Bringing Terror Home

2012 01 22

2011 05 02
he's dead ~ now will you leave me alone?

Bringing terror home . . .
Canada's slide into a police state

It is well known in zoology that the close confinement of animals leads to [stress] and [aggression] ~ and this is so for the 'naked ape' (Desmond Morris's term for man). The human population has been concentrated in vast urban centers to groom them for a consumer society, to be participants in a 'capitalist democracy' and to accept the state's interference in their lives.
Police forces fear the populations they are sworn to serve and protect, and the current crop of cowboys squanders the reputation of reason and fairness the national force built over a century, by intimidating law-abiding citizens, over-reaction, harassment, and threats of non-existent charges. 'Law-enforcement agencies' (as they are now styled, and include transit cops, custom and wildlife officers, facility 'security' agents ~ often in camouflage or fascist black uniform, with flakjacket or bulletproof vest) no longer respect individuals nor the laws that protect citizen rights.

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As just one example of far too many, a CBC documentary on the aftermath of the [Mayerthorpe] murder of four RCMP members outlines an elaborate sting, culminating in an illegal raid on an innocent family's rural home by what can only be called a police terror squad who burst in brandishing automatic weapons at the family children while the parents were forcibly detained outside. This is repeated at another home in order to secure the arrest of a young man who with a telephone call would have voluntarily reported to police. A witness described how the young wife was thrown to the ground with hands cuffed behind her and then had several officers sit on her; and "she's a ninety pound woman", added the witness.

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               The line of command has led the force in this alarming decline of discipline, and has created a police officer rank and file that has succumbed to a barracks mentality by which individual members are no longer functional in civilized society.
               Recently, the supreme court ruled that random police drug searches of school lockers are in violation of the law that demands reasonable and probably grounds for any search or detention.
               A theme in subsequent letters to newspaper editors was along the lines of 'rather illegal searches, than illegal drugs'. Those who have been culturated this way might find a useful analogy in nazi history, when (as the story goes) 'I did not protest when the jews were taken away, nor when

it was the gypsies, nor when it was the turn for communists to disappear, and anarchists, revolutionaries or other extremists and radicals, and when they came for me, there was no-one left to protest'.
And thus freedom is lost.

               As I belong to that group of extremists and radicals who would take fluids and toiletries on a journey, it has become impossible to travel. More, nearing age 70, I yet expect to be assaulted, injured, tasered or shot by police or other 'security personnel'. (I live in a small northern Alberta hamlet.)
               It is Parliament, of course, that holds supreme authority in Canada, but powers and authority that no other citizen wields have been lent by the state to these so-called 'enforcement agencies'. There is an obvious danger of abuse unless there is constant and strict oversight, and immediate and onerous punishment where warranted. But laws and rights are transgressed routinely with impunity, and no government representative is currently willing (or able?) to accept responsibility.
               I write this because when I refused (in 2006) to comply with an arbitrary order by a police officer, and was subjected to assault, unlawful arrest, illegal search and detention, abuse of authority, I assumed that the rule of law remains supreme in our nation. In my experience, any government agency operates by virtue of legislative authority and is responsible to Parliament through a minister. Thus, when the national police acted outside its legislative authority, I assumed it to be a simple matter to draw to the attention of the minister holding the relevant portfolio, in order to have this corrected.
               Canada's Minister of Justice responded (through his correspondence unit manager) that "matters relating to the RCMP fall within the responsibilities of the Minister of Public Safety." Stockwell Day, who held this portfolio, informed me that my "concerns are of interest to me given my overall responsibilities for federal policing in Canada. However," he added, "law enforcement and the administration of justice are provincial responsibilities." Alberta's Solicitor General and Minister of Public Security, Fred Lindsay, while admitting responsibility for policing in the province, noted that his department does not "possess the authority to direct or otherwise compel a police service."
               And thus have the terrorists won.

read my [statement] to the
provincial magistrate's court on the incident

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the slide into the terror of a police state in
Australia: abc.net
UK: The Guardian
USA: Wendy McElroy
Russia: Moscow News Weekly
France: Le Monde
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officer sneaks around residence, creeps into an open window, shoots man three times
                 ~ John Simon, 44, shot to death December 2 2008 by RCMP inside his home on the Wagmatcook Mi'kmaq Reserve on Cape Breton NS
                 First Nation says a Halifax Regional Police report was written to support a predetermined conclusion that the Mountie who fatally shot John Simon acted properly: "every effort seems to have been made to shift the responsibility for the death of John Simon onto John Simon, or onto this community in some way or another" ~ Cape Breton Post
                 Wagmatcook Culture and Heritage Centre
                 Wagmatcookewey School

March 16, 2010: Interest Investigation Subject: Shooting Death of Mr. John Andrew Simon
                 Ian McPhail: "As Chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, I am initiating a complaint into the conduct of those unidentified RCMP members involved in the response to and subsequent shooting death of Mr. John Simon."
                 "The apparent lack of internal discipline in this case," McPhail added, "has raised much public concern."
                 File No.: 2010-0861

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2010 03 11
liquor is quicker
using the highway traffic act for another reason to detain and question any citizen at whim
reasonable suspicion of drunk driving no longer needed in proposed legislation by the justice department

Artizans

~ attack impaired driving by classing alcohol a restricted drug under the narcotics control act, not the right to go about one's lawful business on the queen's highway
~ what's good for the hippies ~ 'sgood for the drunks

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this man died at the hands of police 2007 10 14

Artizans

2011 05 08
lying, cheating, abuse of authority . . .
all in a day's work

RCMP Watch

from Social Identities Volume 18, Issue 1, 2012

urban terrorism against the most vulnerable
Taser deployment and the downtrodden in Canada
Temitope Oriola, Nicole Neverson, Charles T. Adeyanju

Abstract
This study interrogates ostensible differential deployment of an increasingly ubiquitous tool of policing in Canada ~ the Taser. Taser-related deaths are problematized as evidence of a teething new urban terrorism essentially against the downtrodden.
The paper argues that a combination of intersecting factors: gender, low socio-economic status, mental illness, drug use, and ethnicity are fundamental to who gets tased by the police. The paper investigates the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver airport as a quintessential 'media event'. It highlights the concomitant disarticulation of the police as repositories of order and their re-articulation as insouciant villains. Dziekanski's death, the paper contends, inter alia benefitted from the Canadian 'cultural feeling rules' in a manner that earlier recorded Taser-related fatalities did not. In addition, the paper argues that if the current trend continues, not only will the downtrodden continue to bear the brunt of Taser injuries and fatalities, but there may be scant public outcry accompanying such gory incidents.

"the image of the red serge has been sullied over the past decade
"investigations into the rcmp's workings have demonstrated that it is in serious need of repair"
"The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is a revered Canadian institution. It is not only essential to the security of Canadians, it is essential to our national self-image."

six senators developed this position paper in conclusion of what was learned in public committe meetings and elsewhere over the past year
they cite "early warnings ignored; the o'connor report on mahar arar; commissioner forced to resign; brown report; the rcmp reform implementation council; braidworth commission report; commission for public complaints against the rcmp" much from public proceedings of the standing senate committee on national security and defence
their position paper:
~ takes a stand on "government inaction on policing the police"
~ notes that the former head of the commission for public complaints against the rcmp was "effectively fired" ~ "a major move on the oversight file" ~ "paul kennedy pays for his crusade for change"
~ charges the rcmp commissioner with a "curious position" and accuses him of using "smoke and mirrors"

get the full report in pdf download at Colin Kenny's Senate website

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9/11 brought Canadian troops into Afghanistan and delivered Canadian material support to the invasion of Iraq. In fact, it is, as Stephen Harper reminded us on September 11, 2007, our sole reason for participation in the War on Terror. �And that is why the countries of the United Nations � launched their mission in Afghanistan � to deal with the source of the 9/11 terror.� ~ the truth about 911?

BAGHDAD
         The Iraqi television reporter jailed for throwing his shoes at former US president George W. Bush was freed on Tuesday and briefly went into hiding fearing for his life, one ofhis brothers said.
         He later flew to Syria on a private jet en route to Greece, where he will undergo medical treatment.
         Muntazer al-Zaidi had been behind bars since he shouted, "It is the farewell kiss, you dog," at Bush last Dec. 14, seconds before hurling his size-lOs at the man who ordered the March 2003 invasion ofIraq.
         In his first remarks, Zaidi - missing a front tooth - told reporters he had been tortured by electric shocks and simulated drowning while in custody.
         He defiantly defended his actions but denied he should be seen as a hero, saying he had been ashamed of the suffering he had seen in Iraq and had merely seized �e opportunity to insult the man he held responsible.
         "For me it was a good response; what I wanted to do in throwing my shoes in the face of the criminal Bush was to express my rejection of his lies and of the occupation of my country," Zaidi said.
         One of the reporter's brothers told AFP that Zaidi then went to a secret location. "He is in an undisclosed place because we fear for his life," Uday aI-Zaidi said. "My brother has left the country 10 minutes ago on a private jet that will take him to Damascus," he said.
         The aircraft was chartered by the chief executive of Zaidi's employer, Al-Baghdadia television.
         Speaking earlier at the Al-Baghdadia office, Zaidi said: "At the time that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on television that he could not sleep without being reassured on my fate . . . I was being tortured in the worst ways, beaten with electric cables and iron bars.
         "I am now free but my country is still captive," he said. "I feel humiliated to see my country suffer, my Baghdad burning, and my people killed."

"They treat us like criminals"

gas and oil industry worse than bomber,
residents say after [Wiebo Ludwig] is arrested to be charged with 'extortion'

shock and awe in Calgary 2009
the man in fascist black
~ what war is he fighting?
some guy with a knife

over the top police actions

~ an edmonton police car

"What kind of urban warfare do police services think they're going to be encountering:" Robert Gordon, former policeman, Director of the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University.

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suspected someone may have had a gun

these incidents just go on and on ~ this october 15 2009
caught on video (like much, these days),
shown widely on major television news and internet sites
five black-uniformed terrorists yelling 'stop resisting' beating down a lone young man
not police but campus 'cops', and instead of being fired their actions were defended
it is horrifying to see my premise thus repeatedly reinforced

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any excuse will do for police to unlawfully interfere with
and intimidate law-abiding citizens ~ even the Olympics

no, not China, nor East Germany

find the terrorist
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2011 04 29

~ the "most massive compromise of civil liberties in canadian history . . . likely illegal and unconstitutional"

TORONTO (December 7, 2010) ~ Ontario secretly granted police "extravagant" powers on the eve of the G20 summit, its Ombudsman says in a report released today.

       citizens were unfairly trapped by the secret expansion of police powers, according to the report: Caught in the Act (downloadable as pdf)
       an old law (from 1939) conferred wartime powers on police officers in peacetime
       "That is a decision that should not have been taken lightly or kept shrouded in secrecy. . . .
       "By changing the legal landscape without warning, [it] operated as a trap for those who relied on their ordinary legal rights.
       "Apart from insiders in the government of Ontario, only members of the Toronto Police Service knew that the rules of the game had changed, and they were the ones holding the 'go directly to jail cards."

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the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) sees the hand of the federal government behind these violations ("All Roads Lead To Ottawa," it says) and does not want to see this abuse fade away without accountability
download its report: �A Breach of the Peace�
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"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
~ Lord Acton, 1887

       "In the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States . . . civil liberties were swiftly shunted aside.
       "We have laws that limit police powers for a reason, [but the] . . . Anti-Terrorism Act, which Canada's privacy commissioner described as 'a power grab' by police . . . traded Canadian rights and freedoms for powers to wiretap and detain. We must not allow our liberties [to] be the first casualties of terror.
       "What happened in Ontario this summer indicates we have not learned from past mistakes."

from a december 9 editorial in the Edmonton Journal (lots of cookies!)

~ trying to earn the old sobriquet "PIG"?
intimidating police swarming in full riot gear, menacing tactical squads with machine guns, non-uniformed police indiscriminately wielding "batons" (mean, thin, whacking sticks), stockpiling over 1 500 unlawfully arrested citizens in wire cages without food and drink for many hours and subjecting them to humiliating strip searches
2011 02 25 CBC [not a very user-friendly site ~ especially at low speed, that gobbles up computer resources doing stuff behind the scenes] Fifth Estate's documentary on the summit from the street ~ eyewitness videos expose G20 police brutality and abuse of authority:
"You should have stayed home"
("so much wrong on so many levels with that" sentiment)

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"The tools for repression and control are multiplying very quickly. . . .
What happened to 'open and accountable'? What happened to democracy?"

Margaret Atwood, arguably Canada's most famous author, as the keynote speaker at the Parkland Institute's Fall Conference ~ Rewriting a Country: Toward a Just and Peaceful Canada, November 19-21, 2010 at the University of Alberta that "explored historical instances of silence and silencing by governments and the contemporary tendencies in that direction now set in motion inside Canada,"
Parkland Institute is a non-partisan research centre situated within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta. It states: "The conservative and corporate elites are trying to remake the popular vision Canadians have of their country. They appear to be succeeding. The conference looks at the hopeful politics of retrieving Canadians' popular view of a country where social and environmental justice prevail."

read the article Margaret Atwood and the Parkland Institute tear up Canadian mythology to write a new one at Vue Weekly ~ Edmonton's "Independent Press in the face of Corporate Media"

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cable 'gate'
"if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what's going on behind the scenes"
canada's courts protect legal, civil and human rights ~ to the dismay of canada's spy agency
[it is darkly rumoured that various government agencies are working to take the site down ~ and links are now broken]
moved to switserland, now busted
Dec 2011 at dot org ~ follow the links there to all the postings

wikileaks published over a quarter million cables from US embassies in countries throughout the world dating from 1966 up until 2010 ~ including this cable from ottawa describing a july 2008 meeting with then director jim judd of the canadian security intelligence service (csis) ~ the cable, signed off by united states ambassador wilkins, stated:
"judd ascribed an 'alice in wonderland' worldview to canadians and their courts, whose judges have tied csis 'in knots'
"judd said csis had responded to recent, non-specific intelligence on possible terror operations by 'vigorously harassing' known hezbollah members . . . , [and] noted . . . that [these] were considering new avenues of litigation resulting from recent court rulings that, judd complained, had inappropriately treated intelligence agencies like law enforcement bodies"
the cable ended with the suggestion to "visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum" (sic)

2011-12-01 ~ Wikileaks: The Spy Files
                 "Mass interception of entire populations is not only a reality, it is a secret new industry spanning 25 countries
                 "It sounds like something out of Hollywood, but as of today, mass interception systems, built by Western intelligence contractors, including for 'political opponents' are a reality.
                 "Today WikiLeaks began releasing a database of hundreds of documents from as many as 160 intelligence contractors in the mass surveillance industry. Working with Bugged Planet and Privacy International, as well as media organizations form six countries ~ ARD in Germany, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism in the UK, The Hindu in India, L'Espresso in Italy, OWNI in France and the Washington Post in the U.S. Wikileaks is shining a light on this secret industry that has boomed since September 11, 2001 and is worth billions of dollars per year. WikiLeaks has released 287 documents today, but the Spy Files project is ongoing and further information will be released this week and into next year."

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Army's special-forces deployed in Canada

April 9 2011 ~ Ottawa Citizen:
           . . . for Canada's special forces countering the terrorist threat at home is the No. 1 role for the troops . . .
           Brig-Gen Denis Thompson said units of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command command is well positioned to be ready to deal with a terrorist incident in Canada . . .
           "There may be a slight readjustment to continue to focus on the home game and bring that up to an even higher standard," he explained.

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2011 05 02

bin laden is dead
yet osama's violent polemic still empowers the forces of state terror in the western world
the anti terror laws that assail our freedom will not be repealed
once state repression begins it never abates except by revolt, revolution, reform, and reconstitution

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