statism watch

TSA thugs – where do they find them all? There’s never been a better time to invest in jackboot futures.

Flashback: Border guards are now Olympic thought police – Amy Goodman detained | Privacy watchdog OKs ‘naked’ airport scanners | Laptops fair game for border searches | US Border Guards to Expand Use of X-Ray Body Scanners | Border guards resorting to force more often | Border agents handcuff, interrogate Winnipeg couple | Mohawk protesters block Ontario bridge over arming of border guards | Akwesasne natives protest armed border guards, border crossing closed in retaliation | New border rules create ‘invisible Berlin Wall’: mayor | New US border technology directed at insidious threat: Canadians | Clinton defends new border restrictions | Ontario’s high-tech driver’s licences pose privacy risk: watchdog | Moratorium sought on RFID driver’s licenses | ‘Say please’ at U. S. border nets pepper spray | Predator drones patrolling border irk Manitoba MLA | Surveillance on the Great Lakes: U.S. tightens security along border | RFID passport security defeated in minutes | U.S. border agents given power to seize travellers’ laptops, cellphones | American Border Officers Want to Fingerprint Canadians at SPP Bridge | U.S. to collect DNA at border | North American ID card in the works through SPP

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net
December 11, 2009

My friend, the wonderful sf writer Peter Watts was beaten without provocation and arrested by US border guards on Tuesday. I heard about it early Wednesday morning in London and called Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She worked her contacts to get in touch with civil rights lawyers in Michigan, and we mobilized with Caitlin Sweet (Peter’s partner) and David Nickle (Peter’s friend) and Peter was arraigned and bailed out later that day.

But now Peter faces a felony rap for “assaulting a federal officer” (Peter and the witness in the car say he didn’t do a thing, and I believe them). Defending this charge will cost a fortune, and an inadequate defense could cost Peter his home, his livelihood and his liberty.

Peter’s friends are raising money for his legal defense. I just sent him CAD$1,000, because this is absolutely my biggest nightmare: imprisoned in a foreign country for a trumped-up offense against untouchable border cops. I would want my friends to help me out if it ever happened to me.

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StatismWatch would be writing these chaps up under section 42 of the Thuggery Act, under ‘Suspicion of Police State Activities’. This might actually qualify as fine, inadvertent farce if it weren’t so pathetic. Seriously, watch the video. And take lots of pictures of public buildings.

Flashback: UK: Photographer questioned under anti-terror laws for taking pictures of Christmas lights | Winnipeg police confiscate documentary filmmaker’s camera | Guardian reporter detained for taking picture of sea near Bilderberg conference | Police seizures of cameras prompts B.C. complaint | Police erased cellphone video of fatal shooting, witness alleges | Pre-Olympic transit ads encourage citizen surveillance | UK: Calling the police to account for anti-photography law | UK Terror Law To Make Photographing Police Illegal | Australian Citizen Journalist Charged for Filming Police under Anti-Terror Law | Charges laid after Winnipeg street blocked off for hours

Paul Lewis, The Guardian
December 11, 2009

Casual shots of London’s Gherkin attract stop and search just days after police were reminded street photography is no offence

It felt like a minor terror alert. Four security guards were watching me, whispering into microphones on their collars. A plainclothes police officer had just covered my camera lens, mentioned the words “hostile reconnaissance” and told me I would be followed around the city if I moved.

Two uniformed officers were on their way to stop and search me under section 44 of the Terrorism Act, he said. Special Branch, the police counter-terrorism unit linked to the secret services, had been informed.

It had taken less than two minutes from the first click of my camera. My subject was the Gherkin, an iconic London landmark photographed hundreds of times a day and, as it turned out, the ideal venue to test claims from a growing number of photographers claiming they cannot take a picture in public without being harassed under anti-terrorist laws.

This was the first week in which police had been ordered to take a more sensible approach to street photography. By Monday morning all 43 police forces in England and Wales had received a memorandum warning them that officers were “confused” over stop and search powers.

“Officers should be reminded that it is not an offence for a member of the public or journalist to take photographs of a public building and use of cameras by the public does not ordinarily permit use of stop and search powers,” the circular said.

Andy Trotter, chief constable of the British transport police, who drafted the guidance for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said photographers should be “should be left alone to get on with what they are doing”.

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There you go – it really cannot be made any clearer. The US government is further consolidating its control of the economy, and well on its way to a complete nationalization of the financial system. And by ‘nationalization’, this journal means a concept in which the largest financial corporations simultaneously further consolidate their control over aspects of the state. This corporate merger of sorts is another example of how old concepts of the left and the right are outmoded, useless categories that fail to describe the present situation – a situation in which the smallest stakeholder, the individual and their personal privacy and liberty, receives no consideration – a situation that is, itself, perhaps not so new. At least in this brave new world they’ll keep the trains running on time, capisce? It may be a little late to invoke an early Roman analogy (given that the US maintains garrisons in over 150 countries worldwide) but still, the fate of the republic lies now with the Senate and the People.

Flashback: Taibbi: Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’ | Fed Sicks Attack Dogs On Ron Paul After Audit Amendment Passes | How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash | Bernanke continues pressing for sweeping new powers for Fed | Federal Reserve Appeals Order to Disclose Emergency Bank Loans | Judge Orders Federal Reserve To Disclose Who Received Bailout Trillions | Geithner lambastes US economic watchdogs resistant to planned transfer of powers to Federal Reserve | Former NY governor Spitzer: Federal Reserve is ‘a Ponzi scheme, an inside job’ | Hands off the Fed, Bernanke warns Congress | US Senate Blocks Bill To Audit The Fed As Government Prepares For Second Round Of Looting | Taibbi: NYSE ends transparency to protect Goldman Sachs | Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine | Obama Regulatory Reform Plan Officially Establishes Banking Dictatorship In United States | Obama unveils overhaul of financial system oversight | 10 U.S. banks to repay U.S. bailout money | Federal Reserve To Be Given Sweeping New Powers | HR 1207: Battle To Audit The Fed Has Only Just Begun | Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress | Barclays, Lloyd’s, RBS join Goldman-Sachs in the black | Goldman-Sachs to repay TARP loan, resume private operations, bonuses, at “earliest time” possible | Wall Street’s Big Takeover | Behind the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power | Private Federal Reserve Makes Power Grab as Bush, McCain Urge Congress to Approve Plan | Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System | Treasury’s Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power | Financial ’super cop’ role for Fed

CBC News
December 11, 2009

The U.S. House of Representatives passed sweeping changes to financial regulation Friday.

The bill includes the most extensive reforms in business oversight since the New Deal.

It empowers the government to break up companies that threaten the economy, creates an agency to oversee consumer banking transactions, and increases disclosure requirements by companies that operate in previously unregulated financial markets.

The vote of 223-202 went largely along party lines. No Republican voted for while 27 Democrats voted against.

Coming a year after Wall Street bank failures plunged the country into a financial crisis, passage of the bill is a win for the White House. Still, the legislation waters down some of President Barack Obama’s recommendations.

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Here’s another guy that’s likely to be excommunicated shortly.

Flashback: Liberals call stimulus numbers ‘fiction’ | Flaherty, USA say no to global financial tax, yes to continued ’stimulus’ at G20 | G20 to pledge continued ’stimulus’, examine international reserve fund | Aspiring government economists must reveal views on stimulus plan | Fund me or axe me, parliamentary budget officer says | Carney says G20 must stay the course on stimulus | G20 agrees to continue economic stimulus measures; Geithner shops international reserve accord | Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working | G8 leaders see no early end to stimulus | Flaherty looks for way to end stimulus | Harper lays out stimulus spending in progress report | Stimulus needed now, Bank of Canada says | US Congress reaches deal on economic stimulus package | $12B for infrastructure forms key pillar of stimulus package | Brace for a big, ‘comprehensive’ budget: Harper | Transport Minister Baird calls for dramatic action on stimulus package | Obama calls for ‘dramatic action’ on stimulus package | UK PM unveils ‘New Deal’ plan to create 100,000 jobs | Flaherty vows short-lived deficit, consults corporate chiefs on spending initiatives | Harper government plans deficits as deep as $30 billion | Britain to introduce massive stimulus package | Deficits ‘essential,’ Harper says | Flaherty lauds Keynesian global ‘economic stimulus’ strategies

The Canadian Press
December 11, 2009

Almost 5,000 pages later and Parliament’s budget watchdog still can’t tell how effectively the federal stimulus program is creating jobs and underwriting a recovery.

But from what he can gather so far, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page sees the stimulus money flowing very slowly.

Page has finished analyzing crates of stimulus documents and papers handed to him by Transport Minister John Baird.

And in a report released Friday on the infrastructure stimulus fund, Page said the information is too thin to come to final conclusions about how well the program is creating jobs or fostering economic growth.

“The government has yet to provide a performance reporting framework to assess the success of the [fund] in achieving these objectives,” the report said.

His initial conclusions suggest, however, that the stimulus program is filtering into the economy slowly – despite government promises to rush billions of dollars out the door to get people back to work quickly.

“I think the data indicate that a lot of work has been done in terms of processing applications,” Page said in an email, pointing to 3,000 projects worth $2.8 billion in federal money that were approved as of the end of September.

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Harper’s gang seems to have a serious misapprehension about who’s in charge in Ottawa: their fatuous clique, or the people of this nation. CBC News also reports that the cons have failed to renew the term of Peter Tinsley, head of the Military Police Complaints Commission right in the middle of this controversy – evidently, another delaying tactic. Between him and teh RCMP watchdog, Paul Kennedy, we have the makings of a pattern here. Enabling a system of accountability, no matter how neutered? Doing your job too well?  Be prepared to lose it under this administration.

Flashbook: Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | 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’

Susan Delacourt, Toronto Star
December 11, 2009

Harper government says it will not comply with Opposition motion passed by Parliament, setting stage for legal battle

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government appears unwilling to hand over documents as ordered in a vote last night in the Commons, setting the stage for a showdown with Parliament and a possible rendezvous with the courts.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said that the government would release only “legally available” documents on whether Afghan prisoners detained by Canadian forces were subject to torture when handed over to local authorities, and what the government knew about the issue. The definition of that is apparently going to be established in days and perhaps weeks to come by officials.

“These are done by experts, non-partisan individuals, who have a look at these things, who have no other interests but the best interests and security of Canadians, particularly those Canadians in uniform,” Nicholson said.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said that’s not good enough, and the government is standing in the way of democratic rights.

“This is about democracy. Last night, the House of Commons said ‘We need the documents. We need all the documents. We need to end the censure. We need to end all this wiping-out of documents.’

“We need the truth. This is about the honour of Canada. This about torture. This is about our human-rights reputation,” Ignatieff told reporters in Montreal.

“This is an issue about fundamental democracy in Canada and we see absolutely no reason why the government just can’t do what Parliament says.”

International Trade Minister Stockwell Day indicated this morning that the opposition parties would have to go to the courts to get all the information they’re seeking.

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It should be interesting to see who gets appointed as the new RCMP watchdog now that Paul Kennedy is being removed, presumably for doing his job a little too well.

Flashback: U.S. police taser 10-year-old | US Cop Tasers and Arrests a 10-Year Old Girl For Throwing a Fit | RCMP defend Taser use on girl, 16 | Ban stun gun use on young people, Ontario child advocate urges | RCMP Investigates, Clears Self of Wrongdoing in Case of TASERed Inuvik Girl | Probe into tasering of teenaged girl reopened | Mounties pinned me down in cell and tasered me, Manitoba girl says

CBC News
December 11, 2009

Police force also accused of protecting officer

The RCMP in the Northwest Territories has accepted nearly all the findings of a federal police watchdog’s report, which says a police officer in Inuvik, N.W.T., was not justified in jolting a teenage girl with a Taser in March 2007.

The final report from the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, released Friday, also concluded that the Inuvik RCMP detachment appeared to have tried to cover up what happened,

“The manner in which the RCMP handled this matter was at best negligent and at worst biased,” commission chairman Paul Kennedy wrote in his report, which was in response to a complaint filed by the girl’s mother.

It’s Kennedy’s second damning report this week on the RCMP’s use of Tasers. On Tuesday, he reported on the October 2007 death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport, making 16 recommendations that were highly critical of the four officers involved and the RCMP’s followup investigation.

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Flashback: IMF could fund climate adaptation: Soros | Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak | Canada agrees to contribute to $10-billion climate change fund | UK: Brown proposes global fund to kick-start Copenhagen climate change process | Leaked G20 Documents Shed Light on Global Carbon Tax | Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance’ | Czech President: Copenhagen to be ‘Largest tax increase in world history’ | Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading as banker scam | Oil Companies Support Global Warming Alarmists, Not Skeptics | Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth sequel stresses spiritual argument on climate, downgrades CO2 threat | EU agrees to pay developing countries ‘climate aid’ to pass Copenhagen | Copenhagen’s Plans for a New ‘Government’ are Scary | Copenhagen, carbon, and the global corporate agenda | Lord Nicholas Stern: The world’s future is being decided this weekend | Thatcher science adviser: Copenhagen goal is world government | German Scientists Call for ‘World Climate Bank’ | G8 Summit: Rich nations to pay green tab | US Congress Passes the 1,200-page Climate Bill that it was not allowed to read | Climate Cops To Fine “Wasteful” Homeowners & Businesses | Obama targets US public with call for climate action | Obama to stake reputation on fast-tracked climate bill | The great carbon credit con: Why are we paying the Third World to poison its environment? | Ontario unveils cap-and-trade legislation | Economic stabilization may rely on carbon economy, economist says | Climate panel presses for federal cap-and-trade system | NRTEE Carbon Market Panel is ‘Round Table on Socialist Planning’ | Obama, Gore, tied to Chicago carbon exchange | U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy | U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax | Time to emulate Roosevelt’s New Deal and create green jobs | EU calls for global carbon trading system to fight climate change

Richard Black, BBC News
December 11, 2009

Rich countries are being asked to raise their pledges on tackling climate change under a draft text of a possible final deal at the Copenhagen summit.

Documents prepared by the summit’s chairmen call on developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25-45% from 1990 levels by 2020.

Analyses suggest that current pledges add up to about 18%.

The document leaves open the exact target for limiting temperature rise, amid disputes between various blocs.

Small island states and poorer nations of Africa and Latin America have called for the document to endorse the target of keeping the temperature rise since pre-industrial times below 1.5C (2.7F).

This is below the figure of 2C (3.6F), which was endorsed by the G8 and major developing economies in July, and implies the need for drastic emission cuts.

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Translation: Give us your money, regional banks, so that private global central banks can eat you.

Flashback: UK: Brown takes campaign for Tobin tax to Commonwealth | UK: Brown proposes global fund to kick-start Copenhagen climate change process | Flaherty, USA say no to global financial tax, yes to continued ’stimulus’ at G20 | Bernanke continues pressing for sweeping new powers for Fed | IMF chief wants global bank tax | G20 nations meet as protests flare on issue of international banking regulation | IMF approves $13bn gold sale to boost lending fund | China Set to Buy $50 Billion in IMF Notes | China calls anew for super-sovereign currency | No one talking about dumping dollar: China minister | China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds | Chinese economists deem huge holding of US bonds “risky” as Geithner visits | A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF | UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails new world order (again) | UN & IMF Back Agenda For Global Financial Dictatorship | IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’ | Gordon Brown seeks sweeping reforms to give IMF global ’surveillance role’ | IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads | Globalists Exploit Financial Meltdown In Move Towards One World Currency | World needs new Bretton Woods, says Brown | IMF prescribes state regulation of ‘global financial order’ | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda | Banks face “new world order,” consolidation: report

BBC News
December 11, 2009

European Union leaders have urged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to consider implementing a global tax on financial transactions.

A so-called “Tobin Tax” has been pushed by France and the UK, but is less popular in the US.

The leaders called on the IMF to look at a range of options to ensure that banks do not take excessive risks that could lead to another financial crisis.

The call came at the end of a two-day EU summit in Brussels.

“The European Council emphasises the importance of renewing the economic and social contract between financial institutions and the society they serve, and of ensuring that the public benefits in good times and is protected from risk,” the statement said.

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Fantino cited the need for Toronto Police Services to be ready for a potential ‘terrorist attack’ as reason to call off the Special Task Force investigation of these officers. See how that works? The lot of them should be fired and an inquiry should be set up to investigate organized crime ties in the service.

Flashback: Drug cop corruption case revived | Crown complained of lack of Toronto police support in drug squad case | CBC releases Toronto drug squad probe report

CBC News
December 11, 2009

A CBC News/Toronto Star investigation unearths previous allegations

In the late 1990s, nine separate drug dealers accused members of Team 2, led by Det. Danny Ross, left, and Const. Mike Abbott, of stealing more than $600,000 in cash from them. (CBC)

“A few bad apples.”

That’s how former Toronto police chief Julian Fantino described the force’s problems when six former officers were charged with conspiring to beat and rob drug dealers of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The officers, all members of Team 3 of the Toronto Police Service’s Central Field Command drug squad, are still awaiting trial after almost six years.

“I am deeply saddened and disappointed,” Fantino told a news conference in January 2004, commenting about the charges against the six. “I can, however, tell you that the allegations are isolated and confined.”

His comments came at the conclusion of an internal probe headed by RCMP Chief Supt. John Neily into the allegations or wrongdoing, which led to 40 criminal charges against the officers.

But police documents that surfaced for the first time this week in a Toronto lawsuit show anti-corruption investigators repeatedly briefed Fantino about similar allegations against other drug officers.

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Flashback: Vancouver eases Olympic protest restrictions | Anti-Olympic signs could net 6 months’ jail: rights group | UK: Police given powers to enter homes and tear down anti-Olympics posters during 2012 Games | 2010 Olympic security plans include ‘free speech’ zones

Marsha Lederman, the Globe and Mail
December 11, 2009

Gallery and artist claim piece was removed because of its message, prompting concern about free-expression rights

The city of Vancouver has ordered the removal of a mural hanging outside a Downtown Eastside gallery depicting the Olympic rings as four sad faces and one smiley face.

The gallery says in 10 years, it has never before been asked to remove any work.

The city issued the order under its graffiti bylaw, but it comes in the wake of a debate over a controversial city sign bylaw that opponents feared would allow officials to stifle anti-Olympic expression.

“It was pretty clear to me that it was because of the context of the work,” says Colleen Heslin, who runs the Crying Room, a small studio focusing on emerging artists.

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