statism watch

A legislator, actually doing their job and writing independent legislation to fix a national problem? It’s a novel idea but it just may work. One might have thought, or hoped, that this was already covered under existing legislation (eg; The Geneva Convention) but it appears not.

Flashback: Ottawa anticipated Afghan torture allegations: memo | CSIS secretly interrogated Afghan prisoners | Canada wanted Afghan prisoners tortured: lawyer | Harper grilled over prorogation, Afghan detainee torture documents | MP threatens motion on Afghan documents | PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal, prorogation | Claims troops mistreated prisoners unfounded: military police | Peter MacKay, Red Cross discussed detainees in 2006 | Canada’s troops investigated for Afghan abuse | Colvin disputes witnesses’ detainee testimony | Tories sabotage Afghan committee meeting | Canada ‘defended’ torturer | Ottawa won’t release Afghan torture documents | 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’

CBC News
March 15, 2010

NDP human rights critic Wayne Marston has tabled a private member’s bill in the Commons that he says will prevent any government complicity in torture.

If passed, the Prevention of Torture Act would oblige officials to “report knowledge of torture to the proper authorities” and would establish diplomatic protocols for the “immediate repatriation for any Canadian citizen [abroad] at risk of torture,” Marston said Monday.

He said the proposed new law would not undermine Canada’s ability to investigate or prosecute those citizens in Canada, but would make it a criminal offence to use information acquired by torture.

“It would also call for a creation of a government watch list of those countries known to engage in torture,” said Marston, MP for Hamilton-Stoney Creek.

The House rarely passes private members’ bills, but Marston said he believes the bill will gain support because it recognizes that Canadians don’t condone torture “in any form, at any time.”

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Related: China launches interview requirement, licensing for personal websites | Activists Shut Down Australian Government Websites in Internet Filter Protest | UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s license’ for Web users | China tells web companies to obey controls | Google Considers Leaving China If China Will Not Allow Uncensored Search | China Imposes New Internet Controls | 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 | China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | 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’ | In Australia, censored hyperlinks could cost you | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | Do We Need a New Internet? | Australian web censorship plan to begin trial despite house opposition | Chinese Learn Limits of Online Freedom as the Filter Tightens | Defense Contractors See $$$ in Cyber Security | Protests in Australia over proposal to block Web sites | China restarts online crackdown | Australia to Implement Mandatory Internet Censorship | 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

Steve Watson, Infowars.net
March 12, 2010

Infowars, Prisonplanet websites were mysteriously blocked at the same time as government filter was switched on

The government of New Zealand has quietly implemented an internet filter and is urging the leading ISPs in the country to adopt the measure, in a move that would give the authorities the power to restrict whichever websites they see fit.

The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) reportedly turned on the internet filter on February 1st without making any announcement, prompting critics to charge that the measure had been activated in stealth.

“It’s a sad day for the New Zealand internet” a spokesperson for online freedom lobby Tech Liberty told the leading New Zealand tech website Computerworld.

“It establishes the principle that the government can choose to arbitrarily set up a new censorship scheme and choose which material to block, with no reference to existing law,” the group states.

The filter is already being used by leading internet providers Maxnet and Watchdog, with the government refusing to comment on which other providers are set to take up the technology similar to that used by the Communist Chinese government and the ruling regime in Iran.

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Flashback: Government will review ‘anti-terror’ security certificates: Van Loan | Adil Charkaoui, ‘terror suspect’, to be freed | Charkaoui asks court to toss security certificate case | Selective enforcement: Charkaoui barred from US airspace on flight from Fredericton to Montreal | CSIS reviews security certificate cases in wake of criticism | Tories aim to bring back anti-terrorism provisions | High court reprimands CSIS policy of destroying secret evidence in security case | More secrecy added to already secret process | Charkaoui set to fight new security certificate law | New security certificates issued | The New Security Certificate: Rushing injustice through the Senate | Court puts security certificates in limbo

The Canadian Press
March 12, 2010

A simple “sorry” and an offer to pay his legal fees might have sufficed, but Adil Charkaoui said he didn’t even get that courtesy from the federal government.

So the Moroccan-born Montrealer who was accused by Ottawa of being a terrorist and who spent several years living under tight restrictions believes he was left with little choice but to sue the federal government.

Charkaoui said Friday he intends to sue for $24.5 million to restore his tattered reputation after failing to get an apology from Ottawa.

He said the civil suit, filed in Quebec Superior Court on Feb. 22, is not about the money.

“I’m doing it to clear my name, this is very important for me,” Charkaoui told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview between teaching classes.

He said he sent a letter asking for an apology, Canadian citizenship and compensation for lost income and legal fees after a federal judge quashed a security certificate against him.

The response he says he received was that the government was just doing its job.

“To me it meant ‘Go to hell’,” Charkaoui said. “This is about accountability. I want to restore my name, and they made a mistake and destroyed my life in Canada and outside Canada, and they have to pay for what they did.”

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Sending mixed messages here ensures that other parties to the ‘peace process’ – which by all appearances seems more a decades-long stalling tactic – enter from a position of weakness, wherein the debate’s already been set around how many new settlements Israel is going to build. It’s an effective misdirection, an additional bargaining chip to ensure territorial gains rather than losses.

Flashback: Israel denies Gaza war crimes in report to UN | Chomsky says Israel, ‘US military base’ | Israel rules out Gaza probe | UN body endorses Gaza war crimes report | UN body debates Gaza war crimes report | UN condemns ‘war crimes’ in Gaza | Israeli soldiers allege abuses against Palestinians | Israeli troops kill apartheid wall protester | Israeli military whistleblowers: troops fired on children | Israel pulls land forces from Gaza, gunboats continue shelling coast | Israel admits troops used phosphorus shells in Gaza | Israel steps up Gaza withdrawal after ceasefire | Hamas joins fragile Israeli ceasefire | Israel declares ceasefire | Unusually Large U.S. Weapons Shipment to Israel | Video shows proof of phosphorous bombs in Gaza | Aid destroyed as UN’s Gaza HQ hit by Israeli fire | Protests over Israel’s Gaza offensive held in Canadian, world cities | Israel ignores ceasefire plea, pounds Gaza | UN relief agency halts aid to Gaza, citing Israeli attacks on staff | Rockets fired from Lebanon hit northern Israel | Israel is on its way to reoccupying all of the Gaza Strip | Israeli shelling kills dozens at UN school in Gaza | Tanks, rockets, death and terror: Gazan civilian catastrophe unfolding | They hate us for our bombs | Israeli army set for invasion | Food, medicine, fuel needed in Gaza, agencies warn | Gaza relief boat carrying former Congresswoman rammed by Israelis | Worldwide protests urge end to attacks on Gaza

CBC News
March 11, 2010

Canada voiced muted criticism Thursday over the planned expansion of 1,600 new Israeli housing units in disputed East Jerusalem.

In a statement released in Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Canada “regrets” Israel’s settlement decision, because it undermines the pursuit of peace in the region.

The statement echoes Washington’s strong condemnation of the move, which cast a pall over U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel this week to revive the stalled Middle East peace process.

Biden was there to mediate indirect peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Israelis and Palestinians must build an atmosphere to support negotiations, not complicate them, he said.

The Interior Ministry announced the construction plans just as Biden was wrapping up a series of meetings with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A spokesman for Netanyahu said he was unaware of the construction plan just announced by the Interior Ministry.

Efrat Orbach, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman, said the new homes are to be built in Ramat Shlomo, a neighbourhood for ultra-Orthodox Jews in east Jerusalem.

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Incredibly, columnists at the National Post and the Star may actually have some common ground here. There is a distinction in philosophy that is worthy of more consideration precisely because it is lost on so many people, that of natural rights versus legal rights. In Canada and much of the Western world these days, we assume that rights are privileges granted by the state, a sort of legal allowance granted by our Mommy or Daddy, subject to change, without which all our actions would be proscribed, prohibited, and we would be unable to live. Gee, thanks Mom! This is a fundamentally Hobbesian notion of rights – rights as granted by social contract and enforced by the overwhelming power of government, without which there would be anarchy and a ‘war of all against all‘.

There is an alternative view however, and this gets to the heart of Mr. Jonas’ point on gun ownership and the conduct of one’s business. The classical liberal or Lockean tradition- which has nothing to do with what ‘Liberal’ means to the public today – was the tradition that ran through our culture when the American constitution was framed, and by contrast, it subscribed to a rather more benevolent view of human nature. On this view, rights are not granted, but observed by government. In a state of nature, the thinking goes, men and women are unmolested and so perfectly free to sustain their lives, their rights are inalienable, granted by nature (or God). Thus government’s role is not to grant rights, but to sustain them in a social setting. Which view do you subscribe to? Are you an atom of the state, or is the state your servant?

Flashback: Toronto Star Columnist Fiorito: The cops came and took my gun | BATF Notice Bans Private Gun Sales In Texas | Parliament votes ‘in principle’ to scrap gun registry, bill moves to second reading | Tories move closer to killing gun registry | UK: Paramilitary police placed on routine foot patrol for first time | Toronto police seize 400 guns in ’safety push’ | Handgun bans and the world of make-believe | No vote scheduled on Tory bill to kill gun registry | Americans stick to their guns as firearms sales surge | Secret Homeland Security Threat Assessment Labels Gun Owners Potential Terrorists | Harper urges supporters to fight long gun registry | Police-run gun amnesties in trouble across country | 1,900 Guns Traded for Cameras in Toronto | Toronto Police offer gun owners shiny new camera, home visit to disarm themselves | Layton promises urban gun control | Ont. premier calls for Canada-wide ban on handguns | Citizens Witness Gunplay, Black Uniforms as ‘Flashpoint’ Shoots Drama in Heart of Toronto | A historic gun club’s final days | Chicago, awash in gun violence, gives Toronto advice: You need a gun ban like ours | Illinois governor suggests National Guard help with Chicago gun crime | Armed Police to Roam Toronto High Schools | My gun, my right. We’ll see | Municipalities Join Miller in Calling for Final Citizen Disarmament | Pistol Pendant Causes Airport Holdup | Miller wants shooting ranges shut down | Machine Gun-Toting Officers To Patrol NYC Subway

George Jonas, The National Post
March 6, 2010

The minute anyone talks or writes about free speech, some twit is sure to pop up and say that there’s no absolute freedom of speech. They usually can’t resist adding that no one is free to shout “Fire!” in a crowded movie theatre.

They’re quite right. The only thing wrong with those who keep insisting there are no absolutes is they do it to restrict some particulars that irk them.

Everyone knows free speech isn’t “absolute.” If it were, it would be legal to defame people, counsel murder, or impersonate a police officer. No one disputes that being free to use hand gestures doesn’t entitle anyone to signal a truck to back over a toddler. Our freedom to gesticulate isn’t “absolute.” It’s enough, though, to give censors the finger.

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Look at points three and five of the proposed bill – it  completely contravenes any rational notion of your right to the security of your person. Americans may be held and interrogated indefinitely for any “…ther matters as the President considers appropriate.” That is the fuhrer precept, the vesting of the absolute power to ruin lives in the hands of the president on any arbitrary whim. If this goes through, you have no rights in the US. They may as well rename the office of president to ‘The Decider’.

Related: Obama gives Patriot Act another year with no privacy protections | US Interrogation Squad Doing ‘Scientific Research’ | Harkat challenge of security certificate goes to court | Almrei security certificate struck down | Government will review ‘anti-terror’ security certificates: Van Loan | Obama approves new interrogation unit | Tories aim to bring back anti-terrorism provisions | British Terror Bill Divides Labor | More secrecy added to already secret process | Charkaoui set to fight new security certificate law | The New Security Certificate: Rushing injustice through the Senate | New security certificates issued | Court puts security certificates in limbo

Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic Monthly
March 5, 2010

Why is the national security community treating the “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration’s choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt? A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Read the bill here, and then read the summarized points after the jump.

According to the summary, the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.

(There is no distinction between U.S. persons–visa holders or citizens–and non-U.S. persons.)

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The system eats its own.

Flashback: Alleged 9/11 mastermind to go on trial in NYC | CIA waterboarded 2 al-Qaida suspects 266 times | Sept. 11 suspects want to “confess” | Guantanamo 9/11 suspects on trial

Jennifer Loven, Associated Press
March 5, 2010

Senior officials say White House advisers are close to recommending military tribunals for self-professed 9/11 mastermind and four alleged henchmen

In a potential reversal, White House advisers are close to recommending that U.S. President Barack Obama opt for military tribunals for self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his alleged henchman, senior officials said.

The review of where and how to hold a Sept. 11 trial is not over, so no recommendation is yet before the president and Mr. Obama has not made a determination of his own, officials said. The review is not likely to be finished this week.

Officials spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss private deliberations.

Attorney General Eric Holder decided in November to transfer Mr. Mohammed and the four other accused terrorists from the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York City for civilian trials. That was initially supported by city officials, but was later opposed because of costs, security and logistical concerns.

When opposition ballooned further into Congress and an attempted Christmas airline bombing brought massive scrutiny to Mr. Obama’s terrorism policies, the administration said it would review Mr. Holder’s trial decision and consider all options for a new location.

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So, the increased online surveillance and tracking we’ve been expecting is revealed as an ‘updated’ version of the Einstein program. Looking back on previous reports on the Einstein program, it’s clear that a Federal pilot program intended (initially) to spy on government employees is now to be ready to be rolled out to the rest of the Internet. Wayne Madsen revealed through his sources in Sept 2008 that Einstein, far from conducting routine traffic analysis – the official line at the time – conducts analysis of message content, and that the technology, codenamed Pinwheel, was developed for foreign signals intelligence. Mr. Madsen further reported that “The DNI and NSA also plan to move Einstein into the private sector by claiming the nation’s critical infrastructure, by nature, overlaps into the commercial sector. There are classified plans, already budgeted in so-called “black” projects, to extend Einstein surveillance into the dot (.) com, dot (.) edu, dot (.) int, and dot (.) org, as well as other Internet domains” This should not be news to anyone – whistleblowers within the telecom industry have already revealed the extent to which the NSA wiretaps Americans. Lawsuits against the telcos were dismissed in January for reason that the damages inflicted were ‘non-specific’. But this story’s even bigger than that: US net surveillance is just one aspect of a global program. You’d best speak up now while you can.

Flashback: Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet | Google, NSA may team up to probe cyberattacks | UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s license’ for Web users | 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

Declan McCullagh, CNET News
March 4, 2010

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who told a House appropriations hearing that Einstein 3 could only be discussed in a classified setting, speaks at the RSA conference on Wednesday. (Credit: James Martin/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO–Homeland Security and the National Security Agency may be taking a closer look at Internet communications in the future.

The Department of Homeland Security’s top cybersecurity official told CNET on Wednesday that the department may eventually extend its Einstein technology, which is designed to detect and prevent electronic attacks, to networks operated by the private sector. The technology was created for federal networks.

Greg Schaffer, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, said in an interview that the department is evaluating whether Einstein “makes sense for expansion to critical infrastructure spaces” over time.

Not much is known about how Einstein works, and the House Intelligence Committee once charged that descriptions were overly “vague” because of “excessive classification.” The White House did confirm this week that the latest version, called Einstein 3, involves attempting to thwart in-progress cyberattacks by sharing information with the National Security Agency.

Greater federal involvement in privately operated networks may spark privacy or surveillance concerns, not least because of the NSA’s central involvement in the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping scandal. Earlier reports have said that Einstein 3 has the ability to read the content of emails and other messages, and that AT&T has been asked to test the system. (The Obama administration says the “contents” of communications are not shared with the NSA.)

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Flashback: Conservatives cracking down on criticism of Israel, NGOs warn | Watchdogs describe coming ‘under attack’ by Conservative government | Fury grows over Tory anti-Semitism charge levelled against Canadian churches | Federal website changes undermine Iraq resisters: critics | UK Anti-war MP banned from Canada | Kenney’s comments prejudice hearings for war resisters, critics say | Canada losing moral standing over treatment of Omar Khadr: Dallaire

CBC News
March 2, 2010

Opposition to government’s choice for president grows

Three senior managers at the federal government’s human rights agency who were suspended for publicly declaring their lack of confidence in three Conservative appointees to their organization’s board of directors earlier this year have been fired.

The news was confirmed by lawyer Julius Grey, who is representing the three, on Tuesday.

Rights & Democracy, created under Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government to encourage democracy and monitor human rights around the world, has been in turmoil since the Harper government appointed new board members last year.

The new members challenged grants being made to three human rights organizations known to be critical of Israel’s human rights record.

Federal opposition politicians and the family of former president Rémy Beauregard, who died in January, are calling for an independent inquiry into the organization.

Since Beauregard’s death, almost every staff member of Rights & Democracy has signed a letter stating non-confidence in the interim president and two board members.

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It is, as a separate article in the Globe and Mail points out, an open question as to whether the Federal government will actually take such a step since there have been no consultations on the matter.

Flashback: B.C. Nisga’a First Nation approves private property rights | BC Native tribe will petition Ottawa to remove its Indian status | Court upholds aboriginal fishing rights on Vancouver Island | BC chiefs kill flawed aboriginal rights law | Akwesasne chief pushes for Mohawk sovereignty | Title law would undermine native rights, lawyers say | BC Court Tells Ottawa to Amend Status Rules for Natives | Quebec First Nations declare sovereignty, opposition to provincial development plans | OPP threatened natives to end blockade | Alberta natives protest oil exploration on their land | Native leaders vow to fight mining law in Ontario | Mohawk protesters set up blockade in eastern Ont. town

Maria Babbage, The Canadian Press
February 28, 2010

The fatal shooting of Dudley George in 1995 prompted the Ipperwash inquiry.

More than 14 years after native protester Dudley George was killed by police during a confrontation over disputed land, Ontario is poised to take the final legislative step in relinquishing control of Ipperwash Provincial Park, The Canadian Press has learned.

Natural Resources Minister Linda Jeffrey will introduce a motion Monday that, if approved, will remove the land from the list of provincial parks and convert it to Crown land.

That paves the way for the 40-hectare park along the shores of Lake Huron to be transferred to the federal government, which has the power to add it to the existing reserve or create a new one, said Jeffrey’s spokesman Bradley Hammond.

“It paves the way to transfer the land to the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation,” he said.

“The hope is that it’ll bring some important social and economic benefits to the First Nation there and to the local non-aboriginal communities around Ipperwash.”

Dudley’s brother, Sam George, who died last year after successfully pushing for a public inquiry into his brother death, would have welcomed the move, said Murray Klippenstein, a longtime lawyer for the George family.

“I think Sam would say, ‘Thank you’ to the people of Ontario for this step,” Klippenstein said.

“It’s progress to restoring a sacred written land promise between our peoples from a long time ago. I think he would say, ‘This is what honourable relationships between First Nations and other Ontarians are made of.’”

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