Free Kadhar

The 'liberal humanist' government of Stephen Harper denounces China for holding a Canadian citizen incommunicado, without access by Canadian Embassy staff, for the use of torture, forced confession, illegal arrest and show trial. His crime is to be a Muslim who is accused of terrorism.

Yet when the US of A does it well that's okay.

US can deal with terror suspects without flouting its own laws

The facade of due process and respect for international law that United States President George W. Bush has tried to attach to the treatment of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay slipped again this week.

The decision by a military judge to dismiss all charges against Omar Khadr will be a slight embarrassment for the Bush administration, since it was based on what appears to be a flaw in the law written specifically to prosecute prisoners held on the American base in Cuba. But it will make little difference to Khadr, at least in the short term. The 20-year-old Canadian has been held for the past five years in Guantanamo after being captured in Afghanistan where, at the age of 15, he allegedly killed an American soldier and wounded another with a grenade.

Before Khadr's trial began this week, a Bush administration spokesman made it clear that even if he were to be acquitted by the military tribunal, he would most likely continue to be held as enemy combatant for as long as the war on terror goes on.

In this case, although he was captured in combat in a country that had been invaded by the United States and its allies, Khadr was not considered to be a prisoner of war. Nor was he arrested for murder under either the laws of Afghanistan, where the death occurred, or the U.S.

Instead the administration made up its own rules, which allow prisoners to held indefinitely without charge, to be tortured -- humanely, of course --to be shipped around the world and to be denied basic legal protections given to the worst criminals in the U.S.

The Canadian Government,regardless of it's political ideology, is expected to defend it's citizens or the party in power has no right to govern if it fails it's citizens.

In this case the whole of Parliament, all the parties that make up the State, have failed to do their duty to defend an underage Canadian citizen who has been illegally confined by the Americans. No questions were raised in the House of Commons this week by any opposition party. And while their silence was deafening that of the Government roared disinterest.

While it is easy to see why Canadian politicians and officials don't want to touch the Khadr case with a barge pole, their silence has been seen by some as an unconscionable endorsement of an increasingly suspect U.S. policy.

This is particularly the case considering the very public complaints that have come from Canadian officials -- including the prime minister -- about China's treatment of terrorist suspect Huseyin Celil, a Canadian-Chinese citizen arrested while he was travelling in Asia on a Canadian passport.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was right to take China to task over the Celil case. But he should have been just as forceful with the American government on Khadr.

Harper ignores citizen's right to due process

Canada still mute as Guantanamo circus continues

It is true that Khadr is no model citizen, coming from a family whose father raised his children to be warriors for jihad.

It is also true that everyone, no matter their guilt or innocence, deserves a fair hearing in a legitimate court of due process.

When that fails to occur for a Canadian citizen in a foreign land, it is imperative that the Canadian government stand up for that citizen's right to a proper trial.

Stephen Harper understands this, repeatedly criticizing China for its shady handling of Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil, recently sentenced in secret to life in prison on questionable terrorism-related charges.

Harper carries a much different line on Khadr. Not wanting to offend his war-on-terror pal George W. Bush, Harper and his government -- much like the previous Liberal regime -- remains silent on the Khadr matter.

The opposition parties aren't much better, apparently fearing that support for Khadr's right to a fair trial may be portrayed as being "soft of terrorism."

Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP MP Joe Comartin briefly broke the silence this week by demanding the Harper regime get more involved in Khadr's file.

Here is a Law and Order government that refuses to defend it's own citizens and one who is 'underage', a mere child when he was kidnapped by the U.S. Government.

There we have it the Americans have imprisoned a Canadian underage child, kidnapping him, denying him the right to a fair trial,the very basis of common law broken, violated. Now one would think that those who profess to uphold moral virtues as politics would publicly abhor these actions.

Especially our Conservative Government which has made an issue out of both increasing the age of consent from 14 to 16 and to decreasing the age for which felonious crimes can be charged. They are so concerned with the rights of children unless of course it is Omar Kadhar.

Instead they acquiesce to the American State, and it's right post 9/11, to become a fascist state.

Report: 39 Secretly Imprisoned by US

An alliance of human rights groups has determined the U.S. is secretly detaining 39 terror suspects. Names of the so-called "ghost detainees" were published in a report released Thursday.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and four other groups, agreed on the list which was compiled from interviews with former prisoners and officials in the U.S., Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen.

"What we're asking is where are these 39 people now, and what's happened to them since they 'disappeared'?" Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Factbox: secret CIA prisons in Europe

Bush to arrive in Rome during 'CIA rendition' trial

SEE:

State Sponsored Terrorism

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Prince Bandit

The Saudi's are experts at playing both sides against the middle and taking baksheesh for it.

The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

The investigation found that up to £120m a year was sent by BAE Systems from the UK into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington.

There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy or official government accounts... and the accounts of the royal family David Caruso American bank investigator Timeline: BAE Systems probe

The BBC's Panorama programme has established that these accounts were actually a conduit to Prince Bandar for his role in the 1985 deal to sell more than 100 warplanes to Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the expenses of the prince's private Airbus.

If there are Terrorist States promoting insurgency in the region then one of them is Saudi Arabia, more so than even Iran. However unlike Iran they are an American client state, just like Israel.

And like Israel they can count on America to support their primitive accumulation of capital or criminal capitalism by any other name.

The Saudi family compact controls OPEC, and the U.S. is it's petrol-junkie.

And as a result of all those US Dollars the British Government is its weapons junkie.

At the same time it was claimed that Mr Blair was 'anxious' to complete another bumper arms deal with Saudi Arabia before he leaves office. In a further twist, BAE insisted that British governments from Mrs Thatcher's to Mr Blair's had known about and approved all the payments involved in the 22-year-old, £43bn Al Yamamah deal.

Mr Blair, whose government made bribery of foreign officials illegal in 2001, now faces more questions over why the Serious Fraud Office was ordered to ditch a probe into the 1985 Al Yamamah contract between BAE and Saudi Arabia.

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State Sponsored Terrorism

Looks like one of those States that sponsors terrorism and gives succor to terrorists is none other than the good old U.S. of A.

Another case of do as I say not as I do.

Rainbow Warrior ringleader heads firm selling arms to US

The French intelligence officer who led the 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, the Greenpeace ship protesting against nuclear tests in the Pacific, now lives in America where he heads an arms firm selling weapons to the FBI, Pentagon, and the department of homeland security, the Guardian has learned.

The presence in America of Louis-Pierre Dillais and the sensitive nature of his dealings with the US government has led to calls from Greenpeace for his deportation.

But the Bush administration's record in enforcing its own regulations is inconsistent. Washington has consistently resisted demands from Venezuela for the extradition of Luis Posada, a Cuban exile who is accused of blowing up an airliner with 73 people on board. He denies the charge.

Documents show Luis Posada link to terrorism

A Venezuelan employee of Cuban exile and indicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles conducted surveillance on targets "with a link to Cuba" for potential terrorist attacks throughout the Caribbean region in 1976, including Cubana Aviación flights in and out of Barbados, according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive.

Miami Herald Publishes Evidence Incriminating Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles

The Miami Herald published an article, just last Sunday, which commented on declassified FBI and CIA documents revealing the participation of the notorious terrorist in the plane sabotage.

Prison sentence cut for Cuban-American in illegal weapons case

A U.S. judge reduced the prison sentence Wednesday for a prominent Cuban-American businessman with connections to anti-Fidel Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles after an arsenal of weapons and high explosives was turned over to the U.S. government.

A U.S. District judge cut 16 months off the sentence of Santiago Alvarez, who pleaded guilty in September to a conspiracy charge after the FBI seized a cache of military arms, including a grenade launcher and machine guns. The judge also reduced by 13 months the sentence of Osvaldo Mitat, an Alvarez employee.

India: Lawmakers Urge Washington to Extradite Luis Posada Carriles

The lawmakers reminded Condoleezza Rice and Nancy Pelosi that Posada Carriles is a confessed criminal that masterminded plans which resulted in the murder of nationals of different countries. They recalled that he is being accused in Venezuela for several terrorist crimes, including the 1976 bombing in mid air of a Cubana jetliner off the coasts of Barbados, which killed 73 innocent lives.

The Indian parliamentarians expressed their deep concern for the release of Posada Carriles and they expressed their full support of the resolution signed by Non-Aligned member nations, which denounces the double standard of the George W. Bush administration in its proclaimed "war on terror."

See:

Venezuelan Contras

'El Comandante' Fidel Spoils Party

State Security Is A Secure State

Paranoia and the Security State


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Because They Ain't White

Terror victims receive little government aid: report

While the old Reform Party and its incarnations as the Canadian Alliance and now the Conservative party of Canada, made victims rights a key in their law and order platform, the majority of the victims lobby are of course white. And they speak English. Others need not apply.

Especially those who face state terror. Which was why Maher Arar had to sue the Canadian Government.



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Air India and the Conservatives

The Air India tragedy lays at the feet of our last Conservative government under then PM Brian Mulroney. A not unimportant political fact.

It was then covered up by the Liberals, whom were indebted to the RCMP for being the political guard dogs of the State; burning barns in Quebec, deporting Leonard Peltier, etc. etc.

And while the gnu Conservative government put in place the public inquiry, they had no choice after Bob Rae's report to the Liberal government on their screw up. And like their Liberal predecessors they continue to cover up for the RCMP.

But it was the Conservative government of the day that screwed up. Chickens, home, roost.

From day one the Air India bombing was seen as an Indian affair, not a Canadian one. The racism that led to this tragedy and its cover up is now finally seeing the light of day.

The fact Mulroney first called Gandhi to express condolences on the loss of life on the plane when most of the passengers were Canadians has long been criticised.

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Gimme More Public Inquiries

The Air India public inquiry shows why we need one into recent RCMP scandals and not Government appointed inquiries.

Inquiry highlights inter-agency issues: Rae

"I think what the public is hearing, perhaps in an abrupt way, is what I think has been pretty clear to people who have studied this for a long time -- that there really was a problem of communication between different levels of government, different departments, agencies, the RCMP and CSIS," Rae told CTV's Mike Duffy Live on Friday.

With new information emerging from the inquiry, critics have wondered if race played a part in how authorities handling the case.

Asked if she thought the information Bartleman provided to the RCMP would have been treated differently if the plane was filled with whites, NDP MP Alexa McDonough said she felt it was a factor.

"I wish it weren't true. But I do think it's true," McDonough told Mike Duffy. "I also think it's shocking that as we pushed and pushed for an inquiry...they kept saying there's no need for an inquiry there's no new information there's nothing more to be learned.

"That turns out not to be true. It's an utter horror story, and thank goodness there is now a full public inquiry underway that can get to the bottom of this."

Shock, outrage and more questions

Their outrage was palpable. Family members of those killed in the Air-India disaster have been trying for more than 20 years to find out what happened at the time of the mid-air bombing.

Yesterday, they heard that days before it occurred, the RCMP brushed off information from an electronic intercept suggesting an Air-India flight had been targeted for the coming weekend.

"It's absolutely incredible," Prakash Sahu, who had a father, stepbrother and stepsister on the flight, said yesterday in an interview from Montreal. "This makes a mockery of what the RCMP were doing."

He was upset it took so long for someone to say publicly what many family members believed for so many years. He wondered why the Mounties have failed to bring those responsible for the bombings to justice. "They should have solved this long ago," he said from London, Ont.

The government resisted calls for a public inquiry for years by "hiding behind the criminal investigation," Mr. Paliwal said. He praised former Supreme Court judge John Major, who heads the inquiry. "We have a lot of confidence in him," he said.

Articles referenced;

RCMP Terror

New Math

Why The Tories Want Tory Judges

More Foreign Affairs Incompetency

Statist Anti-Terrorism Act

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Why You Need Public Inquiries

The Conservatives refuse to hold any further public inquiries around RCMP wrong doing or their Afghan Detainee situation this may be the reason why. And I have reported on the Communications Security Establishment and their secret spying operation; Echelon.

A former career diplomat - now the lieutenant-governor of Ontario - says he saw intelligence just days before the Air India bombing indicating the airline was about to be attacked.

James Bartleman told a public inquiry Thursday the information came in the form of an electronic intercept from the top-secret Communications Security Establishment, an arm of the Defence Department.

He said the material suggested Air India was being targeted for the coming weekend - the weekend that Flight 182 did indeed go down with the loss of 329 lives.

Bartleman, who was then head of the intelligence and security branch at Foreign Affairs, acknowledged that the intercept was "raw, unevaluated" intelligence that hadn't been checked out.

And he noted there had been so many erroneous alarms raised in the previous year that "I suppose it would be possible for someone to say this is just another one of those cry-wolf events."

But Bartleman recalled he was worried enough to take the written report about the intercept to an RCMP officer and asked if he'd seen it.

"His response startled me. He flushed and told me that of course he had seen it, and that he didn't need me to tell him how to do his job."

The Justice Department says it hasn't been able to locate any such document or to confirm the story with any other potential witness.

But Bartleman insisted he remembers the incident clearly. He said he hasn't come forward until now because he always assumed the RCMP already knew all about anything he had to say.

The startling revelation, if accurate, contradicts one of the most widely repeated mantras about the 1985 bombing - that authorities had no advance warning of a specific and detailed nature about a particular flight being targeted.

SEE:

Repeated Cover ups by Mounted Police

State Security Is A Secure State

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Keystone Kops and Air India

As I predicted;

Police had trouble piecing together Air India clues, inquiry told

Canadian Cops Laughed At Air India Warning

CSIS had Air India warning

Police ignored Air India warnings

Police learned of Air India plot months before bombing

Police had hint 11 days before 1985 disaster, inquiry on Air India.

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A Surge in Terrorism

The war in Iraq is a failure as is the White Houses so called war on terror. In the fourth year of the war in Iraq all that has been done is that Iraq has created the conditions for a surge in asymmetrical warfare in the region. Not exactly what was supposed to happen.Qaeda claims responsibility for Algeria blasts

Algiers Blast Follows Casablanca Raids

Although there was no apparent connection between the events in Morocco and Algeria they illustrate how North African countries are struggling to deal with Islamic extremists. Steinberg is convinced that there is a new organized Jihadist scene in North Africa. "One has to expect further attacks in the region," he said.

'This is an incentive to pursue the war on terrorism without respite,' Communication Minister Nabil Benabdallah told Reuters, adding the incident was 'in the framework of horrendous terrorist acts in Morocco and other Maghreb countries'.

Governments in North Africa fear violence may spill over from Algeria after the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat renamed itself Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb with the aim of fusing similar Islamist groups together.

Al-Qaeda's beliefs are those of Salafism, which originates in the Saudi Arabia as the State religion.

The movements of Islamic fundamentalism are those of America's client state in the region; Saudi Arabia, attempting to subvert its neighbours in order to keep its own house stable.

Like Bush who tells Americans it is better that Iraqis die in the war on terror to keep America from being attacked, the House of Saud declares better to export its own terror abroad than to have it come home.

See:

Sadr Surge

Surge In Iraq

Vietnamization of Iraq

Calling A Spade A Shovel

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Senate Security Report Attacks Workers

Since 1985 there has been no improvement in security at our airports or ports. Nor since 9/11 says the new security report from the Senate. However it's recommendations that all workers in airports and ports be screened has nothing to do with security and everything to do with concerns about organized crime. Hence the recommendations for increasing RCMP at airports and ports, and putting security under the Public Security Ministry.

Canada’s ports are “riddled with organized crime, and nobody seems to be doing much about it,” according to the all-party committee. It wants security clearances for all workers at Canada’s seaports.

In broad sweeping generalizations the report wants all workers searched coming to work. Though this will do little to stop organized thefts or smuggling, since that occurs on site and when workers leave. And part of the problem is also the increased use of privatized security companies

While all this sounds perfectly reasonable at first glance, it is much like the issue of drug testing in the workplace. And the result will be interesting when unions representing these workers challenge the government over this.

The other issue here is not just improved security, but a lack of staffing that is forcing workers in airports to work mandatory overtime, and a management that is authoritarian and abusive. Adding the RCMP to the mix will make the workplace even more volatile.

The Senate document containing 16 recommendations was released as CBC reported chaos during a labour dispute at Calgary airport caused a serious breach in security last December when a rushed airline manager let 30 pieces of luggage fly to Houston without the owners on board.

Internal documents CBC obtained under the Access to Information Act show that Transport Canada is investigating the incident, a direct violation of major international security rules Canada adopted after the 1985 Air India bombing, which killed 329 people.

Continental Airlines has since issued an apology for its mistake last December, but in a scathing letter to the government agency in charge of security, Garth Atkinson, president of Calgary's airport authority, called pre-flight screening out of Calgary “the absolute worst in Canada.”

See:

Anti-Terrorism Act

Spying

Statist Anti-Terrorism Act

Paranoia and the Security State

State Security Is A Secure State

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State Security Is A Secure State

A secure state is not a secure people, it is in fact a secure state against the people. At all costs the state must be kept secure,or anarchy will be unleashed on the world. Often the state claims that its own self interest is the same as the peoples, that a secure state is the publics security the security of its citizens. Such is NOT the case.

One of the most fundamental responsibilities of a government is to ensure the security of its citizens. This may require it to act on information that it cannot disclose and to detain people who threaten national security.Yet in a constitutional democracy, governments must act accountably and in conformity with the Constitution and the rights and liberties it guarantees. These two propositions describe a tension that lies at the heart of modern democratic governance. It is a tension that must be resolved in a way that respects the imperatives both of security and of accountable constitutional governance. Supreme Court Decision To Strike Down Security Certificates

Canada’s Long History of Criminalizing Dissent

Deportation from Canada for political radicals who threaten the State is not new. It was done in 1918 against members of the Industrial Workers of the World, IWW, the Wobblies, and anarchists. It was used against the Ukrainian and other Eastern Europeans strikers who were involved in the 1919 General Strike in Winnipeg. It was used between 1921 and 1937 against immigrants who were members of the Communist Party.

We did not have a Canadian Constitution during this period. The U.S. did but it too passed similar security acts to detain and deport foreign radicals. Such was the plight of the anarchist; Emma Goldman.

Contrary to the assertion of the Supreme Court Chief Justice and the various hacks in parliament, State Security laws are not required to protect the citizens, they are required by the State to protect it from its enemies. And as the executive class of capitalism to protect capitalism from its enemies. Whether the State calls its enemies; aliens, anarchists, or terrorists.

Washington Post Calls for the Execution of All Anarchists

The wave of anarchist bombings in the United States and Europe in the 19th Century led to the origin of the first international police organization still with us today; Interpol.

The governments of the time feeling threatened again called for extraordinary laws that would protect them from attack. Not their citizens but the state.

In the United States, despite its self created mythology, the FBI was more interested in countering anarchism and communism, then dealing with organized crime, through out most of its history.

Several journalists made a link between the history of the anarchist bombers and modern terrorism after 9/11. All of it was spurious because it did not look at what the differences were between the anarchists and the later Jihadists. It would be like equating the Black Handand Black September with the Black Bloc because they all had black in their names.

Common tactics were compared rather than ideologies. It would be like saying that since the Nazi's had an Army and the US had an army they were the same. Opps.. maybe that is the case... As Major General Smedley Butler warned at the time.

The anti-terrorism act is still in effect in Canada as are the Security Certificates, as is CSIS as is Echelon the secret information gathering efforts of the defense establishment.

The defeat of the Sunset clauses in the ATA last week was NOT a defeat of the Act itself, which the Conservatives deliberately obfusticated last week.

The ruling — and the broader issue of anti-terrorism legislation — has created considerable attention in Canada, as well as the United States.

A Globe and Mail editorial noted that the court still maintains it is legitimate to detain, indefinitely, non-citizens suspected of being terrorists “as long as they have a meaningful review process.”

Meanwhile, an editorial in the New York Times praised the ruling.

“Lawmakers have only to look to the Canadian court for easy-to-follow directions back to the high ground on basic human rights and civil liberties,” it states.

The issue goes beyond “legal niceties or technicalities,” said Evans.

“What is at stake are the basic human rights that we all depend on and take for granted: the right to be presumed innocent, to have legal counsel and to challenge the legitimacy of your detention before a judge, the right not to be tortured, the right to let your family know that you are alive,” he said.

In fact it is the courts, contrary to the Harper government claims, that have struck down the governments security acts.

In October, Rutherford struck down a portion of Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act defining terrorism as a criminal act committed for religious political or ideological reasons. He found it violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but said Khawaja's trial could go ahead.
Greenspon said he began a process of obtaining new disclosure in November. He said he was given 23 volumes of disclosure that the government had "redacted."Portions of evidence were blacked out and labelled with a code identifying the justification for censoring the evidence.

And since it is the courts that have challenged the laws, the Conservatives have pushed to have their right wing allies including the police now on the committee to appoint judges. That's a way to make sure we have no more liberal decisions like these that restrict draconian measures to protect the state and its police. Because in reality that is exactly what these security laws are, they allow the State and it's police to engage in illegal activities and then to hide them under a bushel from public view. They are not laws for the protection of the citizens of Canada, nor for public safety. They are laws to protect the State and its Police from transparency and investigation when they act illegally.

I w^d. say emphatically that in recent years the Police have succeeded only by straining the law, or, in plain English, by doing utterly unlawful things, at intervals, to check this conspiracy; & my serious fear is that if new legislation affecting it is passed, Police powers may be thus defined, & our practical powers seriously impaired.

—Robert Anderson, Home Office minute, 12 December 1898
Which is the irony of the Harpocrites using the Air India families as their hand puppets last week. Because the same security laws are being used to cover up the alleged malfeasance of the RCMP and CSIS and their possible role in acting as agent provocateurs in the Air India bombing.

Of course political sub-text of what the Conservatives were saying was that the Liberals are supporting terrorists in the Indo-Canadian community, that is Sikh's, while the Conservatives support non-Sikh Indo-Canadians, the Air Canada families. Just as they have linked the Liberals to the Tamil Tigers because of Tamil community support for the Liberals.

The Conservative Party now that it has state power has abandoned all its so called libertarian philosophy. It is beholding to its social conservative base, so it gave a contract to a far right think tank opposed to greater citizen participation in politics, to study parliamentary and election reform.

It has appointed right to life advocates on the board examining reproductive technologies including stem cell research. It has shut down the Status of Women long a bugaboo of its supporters in REAL Women. Now it is appointing right wing judges.

But its real face has been shown for the past year, that this is not the old Reform party of Western populism, nor a neo-liberal or libertarian party, rather it is a good old fashioned conservative, right wing party of Law and Order. As such Harper has declared the next election will be fought on two issues, Law and Order and Terrorism.

These are of course the traditional values of the right wing, despite its toying with capitalist libertarianism, from the old Tory days in England to modern Fascism.
All right wing governments regardless of their labels are parties of Law and Order. And Law and Order means power to the police and the creation of a secure state, a police state.

It means going to war for war's sake. In this case supposedly to protect Canadians from terrorism. And thus we see our Law and Order government promoting the rearmament of the Armed Forces and transforming them from liberal peace keepers back to conservative fighting forces.

Through out the debate on the Tories allowing police to appoint judges, and the debate around the sunset clauses in the ATA, the Tories in QP and through statements in the media declared that they supported the police and their opponents were opposed to the police.

The opposition was either silent or in the case of the Liberals quick to deny they were anti-police. No one said, yes sir I am opposed to the police, since they exist as agents of the state ABOVE the citizens they are supposed to protect. The police sir are empowered to defend the State AGAINST it's citizens.

Ask any cop they are the thin blue line of the state, of law and order, against anarchy and chaos. They are not citizens nor a citizens milita, they are agents of the State and thus above the laws they supposedly enforce. That is why they ignore paying for parking meters or donuts, and are always right and you and I are always wrong.

That is why they are allowed to use force including deadly force like Tasers, and the courts will uphold their rights to do so. While the higher courts may rule in favour of civil liberties they still support law and order as they are part of the State themselves. Thus their rulings will always be in favour of the police and even draconian legislation for security and secrecy as the recent rulings on Security Certificates and the Anti-Terrorism Act show.

They are only as liberal as the laws passed by parliament. They do not rule by the doctrine of natural justice, that would be libertarian. The are an arm of the state and if the state has not passed laws to defend the individuals rights or human rights then woe betide you and I.


To the police we are 'them', some of us are good guys but mostly we are bad guys, and even good guys can be bad guys. Thus all laws to give the police more powers, are laws allowing for a police state.

The Conservatives have created a not so new political paradigm in Canada, a militarized police state. And the last time I checked that paradigm was spelled F A S C I S M.

And the only voices that will oppose that are truly libertarian ones.





See:

Anti-Terrorism Act

Spying

Statist Anti-Terrorism Act

Paranoia and the Security State

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Anti-Terrorism Act Abolished

I guess this takes the wind out of the Conservatives erroneous claims that the Anti-Terrorism Act is supported even by the Supreme Court.

This decision was unanimous.

Court strikes down security certificates

Federal Government has one year to craft a new system, court says 9:45 AM

• Supreme Court: The decision
• In Pictures: Before the court
• The hearing: Case illuminates court's inner workings
• The accused: Six suspects held under security certificates

We didn't have to wait for March 1 either for the sunset clauses, which were the most offensive assault on our civil liberties, to expire.

Mr. Harper said it was "dangerous" to defeat the measures.

"I can assure you that we have all kinds of security information that indicates that there are very real circumstances under which these provisions could be used," he said. "I think the facts are clear here. It's a simple question of whether we have the leadership as a Parliament to do the right thing when we have to do the right thing, regardless of the kind of pressure we may feel from our caucuses."

Once again the Judiciary defends the civil liberties of Canadians that the State would eliminate for the good of "Law and Order" that is their police and spies.

As for Harper, yesterday he recruited families of the Air India tragedy to bolster his case and further isolate the Liberals. He cited RCMP plans to use the anti-terror law's compulsory hearings to force reluctant witnesses to testify in the ongoing investigation of the 1985 terrorist bombing. In short, civil rights should continue to be suspended to compensate for shoddy police work. The RCMP bungled its first investigation by destroying evidence; it has had three years since the acquittals of two prime suspects to invoke investigative hearings. Why hasn't it? Its defenders say there wasn't time; witnesses are hard to locate. Or is it just that the RCMP, or any police force, does not want to give up blunt tools that may offend soft-on-crime whiners, but could some day be useful?

See:

Anti-Terrorism Act


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