statism watch

Flashback: EU Parliament votes down ACTA global copyright resolution by overwhelming margin | ACTA Internet Chapter Leaks: Renegotiates WIPO, Sets 3 Strikes as Model | ACTA Is Called An ‘Executive Agreement’ To Implement Restrictive Copyright With Less Hassle Than A Treaty | ACTA One Step Closer To Being Done; Concerns About Transparency Ignored | UK MPs frozen out of super-secret ACTA copyright talks | Reading Between The Still Secret Lines Of The ACTA Negotiations | Beyond ACTA: Proposed EU — Canada Trade Agreement Intellectual Property Chapter Leaks | New Leaks of Secret ACTA Copyright Law Reveal Oppressive ‘Global DMCA’ | 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?

MichaelGeist.ca
March 16, 2010

NDP MP Charlie Angus has shaken up the copyright reform process today with a pair of proposed measures. The first is a private member’s bill that would expand the scope of the private copying levy to include digital audio recorders (DARs) such as iPods. Bill C-499 comes as a response to earlier court cases that ruled that DARs are beyond the scope of the current law. The second is a motion (M-506) that calls for support to reform the Copyright Act’s fair dealing provision by adding the words “such as” to make the current list of fair dealing categories illustrative rather than exhaustive. In addition, the motion codifies the six criteria discussed in Canadian caselaw for determining whether a particular use of a work qualifies as fair dealing.

I’m certainly supportive of Angus’ effort to push copyright issues into the spotlight. I’m particularly supportive of the motion on fair dealing. The motion states:

Fair Dealing Provisions within the Copyright Act

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should amend section 29 of the Copyright Act in such a way as to expand the Fair Dealing provisions of the act; specifically by deleting section 29. and inserting the words,

29. Fair dealing of a copyrighted work for purposes such as research, private study, criticism, news reporting or review, is not an infringement of copyright.

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Next, you’ll be required to lick a jackboot – for your safety and security, naturally. Raise a stink NOW or your kids are going to be living in a police state. You want that? We’re going to have to throw ourselves into the gears to some extent to protect them.

Related: 11 More U.S. Airports Get Body Scanners | Exposed: Naked Body Scanner Images Of Film Star Printed, Circulated By Airport Staff | Radiation Safety Group Says Naked Body Scanners Increase Risk Of Cancer | UK: Airline passengers have ‘no right’ to refuse naked body scanners | Full-body scanner blind to bomb parts | Airport scanner companies queue for business after ‘underpants bomber’ | German ‘Fleshmob’ Protests Airport Scanners | Body scanners capable of storing, sending images, group says | Dutch police develop mobile body scans | Whole-body airport scanners are basically safe–or are they? | Airport security starts in the parking lot | Body scanners coming to Canadian airports | UK: New scanners break child porn laws | US implements travel profiling: Tougher air screening for ’security-risk’ countries | UK: Full-body scanners being ordered for airports, says Gordon Brown | Group slams Chertoff on conflict of interest in scanner promotion | The ‘Israelification’ of airports: High security, little bother | Underwear Bomber Renews Calls for ‘Naked Scanners’ | Federal Privacy Commissioner raises alarm over terror security measures | Privacy watchdog OKs ‘naked’ airport scanners | Security may soon test ‘virtual strip search’ at large Canadian aiports | US Border Guards to Expand Use of X-Ray Body Scanners | Homeland Security seeks Bladerunner-style lie detector | Greyhound introduces security screening of passengers, bans fruit, carry-ons | Germany rejects full-body scans at airports | Interpol wants facial recognition database to catch suspects | ‘Pre-crime’ detector shows promise | Eye scans, fingerprints to control NZ borders | Air passengers to undergo ‘virtual strip search’ | US Homeland Security Keen on ‘Novel’ Israeli Airport Security Technology | Israel startup uses behavioral science to identify terrorists | Airport scanner a ‘virtual strip search’

The Chicago Tribune
March 16, 2010

Currently, air travelers have the option to submit to a pat-down and metal-detecting wanding.

CHICAGO – All airline passengers in the U.S. will eventually be required to undergo a full-body scan before boarding planes, just as metal detectors became a standard and accepted part of the screening process at airports decades ago, the federal transportation security chief in Chicago said Monday.

As a body-scanning machine was used to screen passengers for the first time on Monday at O’Hare International Airport, federal and city officials said they expect the airport will receive more body-imaging technology later this year to help address one of the biggest terrorism threats to commercial aviation, suicide bombers on planes.

The Transportation Security Administration plans to send hundreds of the scanners, which cost between $130,000 and $170,000 each, to all major U.S. airports. The scanners use low-dose X-ray to go underneath clothing and display weapons, explosives and other objects that might be hidden on the body, above the skin.

So far, 21 airports are equipped with the units and nine more are slated to receive the scanners soon, officials said. The security agency plans to deploy 450 body scanners to an undetermined number of airports this year.

Kathleen Petrowsky, the TSA director at O’Hare, said she anticipates the body scans – now optional for passengers – will become mandatory in the future to guard against improvised explosive devices being smuggled onto airliners.

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As though there isn’t enough incremental toxic exposure in the urban environment already – bisphenol-A, GMO foods, melamine, fluoride, other contaminants – municipal water users now need to worry about the practically pleistocene scourge of lead poisoning? Wikipedia reports this causes “symptoms predominantly in the central nervous system, such as insomnia, delirium, cognitive deficits, tremor, hallucinations, and convulsions.”

Flashback: Ottawa to test taps for cancer contaminants | Chemicals feminizing males, study suggests | Major report to reveal male gender under threat from pollutants | End water fluoridation, U of T dental professor says | Cities, States Questioning Wisdom of Adding Fluoride Chemicals to Public Water Supplies | Scientists Note Hormones in Water, Feminization of Fish Downstream of Montreal | Pesticides, pollutants threaten Canadian tap water, researchers suggest

CBC News
March 16, 2010

Toronto Public Health says it is investigating research done by an American scientist into the partial replacement of residential water pipes.

Toronto is in the midst of a five-year, $250-million lead pipe replacement program – but the city only replaces the pipes on city-owned land. It’s up to homeowners to pay to replace the pipes that lead from the property line into their homes and in many cases residents don’t replace the old lead pipes.

The city estimates that in about half the cases, people don’t pay the several thousand dollars it costs to have their pipes replaced.

But research conducted by Mark Edwards at Virginia Tech University shows lead levels could spike if only part of the pipe is replaced.

“[Replacing] half the lead pipe – in some cases – makes the problem worse. There is strong evidence emerging that this is a serious and long-term problem,” he said in an interview with CBC News last week.

Edwards says when the new copper pipes are joined to the existing lead pipes the lead occasionally flakes off into the water causing extraordinarily high lead concentrations.

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Abducting the protest communications coordinator for no reason would certainly have exacerbated things, further decoupling radicals from (presumably) more moderate protest organizers.

Valentinexx on the CBC comment board decries the media for failing to provide the full context under which these protests the place, asking whether it might be a good idea to explore “some of the reasons why people are angry at the police? Like the fact that 40 people have been killed by the cops in this city in the last 20 years, like the fact that cops investigate themselves and it rarely, if ever, results in conviction. Like the fact that the cops regularly employ racial profiling. Like the fact that the United Nations has condemned the Montreal police for the tactics they use against protesters.” Clearly s/he has a point.

Flashback: 100 arrested at anti police brutality march in Montreal | Black bloc taints anti-Olympic movement | Vancouver Olympics protesters fall silent as Black Bloc ruins it for everyone | Annual anti-police protest leads to chaos in streets of Montreal | Montreal in bid to unmask protesters

CBC News
March 16, 2010

Organizers of Montreal’s anti-police-brutality march are accusing officers of sabotage after their annual protest.

More than 100 people face fines or criminal charges after Monday evening’s march through east-end Montreal.

The protest started peacefully but escalated after some people threw beer bottles at police, and lobbed firecrackers at their patrol horses.

A riot squad called in to quell the crowd arrested several people who were accused of assembling illegally, vandalism, assault and armed assault.

Demonstrator Sophie Sénécal says police deliberately interfered with her group’s plan for the evening by arresting the group’s communications co-ordinator.

“That deprived us of our main means of communication with protesters,” said Sénécal, who is a member of the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality.

“I was called a bloody organizer, and police called some protesters ‘dirty punks,’” she said.

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Flashback: Black bloc taints anti-Olympic movement | Vancouver Olympics protesters fall silent as Black Bloc ruins it for everyone | Annual anti-police protest leads to chaos in streets of Montreal | Montreal in bid to unmask protesters

Cheryl Cornacchia, Jan Ravensbergen, The Montreal Gazette
March 16, 2010

Protesters target cop who fatally wounded Fredy Villanueva in 2008

MONTREAL — More than 100 people were in police custody Monday night following a rowdy anti-police brutality march through the city’s east end.

Some of the protesters chanted “Lapointe, murderer,” a reference to Jean-Loup Lapointe, the Montreal police officer who shot and fatally wounded Fredy Villanueva in Montreal North in August 2008.

At about 8 p.m., three STM buses carried away 85 of those arrested for participating in what police said was an illegal assembly.

The march organized by the Collectif Opposé à la brutalité policière was declared illegal by police just after 6 p.m., when marchers walking west along Ontario St. threw bottles and fireworks at police.

Another 15 people were arrested in various other locations for other offences, including harm and aggression against a police officer, mischief and possession of a weapon with criminal intention.

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The people of Canada have the power to fight that plan. And it is vital that they do, because otherwise, they may as well just tear up Section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – the bit that protects you against unreasonable search and seizure. This journal is pretty certain this is a ‘must have’ piece of legislation for the Tories for multiple reasons relating to their agenda, but one motivating factor that never gets talked about is how it will also more closely align Canadian law with that of the EU, greasing the skids for the current free trade negotiations that are going on under the radar. See here and here for more on that.

Flashback: Tories revive random roadside breath test | Random breathalyzer tests considered for Canada | Secret juror background checks not illegal, prosecutor says | You Commit Three Felonies a Day | Police training to forcibly take blood in Texas, Idaho | US Supreme Court rules police can initiate suspect’s questioning if right to counsel waived | Cops can now ‘take all your stuff’ | Entrapment becoming standard procedure for police | UK: Government ‘using fear as a weapon to erode civil liberties’ | Ottawa moves to toughen anti-gang laws | Schools seek more police as crime drops | Ontario to place prosecutors in police stations | ‘Mens rea’ intention test questioned prior to Toronto 18 terror verdict | Tory ‘Guilty before proven innocent’ law to make debut in court | Perjury: Is it different for cops? | Police to demand blood, urine at roadside stops | Justice Critic Brands Street Racing Vehicle Seizure Law as “Police State-ism” | CBC Radio Broadcasts Expose of North American Police State | You Are a Suspect

The Windsor Star
March 16, 2010

It looks like the federal government will go through with a plan to force random roadside breath tests on Canadian drivers.

The Justice Department has posted a special committee discussion paper on its website outlining the “remarkable results” random testing has had in some of the 25 countries that now impose the practice. The idea is to draw people to the site and convince them that the benefits far outweigh the loss of their personal rights and freedoms.

The department is also asking for “public input” to gauge our national sentiment on the subject, but we believe that’s all for show. The Harper Conservatives already have their minds made up. They are intent upon scrapping the 40-year-old impaired driving legislation that says breathalyzer tests can be administered only if there’s a reasonable suspicion that someone is driving drunk.

They want to give police the power to pull people over at whim and demand they take a breathalyzer test. By law, individuals will not be able to refuse.

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