statism watch

Flashback: Irish church and police covered up child sex abuse, says report | Police review 1980s allegations against bishop | Bishop facing child porn charges gets bail | Pope ‘led cover-up of child abuse by priests’ | Abuse ‘endemic’ in Irish Roman Catholic schools: Report | Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed for the First Time; Independent Tribunal Established

Update (2010/3/31): Allegations continue to emerge that an appointee of then Cardinal Ratzinger beat children in Germany, that his office was or should have been aware of abuse occurring in Florida since 1968 – there’s a veritable flood of information out there on the subject.

Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
March 25, 2010

VATICAN CITY–Two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict XVI – to let them conduct a church trial against a priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys, but the Vatican ordered the process halted, church and Vatican documents show.

Despite the grave allegations, Ratzinger’s deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and the accused priest, Rev. Lawrence Murphy, should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese.

The New York Times broke the story Thursday, adding fuel to an already swirling scandal about the way the Vatican in general, and Benedict in particular, have handled reports of priests raping children over the years.

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“The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government … are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.” – Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States, upon abolishing the Second Bank of The United States. The economic history of the USA cannot be fully understood unless viewed through the lens of the struggle against central banking power. The same dynamic today obtains at the global level. See also this free EBook of Murray Rothbard’s ‘History of Money and Banking in the US‘, provided courtesy of the Mises Institute.

Flashback: IMF chief proposes new reserve currency | Sarkozy says world currency disorder unacceptable | Current And Former IMF Heads Call For New Global Currency | George Soros Calls for World Currency and “New World Architecture” | U.S. dollar sags on global financial leaders’ omission | Gold prices surge as India buys IMF reserves | G20 Meet To Finalize Dumping Of Dollar This Weekend? | Dollar Reaches Breaking Point as Central Banks Shift Reserves | Fisk: Nations to hasten demise of dollar in new world order | US dollar set to be eclipsed, World Bank president predicts | Bilderberg Wants Global Currency Now | Dollar to fall under scrutiny at G20 summit | IMF approves $13bn gold sale to boost lending fund | UN wants new global currency to replace dollar | G20 agrees to continue economic stimulus measures; Geithner shops international reserve accord | China Set to Buy $50 Billion in IMF Notes | Medvedev Unveils “World Currency” Coin At G8 | China calls anew for super-sovereign currency | 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 | U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar | 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

Alan Beattie, The Financial Times
March 25, 2010

The IMF now has a hand in backing the Euro.

Related: Greek PM threatens to go to IMF if no EU bailout | General strike cripples Greece as protesters clash with police | Athens erupts as Greek austerity plan passes | Greece unveils radical austerity package | Athen’s coffers to run dry in two weeks, more cracks appear in Eurozone | Man who broke the Bank of England, George Soros, ‘at centre of hedge funds plot to cash in on fall of the euro’ | Goldman role in Greek crisis probed | Greek workers stage general strike | How EU Countries Cooked Books Using Derivatives | Goldman Sachs Helped Greece Obscure Debt Through Currency Swaps | Collapse of the euro is ‘inevitable’: Bailing out the Greek economy futile, says French banking chief | Euro currency union shows strains | Stimulating our way into debt crises | EU leaders reach secret Greek bailout deal | Will Greece set off ‘global debt bomb’? | EU cautions Greece about its deficit | Could Greece drag down Europe? | ‘Significant chance’ of second financial crisis, warns World Economic Forum | A world awash in debt

Associated Press
March 25, 2010

Greece has won a major pledge of financial support from the International Monetary Fund and the other countries that use the euro in a deal that aims to halt a government debt crisis undermining confidence in Europe’s currency union.

The joint eurozone and IMF bailout program comes with strict conditions and makes no money available right now. It could be tapped only if Greece or other financially troubled eurozone members cannot raise funds from financial markets.

It would require the unanimous agreement of the 16 eurozone countries to release the loan funds. The deal at a summit meeting Thursday night in Brussels was a clear victory for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had taken a tough line on any bailout.

She demanded that a rescue for Greece only come when the country runs out of other options and said it must include the IMF.

Greece’s debt crisis has undermined the euro by showing that the rules supporting it have not prevented governments from overspending and running up large deficits and debt loads.

Athens’ woes have led to fears other eurozone countries with troubled finances, such as Portugal and Spain, will also come under pressure from the bond market and find themselves unable to borrow at acceptable costs.

Doubts among investors that Greece will pay its debts are leading markets to demand higher interest rates when Athens sells government bonds – rates the government says it can’t go on paying.

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The Globe and Mail has a good visual breakdown of the budget here. The danger here is the net debt to GDP ratio, which although below the redline danger zone faced by the UK at 68% and Greece at 113%, is still substantial – and represents a massive interest bill every year, paid to central banks. As opposed to Ontarians.

Update (2010/4/31): Incidentally, those wage freezes are only for the rank and file. The McGuinty government claims they’re bound by law introduced by the previous administration to keep doling out bonuses to senior bureaucrats.

Flashback: Ontario tax collectors get $45K severance, keep jobs in HST federalization deal | Federal budget watchdog disputes Flaherty’s forecasts | Ontario in no rush to sell Crown assets, minister says | Hope keeps Flaherty’s balanced budget afloat | Ontario Premiere McGuinty heralds Samsung ‘green energy’ deal | Flaherty’s economic plan blasted as leading to taxation or cuts | Ont. deficit could linger for years: McGuinty | Ontario eyes sale of crown corporations | HST bill passes, 13% tax starts July 1 | Poll: HST equals Hated Sales Tax

Tavia Grant, The Globe and Mail
March 25, 2010

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is vowing to erase the province’s record deficit by fiscal 2018, and he is counting on salary freezes and spending restraint in the public sector to do so.

Salaries of about 350,000 non-unionized public servants will be frozen immediately, future wage increases among unionized staff are off the table, and growth in health-care spending will also slow, the government said as it unveiled its budget Thursday.

Residents in the north will see a break on electricity rates and new spots will open in universities and colleges according to a 196-page document entitled “Open Ontario” that was largely bereft of new spending measures.

“I think most Ontarians want us to practise restraint. I think people get that,” Mr. Duncan told reporters. The government is eliminating the deficit “in a prudent and responsible fashion,” while still investing in education and health care, he said.

Debt will balloon, though. Net debt-to-GDP will swell to about 42 per cent in the next three years, according to government projections, one of the highest levels among Canadian provinces.

The province is facing a record deficit of $21.3-billion, which is still lower than its fall projection of $24.7-billion.

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Compare this to the announcement last September of the tender for the new ‘Homeland Security‘ complex in Washington. You see, your governments are all working on building out the same massive surveillance-state architecture, based roughly on the model of the Chinese police state. You’re just not being told about it. It will be properly announced, however, in due course – when it’s ready to be implemented. But go, enjoy your entertainment and diversions. Do not trouble yourself about such things. Your children, of course, will have to live in an oppressive authoritarian society but why should we care about these matters? We already know our place in this country.

Related: Public Safety Canada announces national plan to centralize operations in state of emergency | EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” | Ground broken on $3.4 billion Homeland Security complex | Vision 2015: Consolidation of U.S. Intelligence Into Global Intel Network | Secretive Canadian spy agency to get $62-million HQ

Ian Macleod, The Ottawa Citizen
March 25, 2010

Government seeks thousands of security devices for one ‘campus’

The federal government appears to be laying groundwork for what could be the most formidable fortress Ottawa has ever seen.

A notice posted on its MERX contracting website calls for expressions of interest from companies capable of installing an integrated security system supporting 3,000 video cameras, 4,000 card readers, 1,500 duress alarm buttons, 3,000 alarm sensors and motion detectors, plus the ability to support video analytics, biometrics and much more.

And all within a single complex of buildings.

“Our interest is in a commercial off-the-shelf system that provides integrated access control, intrusion detection and video surveillance for a large campus environment of 35 or more buildings where security is provided by two separate organizations that have jurisdiction over defined areas,” says the Letter of Interest from Public Works and Government Services Canada, acting on behalf of another department.

The scope of the venture is evident when compared with the electronic eye watching greater London. The 3,000 proposed security cameras are equivalent to 40 per cent of the 7,400-strong network of public closed-circuit TV cameras scanning the British capital, considered the most monitored metropolis in the world.

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Flashback: Ontario stun gun review complete: report | Chicago police expanding Taser use | RCMP to test Taser cameras | RCMP plans dramatic changes to Taser policy | Canadian police adopt new TASER directive | US: Ruling allowing Taser use to get DNA may be nation’s first | RCMP halts use of malfunctioning Tasers after B.C. decision | RCMP still uses Tasers too often, watchdog finds | RCMP softened Taser-use restrictions | Ban Tasers if RCMP doesn’t curb use by year’s end: Commons committee | U.S. jury shocks Taser, investors, with rare loss in court

BBC News
March 25, 2010

Specialist police units in England and Wales more than doubled their use of Tasers in the third quarter of last year, Home Office figures have shown.

Tasers – devices that administer an electric shock – were used 402 times between July and September 2009, up from 169 in the previous quarter.

Policing and Crime Minister David Hanson said Tasers are a “vital Tool”.

The Home Office figures refer to times when they may have been drawn or aimed, rather than discharged.

A Taser is described as having been discharged when it is fired and the probes are propelled towards the subject, as opposed to simply being drawn.

Official figures show officers discharged Tasers 67 times in the third quarter of last year, compared to 36 times for the preceding period.

The Home Office said the rise in Taser use this quarter is largely the result of updated figures regarding about 200 deployments, going back over previous quarters, which have only now been submitted by the Metropolitan Police.

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Too late, you will finally wake up to the fact that this isn’t being done to keep you safe from brown people with turbans. But in the meantime, just keep telling yourself that, as your society is turned into a dystopian nightmare of snitches, secret police, and state control over the flow of knowledge.

Update (2010/05/05): They have fancy new warning signs up telling you you’d best curtail your extremist internet activity as well. (See below)

Flashback: U.S. feds snooping on Facebook | UK Government Ad: Use Cash And Enjoy Privacy? You’re A Terrorist | Government Internet Censorship Begins In Stealth In New Zealand | Cyberattacks push CSIS to reach out to business | United States weighs massive expansion of Internet monitoring | Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet | UK: Open Wi-Fi ‘outlawed’ by Digital Economy Bill | Swedish Justice Minister reluctant to store internet user’s data | UK: Telecom firms’ fury at plan for ‘Stasi’ checks on every phone call and email | Death Of The Internet: Censorship Bills In UK, Australia, U.S. Aim To Block “Undesirable” Websites | Australia introduces web filters | Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned | 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 | UK Business Secretary sets date for blocking filesharers’ internet connections | The bait and switch: EU now to endorse internet disconnection for ‘piracy’ | UK: 70% oppose internet ban for filesharers, poll shows | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | UN Urges International Action on Cyber Security Threat | Judge in Pirate Bay Appeal Removed for Bias | MP Charlie Angus on copyright: industry lobby pulling for ‘dead business model’ | UK Government to consider internet disconnection policy, restrictions | The dawn of Internet censorship in Germany | Pirate Bay Retrial Denied | Stockholm Court: Pirate Bay Judge ‘Unbiased’ | Next up for France: police keyloggers and Web censorship | France passes ‘three strikes’ Internet surveillance law | Pirate Bay lawyer calls for retrial after judge confirms ties to copyright groups | Jail terms for Pirate Bay founders, appeal in works | Cybersecurity law would give feds unprecedented net control | Protests in Australia over proposal to block Web sites | Microsoft patents web moderator robots, forbidden phrases to be memory-holed | Berners-Lee W3C Consortium to ‘Authorize’ Website Content? | Canada Considering “Three Strikes and You’re Out” ISP Policy

The Register
March 25, 2010

Patriotic owners to peer over customer shoulders

Internet café owners are being asked to spy on their customers as part of the Met police’s terrorism prevention efforts.

Under a pilot project in Camden some have agreed to monitor their customers’ internet habits for evidence of interest in Islamic extremism, the BBC reports. They are intalling police screensavers and putting up posters warning against visiting extremist websites.

The intitative is part of the Prevent strand of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, which aims to stop radicalisation by winning the “battle of ideas”. Café owners are asked to use their own judgement as to what amounts to extremist material.

The focus on internet cafes follows the conviction last year of the liquid bomb plotters, who planned to blow up passenger jets by mixing chemicals disguised as soft drinks. They used public cafés to anonymously access extremist websites and communicate with each other. [Ed. Note: For this site's thread on the real story behind that, visit here.]

Arun Kundnani of the Institute of Race Relations described the initiative as “dangerous”.

“It… potentially criminalises people for accessing material that is legal but which expresses religious and political opinions that police officers find unacceptable,” he said.

“It is likely to result in not only a general violation of privacy and freedom of expression but also discrimination against Muslims, whose use of the internet will be seen as inherently more suspicious.”

Other parts of Prevent have been criticised for alienating Muslim communities from the police. It has also been alleged that funds meant to support moderate Islamic groups have been diverted to extremists.

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Responses from Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, have been worded on the pattern of ‘the military mission will end in 2011′. Which means, of course, that they have every intention of leaving hundreds of troops in the country so long as they can find some way to rationalize that they’re not involved in ‘military’ operations. The government and observers have been making these pronouncements, going back to 2008 in the case of previous Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay, so this shouldn’t be news to Ignatieff or the Canadian public. The manipulation continues from all sides… you are being softened up for the news of continued deployment is all.

Flashback: No way to escape Afghan combat post-2011, Hillier says | Troops get non-combat role in Afghanistan after 2011 | Conservatives claim ‘no decision’ made on leaving some troops in Afghanistan past 2011 | ‘Some’ Troops to stay in Afghanistan past 2011: McKay

John Ibbitson, The Globe and Mail
Mar 25, 2010

Pending request for up to 600 troops threatens to start standoff in Parliament over 2011 withdrawal date

The U.S. government will ask Canada to keep as many as 500 to 600 troops in Afghanistan after this country’s military deployment in Kandahar ends in 2011.

Sources inside and outside the government say the formal request is expected toward the end of this year through NATO. The troops would act as military trainers and would most likely be located in Kabul. The deployment would not involve putting Canadian troops in harm’s way, but could nonetheless set off a rancorous national debate among Canadians and especially within the Liberal Party.

No specific request has been raised in meetings between Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Defence Minister Peter MacKay. But officials in the departments of State and Defence have advised their Canadian counterparts that an “ask” is coming.

To fulfill the terms of the parliamentary resolution that Canadian Forces leave Afghanistan, any troops would have to be outside the Kandahar region, and not engaged in military operations.

Trainers stationed in Kabul would fulfill those requirements, and it is what Canadian officials are expecting.

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