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Widespread Terrorism Is Just Part Of The Perfect Storm That Is Now Descending On The Western World

November 16, 2015

Widespread Terrorism Is Just Part Of The Perfect Storm That Is Now Descending On The Western World

Perfect Storm - Public DomainWords cannot adequately describe the utter horror that was unleashed on the streets of Paris, France on Friday.  CNN is calling it “the worst violence witnessed in France since World War II“, and even though it happened a couple of days ago now, many of us are still having a really tough time processing what took place.  Somehow, a small group of less than 10 radical Islamists was able to unleash a coordinated wave of attacks that killed at least 129 people and injured at least 350.  All of this comes less than a year after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, and many in the western world are now starting to understand that something has fundamentally changed.  Even though France has a highly advanced anti-terrorism infrastructure, and even though it also has some of the strictest anti-gun laws in Europe, none of that did anything to prevent these attacks.  Despite all of our advanced technology, the openness of our society makes us highly vulnerable to Islamic terror.  And as more waves of refugees from the Middle East are absorbed by both Europe and the United States, it is inevitable that there will be more attacks like this.

According to Google, the definition of a “soft target” is “a person or thing that is relatively unprotected or vulnerable, especially to military or terrorist attack.”  And as we just saw in France, the western world is literally teeming with soft targets.  I am talking about sporting events, concert halls, schools, churches, shopping malls, power stations, water treatment facilities, mass transit, etc.

For those that wish to create terror, the opportunities are endless.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fall Election Presents Three Internet Privacy Futures

September 15, 2015

Fall Election Presents Three Internet Privacy Futures

Here’s why Canadians should press candidates about warrantless data access.

Clouds on a laptop

Warranted concern: This election could determine the future path of Canadian law on access to internet subscriber information.

 

Canada’s controversial anti-terrorism bill, Bill C-51, has emerged as a key talking point in the current election campaign.

Pointing to its big implications for privacy and surveillance, the NDP sees political opportunity by emphasizing its opposition to the bill, while the Liberals have been forced to defend their decision to support it (but call for amendments if elected). The Conservatives unsurprisingly view the bill as evidence of their commitment to national security and have even floated the possibility of additional anti-terror measures.

While Bill C-51 now represents a legislative shorthand for the parties’ positions on privacy and surveillance, a potentially bigger privacy issue merits closer attention.

Last year, the government concluded more than a decade of debate over “lawful access” legislation by enacting a bill that provided new law enforcement powers for access to internet and telecom data. The bill came just as reports revealed that telecom providers faced more than a million requests for such information each year and the Supreme Court of Canada issued its landmark Spencer decision, which ruled that Canadians have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their basic subscriber information, including name, address, and IP address.

The upshot of the lawful access legislation and the court ruling is that Canada’s leading telecom and internet companies reversed longstanding policies that granted warrantless access to basic subscriber information. Police can now rely on several new warrants to gain access to some information (including “metadata” that can reveal extensive information about the who, when and where of internet and phone communications), but companies are typically refusing to disclose basic subscriber information without a warrant.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Five Questions for Media Rights Defender Taking C-51 to Court

July 30, 2015

Five Questions for Media Rights Defender Taking C-51 to Court

Tom Henheffer and allies raised $25,000 to support their Charter challenge. So, what’s next?

On June 18, Bill C-51 received royal assent, making the widely criticized and controversial Anti-Terrorism Act a law. Last week, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression announced plans to launch a Charter challenge against specific sections of the bill, which both organizations filed with the Ontario Superior Court on July 21. A concurrently launched crowdfunding campaign to help pay for legal fees raised well over the organizations’ goal of $25,000 within three days.

We spoke with CJFE executive director Tom Henheffer about the challenge’s next steps.

J-Source: When did the discussions to get this Charter challenge underway start?

Tom Henheffer: Basically since C-51 was proposed legislation, we’ve been fighting it. In the form of protests, our social media campaign, a petition and largely being an education resource through our website. That’s a core of what we do in terms of advocacy, in terms of trying to educate the public. We did all of those things.

When it became law, we tried to figure out the best way to continue fighting it. The CCLA actually approached us and asked us to join them on the Charter challenge.

Has the CJFE ever launched a challenge like this before?

 

This is our first Charter challenge — certainly the first one since I joined — but we have intervened in other cases before. We’ve gone to court against the Ontario Provincial Police to decide whether or not they can impersonate journalists at protests. We intervened at the Mike Duffy trial. We intervened in the Omar Khadr case, although I believe he was released on bail before that case concluded. And we’re intervening currently on a case of media access to prisoners. It’s about a specific prisoner, but has larger implications.

 

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Libertarian? You Belong on the Left

June 8, 2015

Libertarian? You Belong on the Left

Watch out, freedom lovers! Conservatives will build the biggest police state they can.

A few dozen freedom-loving libertarians expressed their ”principled” opposition to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Anti-Terrorism Act this week. As the Senate’s final vote on Bill C-51 is delayed to Tuesday, many are sounding off on Harper’s fractured right-wing base.

Historically, libertarians have found themselves lumped in with the far right, presumably because the far right says it doesn’t like big government and neither do libertarians. Hey, libertarians just want to do their own thing and be left alone. Isn’t that what the right wing wants too?

Not exactly. The basic premise of libertarianism is that adults should be free to act as they choose, as long as they harm no one else: believe what they please; say what they think; work where they like; live where they can afford to; sleep with any consenting adults they choose; eat, drink, inhale, and inject themselves with any substance they enjoy. A society so organized, libertarians argue, needs low taxes and a minimal state — just as the Conservatives argue.

But if they question a single tenet of Conservative ideology, libertarians find themselves suddenly dealing with authoritarians who class them with child pornographers and terrorists. Low taxes? They cut your taxes and run up your debt. Small government? Conservatives will build the biggest police state they can get away with — the better to kettle any taxpayers who have second thoughts about Conservative policies.

And those taxpayers have more than cops to fear. Expect the Conservative advocates of lower taxes to launch endless tax audits against you.

Libertarians will grant government at least the power to enforce contracts and defend its citizens with force if need be. Even Ayn Rand, who took the Russian Revolution much too personally and hated violence, admitted as much.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Sorry Liberals, ‘Oversight’ Won’t Fix Menace of a Terror Bill

May 8, 2015

Sorry Liberals, ‘Oversight’ Won’t Fix Menace of a Terror Bill

Party’s position on C-51 is downright surreal, and solution to fix it equally flawed.

The House of Commons sent Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act, to the Senate on Wednesday, where it is expected to quickly pass and become law. One-hundred-and-eighty-three Conservatives and Liberals voted in favour, while 96 NDP, Greens and BQ members opposed.

Lurching to its inevitable outcome, the debate over C-51 began to resemble a bad play in which the actors find themselves trapped, fated to continually repeat the same lines. Conservative speakers were like the Walking Dead: insensible but still menacing. NDP and Green contributions were earnest but increasingly bewildered: did Conservative talking points on the bill ever intersect with reality?

The worst piece of demagoguery actually came not from the robotic ranks of the Harperites, but from Liberal Joyce Murray, who asked an NDP MP “whether he would want it on his conscience should there be an attack that leads to deaths of Canadians because of the loopholes that the bill is attempting to fix?”

The Liberal position on C-51 is downright surreal. Liberals voted for a bill they argue is so flawed that it will be necessary to elect a Liberal government to rectify its problems. Like John Kerry on Iraq, they were for it before they were against it, but in their case they were already against it when they were for it, and vice versa. No wonder Pat Martin of the NDP referred to the Liberals twisting themselves into pretzels.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bill C-51 passes in House of Commons

May 7, 2015

Bill C-51 passes in House of Commons

Passed third reading by a margin of 183 to 96

The federal government’s controversial new anti-terrorism bill has won the approval of the House of Commons.

The Anti-Terrorism Act, also known as Bill C-51, easily passed third reading by a margin of 183 to 96, thanks to the Conservative government’s majority and the promised support of the third-party Liberals.

The legislation gives the Canadian Security Intelligence Service more power to thwart suspected terrorist plots — not just gather information about them.

It also increases the exchange of federal security information, broadens no-fly list powers and creates a new criminal offence of encouraging someone to carry out a terrorist attack.

In addition, the bill makes it easier for the RCMP to obtain a peace bond to restrict the movements of suspects and extend the amount of time they can be kept in preventative detention.

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney has said the legislation is required to keep Canadians safe from jihadi-inspired attacks like those that claimed the lives of two soldiers in attacks just days apart last October.

Opponents of the bill have denounced the idea of allowing CSIS to go beyond gathering information to actively derailing suspected schemes.

A range of interests — civil libertarians, environmental groups and the federal privacy commissioner — have expressed grave concerns about the information-sharing provisions, saying they could open the door to abuses.

Prior to the vote, the Opposition New Democrats voted noisily — and in vain — in favour of proposed amendments that they say would have added a level of oversight and stronger privacy protections, among other things.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Bill C-51 opposition tweeted by Margaret Atwood, Sarah Harmer

April 18, 2015

Bill C-51 opposition tweeted by Margaret Atwood, Sarah Harmer

Liberals say they’ll vote in favour of Bill C-51, despite hoping for changes

Canadian author Margaret Atwood and singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer are voicing complaints about the Conservatives’ proposed anti-terrorism bill, asking Liberal MPs from their communities to vote against it.

In particular, Harmer and Atwood have got their backs up over the Liberals’ pledge to support the bill, despite saying they would change it if they win power in next fall’s election.

“[Prime Minister Stephen Harper] is attacking our rights & freedoms,” Atwood tweeted at Toronto MP Adam Vaughan, a Liberal.

“Please do the right thing and #voteagainstC51.”

Harmer retweeted Atwood’s message, tagging Kingston, Ont., Liberal MP Ted Hsu.

 

The NDP and the Green Party oppose C-51, which has gone through the committee stage in the House of Commons and is set to return to the floor of the House next week.

The legislation is a late-bloomer in this session, having been tabled less than a year before the 2015 election.

The NDP is using procedural tactics to delay the bill and has tabled 66 deletion motions which could, depending on how the votes are grouped, slow the House agenda. The party is also asking its supporters to go directly to Liberal MPs to tell them to vote against the bill.

Sweeping powers

Opponents argue the pendulum has swung too far toward security and away from civil liberties.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

Let’s Not Sacrifice Freedom Out Of Fear

March 4, 2015

Let’s Not Sacrifice Freedom Out Of Fear

A scientist, or any knowledgeable person, will tell you climate change is a serious threat for Canada and the world. But theRCMP has a different take. A secret report by the national police force, obtained by Greenpeace, both minimizes the threat of global warming and conjures a spectre of threats posed by people who rightly call for sanity in dealing with problems caused by burning fossil fuels.

The RCMP report has come to light as federal politicians debate the “anti-terrorism” Bill C-51. Although the act wouldn’t apply to “lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression,” its language echoes the tone of the RCMPreport. It would give massive new powers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to prevent any person or group from “undermining the security of Canada,” including “interference with critical infrastructure” and the “economic or financial stability of Canada.” And it would seriously infringe on freedom of speech and expression. The new CSIS powers would lack necessary public oversight.

The RCMP report specifically names Greenpeace, Tides Canada and the Sierra Club as part of “a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels.” The report downplays climate change, calling it a “perceived environmental threat” and saying members of the “international anti-Canadian petroleum movement … claim that climate change is now the most serious global environmental threat and that climate change is a direct consequence of elevated anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which, reportedly, are directly linked to the continued use of fossil fuels.” It also makes numerous references to anti-petroleum and indigenous “extremists”.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bill C-51 aims to ‘remove terrorist propaganda’ from internet

January 31, 2015

Bill C-51 aims to ‘remove terrorist propaganda’ from internet

Free speech, privacy concerns raised about anti-terrorism bill’s internet clauses

The anti-terrorism bill unveiled Friday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper includes a section that gives his government the power “to order the removal of terrorist propaganda” from the internet.

That would still require a judicial order, as well as the attorney general’s support to push for the removal of such web content.

If the proposed legislation becomes law, a judge could order an internet service provider, or the “custodian” of “the computer system,” to remove web content the judge considers terrorist propaganda.

Government backgrounders on Bill C-51 point out that the Criminal Code already permits the removal or seizure of hate propaganda or child pornography.

The Department of Justice says the draft legislation is similar to laws that already exist in the United Kingdom and Australia.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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