputy minister, Foreign Affairs and International Trade programs and departmental security, was cross-examined Jan. 21, 2008, in the lead-up to an unsuccessful legal challenge by Amnesty International Canada and British Columbia Civil Liberties Association to stop the transfer of detainees for fear of torture.

Buck’s testimony came eight months after Canada signed a new agreement on detainee transfers in May 2007.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay has said that prior to May 2007, when the new agreement was written, there was no valid system of investigation and follow-up.

But MacKay has said that situation changed when the 2007 agreement was enacted, allowing Canadians to inspect prisons and interview detainees in private.

(more…)

‘It’s for the children‘ often becomes a convenient pretext for the dissolution of civil liberties. (A quick and by no means exhaustive list of examples: here, here, here, and here) Who would argue with a bill that supposedly protects children? Michael Geist, Ottawa University professor, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, online rights advocate and the Toronto Star’s internet law columnist has the requisite courage to point out the perils here: “This bill marks the second piece of legislation this year that opens the door to far greater ISP policing and monitoring of their networks. ISPs are quietly being deputized as law enforcement assistants, with new requirements to install surveillance capabilities and provide information on their subscribers and their activities.” For more on Internet, copyright, and civil rights, visit Michael Geist’s website.

Flashback: UK Internet surveillance plan to go ahead | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | Case for Internet spying not closed | Planned Internet, wireless surveillance laws worry watchdogs | UK ISPs condemn Internet surveillance plans | UK to found new ‘cyber-security’ units attached to national eavesdropping centre | ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government Regulation & Control Of Our Lives | Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate | EU wants ‘Internet G12′ to govern cyberspace | UK Home Secretary has secret plan to surveil, ‘Master the Internet’ | 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 | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Sweden approves wiretapping law | Law Professor tells tech conference: plans to shut down Internet already on deck

Michael Geist, Toronto Star
November 30, 2009

Last week federal Justice Minister Robert Nicholson introduced new legislation that, if enacted, will establish mandatory disclosure requirements for Internet providers to report child pornography websites or subscribers they believe are using their service to violate child pornography laws.

Bill C-58 shares similarities with several provincial laws, including one enacted last year in Ontario. It contains tough penalties such as fines or imprisonment for failure to report, as well as requirements to preserve evidentiary computer data for several weeks. Internet providers also are prohibited from disclosing the disclosure to the suspected individual or website.

The bill extends beyond just Internet service providers by including those who provide Internet access, hosting, or email services.

In other words, services such as Google, Hotmail and Facebook are all covered.

While few will criticize a bill targeting child pornography – everyone agrees that it is abhorrent and we need to ensure that we have laws to deal with the problem – the bill still gives pause, for two reasons.

(more…)

Want evidence of the encroaching high-tech international control grid? Look no further than the promotion of RFID and biometric ‘enhanced’ national ID cards in the USA, India, the UK – and Canada. In the UK, your fingerprints are on the card. You fingerprint criminals, not free citizens. Here’s a telling quote:“Once you are on the database, you will be obliged to update Whitehall’s register on you for the rest of your life.”

Flashback: UK Government plans to link criminal records to ID cards | UK national ID card cloned in 12 minutes | Alberta Hutterites need enhanced driver’s licence photos: top court | US: REALID tracking chip ID card resurrected by PASS initiative | India to issue all 1.2 billion citizens with biometric ID cards | BC Bars swipe patron IDs, collect data | UK: Passport details to be kept on ID register despite card U-turn | Incoming CSIS chief to seek biometric data at border | Ontario’s high-tech driver’s licences pose privacy risk: watchdog | Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street, vendors say face scanning next

Press Association
November 30, 2009

Identity cards will be available to people living in Manchester from today.

The scheme’s launch was overshadowed by the revelation that the cards are only available to people who already have a passport or whose passport expired this year.

Anyone else wanting a £30 card will first have to sign up for a passport at a cost of £77.50.

Phil Booth, from the campaign group NO2ID, said: “The government claims that ID cards are a handy alternative to a passport are bogus.

“You have to have one already, so you will pay another £30 and set yourself up for a lifetime of fees, penalties and compliance.

“Once you are on the database, you will be obliged to update Whitehall’s register on you for the rest of your life.”

(more…)

This is unfortunate, and the impression is certainly received that the destruction of raw data may have been a deliberate act given the revelations of leaked computer programs designed to manipulate this data to obscure results the CRU did not expect or wish to see. Even though space considerations might have prevented the climate lab from holding on to warehoused magnetic tape back in the 1980s, could that raw data not have been preserved in tabular form on file or in some collated digital archive? (They had computers back then too…)

Flashback: Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation | Obama’s ‘Science Czar’ John Holdren Friend of Climate Deception Lab | “Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists | Top Climatology Lab Hacked, E-Mails Reveal Biased Science | IPCC Crushes Scientific Objectivity, 91-0 | IPCC case for global warming melts on multiple fronts | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | IPCC caught with false figures, doubt cast on accuracy of global temperature record

Jonathan Leake, The Sunday Times
November 29, 2009

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

(more…)

Flashback: A world awash in debt | Ottawa on track for largest-ever deficit | U.S. markets fall on Dubai crisis | 1 in 10 Americans delinquent in paying mortgage | Personal bankruptcies still soaring | Credit card debt balloons | US credit shrinks at Great Depression rate prompting fears of double-dip recession | Canada’s $1-trillion debt baby | Credit delinquencies up 24% in June | Bank of Canada declares recession over | Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working | More Canadians in arrears on credit payments | Canadian households $1.3-trillion in debt | Credit card changes benefit families, Flaherty says | Credit companies seek to avoid regulation, create global debit system | Canadian credit card delinquencies rising | All maxed out? Budget measures would improve credit access | Now the consumer crunch: falling credit limits, rising interest rates | Bank of Canada adds $8B to credit markets | $25B credit backstop for banks ‘not a bailout’: Harper

Patrick Martin, The Globe and Mail
November 29, 2009

The tough economic times ahead may be just what this once-booming emirate needs

Readers will know this is hardly a new revelation. Kerry and the Foreign Relations Committee – essentially the US Senate’s franchise of the Council on Foreign Relations – are putting this out now to justify Obama’s latest troop increase and dangle the bogeyman in front of the American public yet again. But notice that the Associated Press leaves out the one minor little detail that American special forces were not allowed to advance on Bin Laden’s supposed position. Missed chance? Try, instead, that the commandos were yanked from the field. That comes straight from the commander of the mission. So the spin and manipulation continues, as expected.

Flashback: Another dubious Bin Laden tape: Obama ‘powerless’ in Afghanistan | Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years – and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror? | A Sibel Edmonds Bombshell – Bin Laden Worked for U.S. Until 9/11 | CIA: Bin Laden still in Pakistan | Delta Force Officer: We Weren’t Allowed to Kill Osama Bin Laden | Swiss scientists 95% sure that Bin Laden recording was fake

Calvin Woodward, Associated Press
November 29, 2009

Al-Qaeda leader was within reach of American troops in Afghanistan just months after 9/11, U.S. senate report says