SCHADENFREUDE

AP Exclusive: State bar investigating Texas attorney general

DALLAS (AP) — The Texas bar association is investigating whether state Attorney General Ken Paxton's failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election based on bogus claims of fraud amounted to professional misconduct.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The State Bar of Texas initially declined to take up a Democratic Party activist's complaint that Paxton's petitioning of the U.S. Supreme Court to block Joe Biden’s victory was frivolous and unethical. But a tribunal that oversees grievances against lawyers overturned that decision late last month and ordered the bar to look into the accusations against the Republican official.

The investigation is yet another liability for the embattled attorney general, who is facing a years-old criminal case, a separate, newer FBI investigation, and a Republican primary opponent who is seeking to make electoral hay of the various controversies. It also makes Paxton one of the highest profile lawyers to face professional blowback over their roles in Donald Trump's effort to delegitimize his defeat.

A spokesman for the attorney general's office did not respond to requests for comment. Paxton's defense lawyer, Philip Hilder, declined to comment.

Kevin Moran, the 71-year-old president of the Galveston Island Democrats, shared his complaint with The Associated Press along with letters from the State Bar of Texas and the Board of Disciplinary Appeals that confirm the investigation. He said Paxton's efforts to dismiss other states' election results was a wasteful embarrassment for which the attorney general should lose his law license.

“He wanted to disenfranchise the voters in four other states,” said Moran. “It's just crazy.”

Texas' top appeals lawyer, who would usually argue the state's cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, notably did not join Paxton in bringing the election suit. The high court threw it out.

Paxton has less than a month to reply to Moran's claim that the lawsuit to overturn the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was misleading and brought in bad faith, according to a June 3 letter from the bar. All four of the battleground states voted for Biden in November.

From there, bar staff will take up the case in a proceeding that resembles the grand jury stage of a criminal investigation. Bar investigators are empowered to question witnesses, hold hearings and issue subpoenas to determine whether a lawyer likely committed misconduct. That finding then launches a disciplinary process that could ultimately result in disbarment, suspension or a lesser punishments. A lawyer also could be found to have done nothing wrong.

The bar dismisses thousands of grievances each year and the Board of Disciplinary Appeals, 12 independent lawyers appointed by the Texas Supreme Court, overwhelmingly uphold those decisions. Reversals like that of Moran's complaint happened less than 7% of the time last year, according to the bar's annual report.

Claire Reynolds, a spokeswoman and lawyer for the bar, said state law prohibits the agency from commenting on complaints unless they result is public sanctions or a court action.

The bar's investigation is confidential and likely to take months. But it draws renewed attention to Paxton's divisive defense of Trump as he and Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush vie for the former president’s endorsement in the Republican primary to run for attorney general in 2022.

On the Democratic side, Joe Jaworski, the former mayor of Galveston, has said he'll run. Moran said Jaworski is a friend but that he played no role in the complaint against Paxton.

Paxton's election challenge was filled with claims that failed to withstand basic scrutiny. A succession of other judges and state elections officials have refuted claims of widespread voter fraud, and Trump's own Justice Department found no evidence of fraud that could have changed the election's outcome.

Nonetheless, Paxton's lawsuit won him political and financial support from Trump loyalists at a time when fresh allegations of criminal wrongdoing led many in the state GOP to keep their distance from the attorney general.

Last fall, eight of Paxton's top deputies mounted an extraordinary revolt in which they accused him of abusing his office in the service of a wealthy donor. The FBI is investigating their claims.

Paxton has denied wrongdoing and separately pleaded not guilty in a state securities fraud case that's languished since 2015. He has also used his office in ways that have benefited allies and other donors.

The new criminal allegations prompted an exodus of the top lawyers from Paxton's office. But Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins was still serving as Texas' top appellate lawyer at the time of the election lawsuit.

Although the solicitor general usually handles cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, it was a private Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who brought the election challenge with Paxton. Hawkins has since moved to private practice. A spokesman for his firm said “we can’t help you" with questions about why he didn't handle the suit.

Jake Bleiberg, The Associated Press

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 
As much as 50% of the stimulus unemployment money may have been stolen, Axios reports

asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey) 

In this photo illustration, hands are seen counting US 100 dollar bills. 

Valera Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The CEO of a fraud detection service told Axios that 50% of stimulus unemployment may have been stolen.

This follows a report that found $39 billion in unemployment money was wasted, partly due to fraud.

Stimulus checks were also stolen during the pandemic, prompting a need for better oversight.

From direct stimulus payments to unemployment benefits, Americans have received a range of different forms of financial aid during the pandemic. But a large chunk of that aid - as much as 50% - may not have made it into the hands of the right people.

Axios reported on Thursday that unemployment fraud has been on the rise during the pandemic, with Blake Hall, the CEO of ID.me, a fraud prevention service, telling the news service that America has lost $400 billion to fraudulent claims and that as much as 50% of unemployment claims might have been stolen. The CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions' Government business, Haywood Talcove, also told Axios that at least 70% of stolen money ultimately left the country, with much of it ending up in places including China and Nigeria.

"These groups are definitely backed by the state," Talcove said.

This is not the first reported instance of stimulus money ending up in the wrong hands. Last week, federal authorities announced that Venezuelans living in South Florida and Mexico had stolen over $800,000 in stimulus checks since the start of the pandemic.



And on May 28, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that $39 billion in unemployment money from the CARES Act had been wasted, partly due to failures in detecting fraud and improper payments.

So how are scammers managing to carry out this fraud?

WITH THE AID OF 'STATES RIGHTS' TO DISTRIBUTE THE MOOLA

Axios reported that they often steal people's personal information to withdraw money, and "mules," or low-level criminals, are given debit cards to withdraw that money from ATMs, which then gets transferred abroad.

Given that some Democrats are pushing for recurring stimulus payments and unemployment benefits beyond what has already been delivered, fraud is something that will need to be addressed before moving forward. The OIG recommended more modernized technology to better detect fraudulent payments, along with working with states to help process claims.

But as a growing number of GOP-led states are ending unemployment benefits early to encourage people to get back to work, any further extension of unemployment benefits looks unlikely. President Joe Biden even said in a speech last week that while the benefits have been effective thus far, "it makes sense" for them to expire in September.

"A temporary boost in unemployment benefits that we enacted helped people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and who still may be in the process of getting vaccinated," the president said in brief remarks following the May jobs report. "But it's going to expire in 90 days - it makes sense it expires in 90 days."
Read the original article on Business Insider

USA

Facing shortage of high-skilled workers, employers are seeking more immigrant talent, study finds

Hannah Miao  

CNBC

10/5/2021

The U.S. does not have enough high-skilled workers to meet demand for computer-related jobs, and employers are seeking immigrant talent to help fill that gap, according to a new report.

For every unemployed computer or math worker in the country in 2020, there were more than seven job postings for computer-related occupations, bipartisan immigration research group New American Economy found in the study.

"More nuanced and responsive policy around employment-based immigration could be one way to help the U.S. more quickly and more robustly bounce back from the Covid-19 [pandemic] and future economic disruptions and crises," the report said.

© Provided by CNBC Muthumalla Dhandapani, an Indian immigrant with an H1-B visa and a Comcast employee in Sunnyvale, protests President Trump's immigration orders in 2017.

The U.S. does not have enough high-skilled workers to meet demand for computer-related jobs, and employers are seeking immigrant talent to help fill that gap, according to a new report released Thursday.

For every unemployed computer or math worker in the country in 2020, there were more than seven job postings for computer-related occupations, bipartisan immigration research group New American Economy found.

"More nuanced and responsive policy around employment-based immigration could be one way to help the U.S. more quickly and more robustly bounce back from the Covid-19 [pandemic] and future economic disruptions and crises," the report said.

The study comes as record job openings in the U.S. coincide with persistent unemployment, suggesting a mismatch in labor demand and supply. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week launched a campaign calling for an increase in employment-based immigration to address the worker shortage.

NAE, which was founded by billionaire Mike Bloomberg, analyzed data from Labor Certification Applications for foreign-born skilled workers, unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and job postings data from the website Burning Glass Technologies.

Employers in the U.S. posted 1.36 million job openings for computer-related roles in 2020, according to NAE's analysis. Yet there were only 177,000 unemployed workers in computer and math occupations last year, NAE found, using Labor Department data.

"Even something as powerful and traumatic and unprecedented as Covid did not put a dent in the country's demand and shortage of high-skilled STEM talent," said Dick Burke, president and CEO of Envoy Global, an immigration services firm that co-authored the study.

Employers continued to seek high-skilled immigrant workers to fill labor shortages during the pandemic. There were 371,641 foreign labor requests for computer-related jobs filed in 2020, NAE reported.

The U.S. disproportionately relies on foreign-born talent in computer-related jobs. Immigrants made up 25% of the computer workforce in 2019, according to NAE's analysis of Census data, compared with 17.4% of the broader labor force, according to the Labor Department.

"The evidence in this report is really adding more support to the idea that there are still needs from employers in the United States for computer-related workers that are not being addressed by current immigration policy in the United States," said Andrew Lim, director of quantitative research at NAE.

Seven of the 10 fastest-growing jobs for immigrant workers, as measured by Labor Certification Applications requests, were computer-related, NAE reported.

© Provided by CNBC

A 2020 study of government data by the nonpartisan National Foundation for American Policy found that a higher share of holders of H-1B visas — the authorization for high-skilled immigrant workers — in a given occupation reduced the unemployment rate and boosted the earnings growth rate for U.S.-born workers.

"We have not revamped our legal immigration categories, including business immigration, since 1990. Some of those categories are out of alignment with our needs in the United States today," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School, who was not involved with the NAE study.

"The pandemic has exacerbated those inconsistencies because people who are desperately needed to restart various businesses have been unable to enter the United States," Yale-Loehr said.

Google led a court filing in May supporting H-4 work authorizations for spouses of H1-B visa holders. The amicus brief's signatories also included Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. The companies said that H-4 workers are essential to their operations, noting that two-thirds of employed H-4 visa-holders work a science, technology and mathematics job.

BAD BOSS

BrewDog has a 'culture of fear,' ex-staffers allege

By Hanna Ziady, CNN Business 

© Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Stockpiles of BrewDog beers at their brewery on April 03, 2020 in Ellon, Scotland. Scotland based brewery BrewDog have adapted their production to develop and produce hand sanitiser to donate to various charities across the UK as well as the NHS working throughout the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread to many countries across the world, claiming over 50,000 lives and infecting over 1 million people. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

BrewDog, one of the biggest UK craft beer producers, has apologized after dozens of former employees accused the company of fostering a "culture of fear" and fomenting "toxic attitudes towards junior staff."

In an open letter published on Wednesday, a group of more than 70 people describing themselves as former staffers said they felt "burnt out, afraid and miserable" after working at the company, a Scottish brewery and bar chain known for its punk rock attitude, liberal politics and aggressive marketing.

"Being treated like a human being was sadly not always a given for those working at BrewDog ... The true culture of BrewDog is, and seemingly always has been, fear," the former employees wrote in the letter, which said that an additional 45 ex-staffers endorsed the message but "did not feel safe to include either their names or initials."

BrewDog CEO James Watt said in a statement that the letter was "upsetting, but so important."

"Our focus now is not on contradicting or contesting the details of that letter, but to listen, learn and act," he added. "We are going to reach out to our entire team past and present to learn more. But most of all, right now, we are sorry."

He said that the company has "thousands of employees with positive stories to tell" but acknowledged that the letter "proves that on many occasions we haven't got it right." BrewDog has 1,215 UK employees, according to a spokesperson.

The letter singled out Watt, who co-founded the company in 2007, for creating the toxic atmosphere: "It is with you that the responsibility for this rotten culture lies. By valuing growth, speed and action above all else, your company has achieved incredible things, but at the expense of those who delivered your dreams."

BrewDog's rapid growth has seen the company establish breweries in the United States, Germany and Australia. It now has more than 100 bars worldwide and exports into 60 countries.

In 2017, an investment from US private equity group TSG Consumer Partners valued the company at $1.24 billion.

BrewDog's quirky and irreverent marketing campaigns have helped grow its fan base. But the former employees alleged in the letter that some of the stunts were just lip service.

In 2014 the company launched a limited edition beer called "Hello My Name is Vladimir" in response to Russia's "gay propaganda" law and claimed it had sent a case to President Vladimir Putin. According to the former employees, however, no beer was sent.

"How many more times will we see the stories about sending protest beer to Russia (you didn't)?," the letter said. It cited other examples in which the company allegedly bent the truth in marketing campaigns. BrewDog did not comment on whether it had sent the beer in response to questions sent by CNN Business.

BrewDog has recently raised most of a £27.5 million ($39 million) target to fund sustainability initiatives by selling shares to the public and has touted a possible IPO later this year.

© Matthew Lloyd/Bloomberg/Getty Images The Brewdog Plc brewery and headquarters near Aberdeen, Scotland.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

3rd guilty plea in South Carolina nuclear project failure

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A former official for the contractor hired to build two South Carolina nuclear reactors that were never completed pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to federal authorities.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Carl Churchman entered the plea in federal court, court records show.

Churchman was the project director for Westinghouse Electric Co., the lead contractor to build two new reactors at the V.C. Summer plant. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. parent company SCANA Corp. and state-owned utility company Santee Cooper spent nearly $10 billion on the project before halting construction in 2017 following Westinghouse’s bankruptcy.

The failure cost ratepayers and investors billions and left nearly 6,000 people jobless.

Churchman pleaded guilty to making a false statement to federal officials, according to court records. Allowed to remain free on bond pending his sentencing, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine and has agreed to help authorities with their ongoing investigation.

Churchman lied to an FBI agent in 2019, saying that he had not been involved in communicating the project timeline with utility executives, authorities said. But, according to officials, Churchman repeatedly emailed colleagues at Westinghouse about project completion dates, which he reported to executives in 2017.

In another interview last month, Churchman admitted his initial statements had been lies, according to prosecutors.

“This guilty plea shows that the investigation into the V.C. Summer nuclear debacle did not end with the former SCANA executives,” Acting U.S. Attorney Rhett DeHart said in a statement. “We are committed to seeing this case through and holding all individual and corporate wrongdoers accountable.”

The implosion spawned multiple lawsuits, some by ratepayers claiming company executives knew the project was doomed and misled consumers and regulators as they petitioned for a series of rate hikes.

Dominion Energy ultimately paid more than $6.8 billion to buy out SCANA's stock, also assuming its consolidated net debts of $6.6 billion. Lawmakers mulled selling Santee Cooper but last week signed off on an overhaul proposal that leaves the utility publicly owned.

Two top-level executives have already pleaded guilty in the multiyear federal fraud investigation into the failure, which cost ratepayers more than $2 billion and has been probed by state lawmakers.

Former SCANA Corp. Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne agreed last summer to tell investigators everything he knew about the lies and deception SCANA and SCE&G used to keep regulators approving rate increases and maintain support from investors.

Kevin Marsh, SCANA’s former CEO, signed a plea deal on felony fraud charges in November.

___

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press

RCMP STILL BUGGERS***
Privacy watchdog says RCMP's use of facial-recognition tool broke law

OTTAWA — The RCMP broke the law by using cutting-edge facial-recognition software to collect personal information, the federal privacy watchdog has found.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

In a report Thursday, privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien said there were serious and systemic failings by the RCMP to ensure compliance with the Privacy Act before it gathered information from U.S. firm Clearview AI.


Clearview AI’s technology allows for the collection of huge numbers of images from various sources that can help police forces, financial institutions and other clients identify people.

In a related probe, Therrien and three provincial counterparts said in February that Clearview AI's technology resulted in mass surveillance of Canadians and violated federal and provincial laws governing personal information.

They said the New York-based company’s scraping of billions of images of people from across the internet was a clear violation of Canadians’ privacy rights.

Therrien announced last year that Clearview AI would stop offering its facial-recognition services in Canada in response to the privacy investigation.

The move included suspension of the company's contract with the RCMP, its last remaining client in Canada.

The commissioner's office said Thursday it remains concerned that the RCMP did not agree with the conclusion that it contravened the Privacy Act.

While the commissioner maintains the RCMP was required to ensure the Clearview AI database was compiled legally, the police force argued doing so would create an unreasonable obligation.

Therrien said this is the latest example of how public-private partnerships and contracting relationships involving digital technologies are creating new complexities and risks for privacy.

He encouraged Parliament to amend the Privacy Act to clarify that federal institutions have an obligation to ensure the organizations from which they collect personal information have acted lawfully.

In the end, the RCMP agreed to implement the privacy commissioner's recommendations to improve its policies, systems and training, the watchdog said.

The measures include full privacy assessments of the data-collection practices of outside parties to ensure any personal information is gathered in keeping with Canadian privacy law.

The RCMP is also creating an oversight function to ensure new technologies are introduced in a manner that respects privacy, the commissioner said.

Implementing the changes will require broad and concerted efforts across the national police force, Therrien's report said.

"We strongly encourage the RCMP to dedicate the sustained resources and senior-level championing necessary for successful implementation of its commitment to the recommendations."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2021.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

***

RCMP scandals that won't go away - The Globe and Mail
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/rcmp-scandals-that-wont...
2007-07-07 · • The RCMP

The RCMP: getting at their dirty tricks | Maclean's | MAY ...
https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1978/5/29/the-rcmp-getting-at...
1978-05-29 · In its first 10 months, the McDonald Commission, the suspended Quebec inquiry under Jean Keable and various ministerial statements have provided an outline of RCMP Security Service …

The gang that couldn’t spook straight | Maclean's ...
https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1977/11/14/the-gang-that-couldnt...
1977-11-14 · “The government received repeated and unequivocal assurances from the RCMP that the APLQ incident was exceptional and isolated..June 17, 1977. • Don McCleery, a 20-year veteran of the RCMP …

List of controversies involving the Royal Canadian Mounted ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_surrounding_the_RCMP
2006-09-23 · RCMP bombing in Alberta, scapegoating farmer. The RCMP bombed an oilsite in Alberta on October 14, 1998, on the instructions of the Alberta Energy Co. No injuries were caused or intended. The Crown lawyers, representing the government, accepted that the allegations were true. An Alberta farmer was blamed for the bombing.

WATER IS LIFE

EXPLAINER: Why a rural pipeline is a climate battleground

As Enbridge Energy prepares to finish rebuilding an oil pipeline across rural northern Minnesota, protesters are occupying part of the construction area and pledging a “summer of resistance” on the ground and in court.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Enbridge, which has obtained all necessary state and federal permits for the Line 3 project, says it will be finished by year's end.

The Canadian company describes it as essential for reliable oil supplies in both nations, saying the plan has undergone rigorous environmental permitting and will boost Minnesota's economy. Opponents contend it endangers waterways, violates indigenous treaty rights and abets dependence on fossil fuels that will further overheat the planet.

What's beyond dispute is that the project fits into an escalating battle over the future of energy pipelines, which federal regulators say are generally safer than hauling fuels by rail or highway but pose their own hazards, particularly spills in ecologically sensitive places.

WHAT IS THE LINE 3 PROJECT?

The 1,097-mile (1,765-kilometer) line is part of an Enbridge network that moves oil from fields in Canada's Alberta province to refineries in southern Ontario and the U.S. Midwest. It crosses the far northeastern tip of North Dakota, then cuts through northern Minnesota to a terminal at Superior, Wisconsin.

The line carries nearly 16.4 million gallons (62 million liters) of oil used in fuels and other products.

Enbridge says the original 1960s pipe is deteriorating and carrying about half its capacity. The company is replacing it with pipe made of stronger steel that it says would enable resumption of a normal flow — about 32 million gallons (121 million liters) daily.

Work is finished in Canada, North Dakota and Wisconsin and 60% complete in Minnesota, where 337 miles (542 kilometers) of new pipe is being laid. A new section veers south around reservation land of the Leech Lake tribe, which objected to the project. The detour adds about 50 miles (80 kilometers) to the length.

ASIDE FROM PROTESTS AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, WHAT OPTIONS DO OPPONENTS HAVE?

They await a ruling from the Minnesota Court of Appeals on whether the state Public Utilities Commission's approval was lawful. A pending suit challenges the Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of a permit. State and federal judges have refused to halt construction while the cases proceed.

Also, groups are pushing President Joe Biden to order the Corps to withdraw the Clean Water Act permit. During a protest Monday, actress Jane Fonda carried a placard with Biden's image and the words, “Which side are you on?”

Although Biden pleased environmentalists by canceling the Keystone XL project, his administration has not done likewise with other disputed pipelines, including the Dakota Access line near the Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has stayed on the sidelines while the legal process over Line 3 unfolds. His hands-off approach differs from that of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a fellow Democrat who ordered Enbridge to shut down Line 5, which moves oil from Superior, Wisconsin, through Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario.

Whitmer's demand focuses on a roughly 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) section beneath a channel that connects Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, where the state granted an easement for the pipeline in 1953 and now seeks to revoke it. That action is also tied up in court.

Line 3 opponents are focusing on blocking the rebuilding project instead of shutting down the line, although their long-term goal is making it obsolete through conversion from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

WHY ARE ENERGY PIPELINES BECOMING A CAUSE CELEBRE?

The day after Fonda joined Line 3 protesters in Minnesota, the National Wildlife Federation in Michigan announced a radio and television ad campaign against Line 5 featuring actor Jeff Daniels. While environmental and indigenous activists have fought energy pipelines for years, the involvement of celebrities is one illustration of widening resistance.

It comes after high-profile spills in the past decade, including a 2010 rupture of an Enbridge line in southern Michigan that sent oil into the Kalamazoo River. A resulting federal consent decree required Enbridge to upgrade the U.S. portion of Line 3.

Another factor: rising awareness that racial minorities suffer disproportionate harm from environmental damage.

Native Americans have been on the front lines of opposition to pipelines, some of which run through or near reservations. They say Line 3 threatens their waters and rights to gather wild rice, fish and hunt on ancestral lands. Enbridge says it consulted with tribes in rerouting the line to protect cultural resources and has employed more than 500 native people for the project.

Also fueling the battle against pipelines is climate change. Many activists consider virtually any project — whether new, an expansion or a replacement of existing pipes — a lifeline for fossil fuels that delays the transition to cleaner energy that scientists say is needed quickly to avoid catastrophic warming.

Enbridge says people will need oil for years to come and shutting down pipelines will mean more shipments by train and truck.

By John Flesher, The Associated Press

Brampton’s unusual social media surveillance plan raising concern around privacy & abuse by senior staff


The City of Brampton refuses to reveal the company hired to surveil the social media accounts of local councillors, while some members are raising concerns over the controversial plan.

It was launched without council’s knowledge in January after two members had their social media accounts impersonated to swindle money from their unwitting followers.

Regional Councillor Martin Medeiros told The Pointer he is not taking part in the program and questions how the integrity of the ongoing surveillance will stand up to scrutiny. “As much as the scope you say is specifically around misuse or access, it can turn into something [negative] very quickly.”

The program asks members of council to rely on staff to ensure their accounts aren’t being misused and Medeiros doesn’t feel confident in staff’s ability. “I do see the possibility of misuse… with some of the situations at City Hall, I don't feel comfortable having a third-party accessing my accounts and my information.”

A number of recent events have contributed to his unease including the history of some staff “who were alleged to be part of a data cover-up in Niagara.”

Ontario’s Ombudsman released a scathing 2019 investigation report titled “Inside Job” detailing the fraudulent hiring of Carmen D’Angelo as Niagara Region’s CAO in 2016. Three senior Brampton employees, director of strategic communications, culture and events, Jason Tamming, assistant director of corporate projects Robert D’Amboise and chief administrative officer, David Barrick, were implicated in the report. It details alarming corruption behind a plot to get D’Angelo Niagara’s top job, the same position Barrick now holds in Brampton, after Mayor Patrick Brown oversaw his hiring despite what happened in Niagara.

Barrick, who worked under D’Angelo at the Niagara Region Conservation Authority, went offline to coerce senior staff to support his boss’s hiring in exchange for influence. Tamming, Niagara Region’s former head of communications, and D’Amboise, a former policy director, sent D’Angelo the questions and answers for the CAO hiring competition, which other candidates did not receive.

At one point, as the scandal was unfolding, senior staff who thought information in a closed meeting was being recorded, confiscated computer hardware and notes belonging to a local reporter. After widespread backlash, including from journalism organizations, over efforts to snuff out free speech and a heavy-handed approach to shut down opposing views, staff eventually apologized.

Now, at least three of the individuals linked to the controversial Niagara conduct hold senior positions inside Brampton City Hall, including the top job.

“I’d lie to you if I told you I trust all staff there,” Medeiros said. “I have concerns. I don’t know them. Some of them are probably very good people but they don't give me the same comfort level as if I knew staff for several years and had professional relationships with (them), and I would have more confidence if this service was needed,” Medeiros said, regarding the cyber-surveillance that was launched without even disclosing the plan to elected officials whose social media accounts would be monitored.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, told The Pointer in January it’s easy for anybody to do this sort of surveillance since access to such technology isn’t associated with security agencies – anyone can buy it. Even if a contract stipulates free speech rights and other constitutional protections are not to be violated, it doesn’t mean they won’t be, since it’s done in secret. “It’s something that can never be stopped, unfortunately.”

The Ottawa-based group advocates for transparency and accountability in all levels of government.

Social media activity is often unethical, but Canada’s Charter of Rights guarantees the protection of free speech.

The morality of online behaviour by some might be questionable but social media accounts attacking politicians are common and there’s nothing illegal about them, Conacher said. “Criticism is entirely legal under the Charter, especially of public officials.”

Conacher, a lawyer and former University of Toronto professor of law who specializes in good governance and the defence of democratic principles, also questioned why this wasn’t discussed in the public eye and with full transparency when staff initially decided on their own to hire a private surveillance firm, especially since the monitoring uses public funds. “They can spend money on this kind of thing if they want to, but it seems to be that they have undemocratic intent, and it's definitely a waste of the taxpayers’ money.”

Conacher previously told The Pointer he had never heard of a municipality doing this kind of surveillance.

He views any attempt to chill free speech as a “wrongful” action and silencing critics is something public officials should not be doing. “Criticism is not only entirely legal and constitutionally protected, but it's also healthy and needed if you want to have democratic government.” Social media platforms shouldn’t be shutting down pages unless the messaging turns to hate speech, libel, or defamation, he said.

The fear is that, even if the focus of the external surveillance is to prevent criminal activity (even though this should be handled by police authorities) such work could bleed into violations of people’s rights.

The Pointer tried to find out who was hired to do the controversial work.

“We cannot specify the name of the selected vendor as there is an inherent cybersecurity risk in sharing specific details of a selected firm,” City spokesperson Marta Marychuk wrote in an email, stating sharing this information publicly would expose “methods that are being used to secure an organization’s IT infrastructure.”

It’s unclear why the City of Brampton’s “IT infrastructure” is an issue of concern, after two members of Council, Mayor Patrick Brown and Councillor Rowena Santos, had social media accounts impersonated to coerce their followers to send money to the impersonator(s).

It triggered staff to hire a private company to surveil council accounts, without telling members, who eventually found out the firm was hired early in the year without their knowledge.

Hired in January, the vendor “scans and monitors the internet and dark web” to determine if accounts of council members are being misused or impersonated. Marychuk said the service would allow compromised accounts to be identified and dealt with, but did not specify what this meant. The Pointer asked if the vendor had any success so far, but the question was not answered.

Shortly after the company began its work, councillors learned about the arrangement through an internal email. Some expressed concern that the decision was made without their consent.

They demanded staff provide more detail of the plan, and it was eventually agreed that council members could opt in or out of the ongoing surveillance of their social media accounts.

Regional Councillor Gurpreet Dhillon, who initially decided to take part in the program, said it “has not been of any benefit” to him and he’s looking to be removed from the ongoing surveillance program. “The one update I did receive was advising me of my own accounts as potential threats,” he told The Pointer.

The chosen vendor was one of eleven bidders. Marychuk said the selection was done through a direct purchase, which, according to the City’s purchasing bylaw, can only be done if a contract does not exceed $25,000. If this is the case, department heads have the authority to make the purchases without getting approval from council. The approximate $1,000 cost for each member will come out of their council-expense budget if they choose to take part in the one-year pilot program. “For services that are specialized and time-intensive, it may be deemed prudent to seek a qualified third party vendor.”

Based on the reaction many members of council had at the January 20 Committee of Council meeting, the vendor’s hiring was not previously discussed. Members of council were only provided with a briefing note explaining the steps the City had already taken to enhance cybersecurity, which included hiring the private surveillance firm.

Staff said they took action after social media accounts made to look like they belonged to Santos and Brown were allegedly used to defraud residents. According to information shared at the meeting, an outside party impersonated accounts and reached out to residents to solicit money for a processing fee for a COVID-19 grant.

It’s not clear why staff didn’t rely on Peel Police or another authority that deals with criminal activity including cyber fraud.

“City staff rely on the resources provided through the annual budget process to enhance and secure the City’s IT infrastructure,” Marychuk said. “Through this monitoring and identification process, if instances are found where impersonation has occurred, that information is provided to City staff who then consult with Peel Regional Police for review where appropriate.”

She did not explain how the impersonation of social media accounts for council members relates to a threat to the City’s IT infrastructure. That was the repeated justification used for the private surveillance even though they do not seem related. It’s unclear why, if there is a concern for the IT infrastructure, this is not treated as a separate need, and the appropriate cybersecurity safeguards are put in place, without having to draw in seemingly unnecessary monitoring of social media accounts belonging to elected officials, which opens the possibility of political abuse.

As Conacher said, it’s next to impossible to know what is actually being monitored and how the information is being used, once private surveillance begins.

Constable Sarah Patten told The Pointer Peel Police was contacted in October 2020 and the situation is now out of the force’s hands.

“Peel Police have concluded their part of the investigation. It was determined that the suspects involved reside out of province and the investigation has been turned over to the RCMP.”

Medeiros doesn't believe the private surveillance is a good use of taxpayers’ money. “I just think it sets a bad precedent if we're going to start using taxpayers’ money to monitor our own social media accounts,” he told The Pointer. Dhillon echoed the sentiment. Regional Councillor Pat Fortini said much of the same when explaining why he didn’t partake in the program, saying it’s “not right for taxpayers to pay for this.”

City Councillor Jeff Bowman does not agree and believes the cost is a good “value for my expenses, if it can prevent theft of contacts etc.”

It’s not clear how the $1,000 per council member is broken down and if it fluctuates based on the number of outside accounts being scanned.

Because the City does not have official corporate accounts, and all social media accounts run by members of council “are deemed personal in nature,” Marychuk said, members can have more than one account (a professional and a personal) on a specific platform monitored. Brown, for example, has one Facebook page listing him as mayor, and Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts he frequently posts on.

Medeiros believes there are other mechanisms to keep accounts safe, including getting accounts authenticated, and says education should play a bigger role to help people differentiate fake accounts from real ones. “I just think it's a question of more adequate education and raising awareness, and not so much on the integrity and safety of our accounts.”

Email: nida.zafar@thepointer.com
Twitter: nida_zafar
Nida Zafar, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

IBM and startup Grillo seek to bring low-cost, early-warning earthquake detection devices to Puerto Rico

Eric Allen Been 

In January 2020, Puerto Rico was throttled by earthquakes over a stretch of several weeks, wreaking havoc on homes, infrastructure and causing displacement of a mass of its citizens. According to some estimates, the economic toll from earthquakes in the Greater Antilles area that year resulted in $3.1 billion in damages. The Caribbean, in general, is a highly seismic region because of its location —sitting within an intersection of juggernaut tectonic plates.

© Provided by TechRepublic Image: iStock/petrovich9

And, what's more, traditional earthquake early warning (EEW) systems, which are designed to provide people with time to protect themselves from seismic events, are extremely expensive, resulting in most countries and territories not having full-spectrum ones that cover their entire regions. Enter Grillo, which calls itself a "Seismology-as-a-Service" startup, and one that wants to change the affordability and stretch of such systems. In collaboration with IBM and the Clinton Global Initiative and others, it is set to provide Puerto Rico with an open-sourced, EEW alternative.


Dubbed OpenEEW (open-source earthquake early warning), Grillo has developed sensors (with assistance from also the Linux Foundation) that are relatively cheap, open-source hardware designs — ones that can quickly detect if the ground moves, access cloud-based algorithms to verify an earthquake is happening (or about to), and then provide alerts to people via a mobile app or wearable.

More specifically, Grillo is cutting EEW overhead by using IoT, cloud computing and AI, as well as Node-RED analysis tools and a Docker-centered container solution. As Grillo has it, OpenEEW is a "promising low-cost, accessible option using off-the-shelf technology instead of the million-dollar systems often used today."

Last month, the former U.S. president, Bill Clinton, announced $25,000 in credits and open-source contributions from IBM, in conjunction with Grillo's proposed plans. In addition, the Puerto Rico Science Trust is promising funding for the project as well.

Since 2017, Grillo has launched its kits in Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica. And the company now wants to make its technology deployable in other seismically active regions, such as Nepal and New Zealand. Puerto Rico will be the first location in the Caribbean to land the open-source devices (for now, around 90 of them are set to be placed around the island).

And why do so few countries have nationwide earthquake early warning systems in the first place? The asking price for the implementation, Andres Meira, the Grillo co-founder told TechRepublic. "The Japanese EEW is said to have cost around $1 billion," Meira says. Adding: "Others such as ShakeAlert and the Mexican Seismic Alert System (SASMEX) regularly require 10s of millions of USD."

The early-detection technology ShakeAlert, which was created by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), is the EEW platform the U.S. currently uses for the West Coast (that is, in California, Oregon and Washington). SASMEX initiated operations in 1993 and has come with a hefty price as well.

Where do open-source volunteers factor into the project? According to Pedro Cruz, a developer advocate at IBM, "anyone from the open source community can get involved with and help OpenEEW; not just in Puerto Rico, but all over the world."

Cruz says "different communities across the world can help by advancing the different components (sensors, algorithms, alert devices) and by deploying sensor networks in different countries."

As TechRepublic previously reported, "[u]nlike a national seismic platform, the team's open-source EEW project is designed to create a global partnership rather than a nationalized network, allowing people around the globe to deploy these systems in their communities as part of a larger humanitarian patchwork of sensors."

OpenEEW came about from the Call for Code, an initiative to give solutions, via technology, that can be deployed in the communities with the greatest needs and make change.

"Since 2018 this movement," Cruz said, "has grown to over 400,000 participants across 179 nations, and developers have already created more than 15,000 applications using IBM technologies."

Call for Code was started by the global leader David Clark Cause, with IBM serving as its founding partner.

In a press release, Grillo and IBM say the detection code for their devices can use help by programmer volunteers and is being developed in Python and pushed out in Kubernetes. Moreover, Grillo says it is currently working on a "Carbon/React dashboard," which the public will be able to see and interact with the OpenEEW, as well as see recent earthquake occurrences.

Meira says "there are also individual citizen scientists who are installing their own OpenEEW sensors and connecting to our global system in the cloud." He adds that they are hoping that "eventually sufficient density of these stations" come about so "that a global EEW emerges."

On OpenEEW's website, it lays out how one can go about deploying sensors, implement detectors for earthquakes and send out alerts about one that may occur.

Opposition backs calls for Sask. residential school apology



The Saskatchewan NDP wants the provincial government to apologize for its historic role in the devastating legacy of residential schools.

“It is long past time that both orders of government fully take responsibility for their respective roles in the abuse, neglect, loss of language and culture, and violence that many First Nations and Métis people were subjected to in these institutions,” said Betty Nippi-Albright, NDP critic for Truth and Reconciliation, First Nations and Métis Relations.

The province should apologize and provide compensation for children who attended Timber Bay Children’s Home and Île-à-la-Crosse residential school, where hundreds of First Nations and Métis children attended, she said.

Those who attended the schools — founded by the Northern Canada Evangelical Mission and the Catholic Church, respectively — were denied the Indian Residential School Settlement because the institutions weren’t directly government-run.

Calls for the province to recognize them have re-emerged since the shocking discovery of the remains of 215 children at the site of a former residential school near Kamloops B.C.

“It’s unfortunate that it takes an incident of this magnitude to bring something to the forefront,” noted Leonard Montgrand, a former student of the Île-à-la-Crosse residential school.

“We’ve been banging our fist on the table and trying to get recognition. All of a sudden, it’s an issue that has to be dealt with.”

Montgrand said he is working through a lengthy, “frustrating” process with the federal government, attempting to secure compensation for Île-à-la-Crosse school survivors. It’s been underway since 2019, when a committee of survivors, the Métis Nation—Saskatchewan and Ottawa signed a memorandum of understanding.

He said the province shares fault with the federal government and the Catholic Church for what survivors have endured. As they age, the case for an apology and compensation grows more urgent, he added.

Video: Saskatchewan First Nation remembering lives lost at residential schools (Global News)

“The province needs to come to the table” as an early step to help bring healing to the community, said Île-à-la-Crosse Mayor Duane Favel.

NDP Athabasca MLA Buckley Belanger said he believes there may also be burial sites at the residential school site in the community, but the search process hasn’t begun. He wants the provincial government to release school records to get a clearer picture of the children who attended.

The tragic findings at Kamloops have also resurfaced calls from the Prince Albert Grand Council and Lac La Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB) to recognize Timber Bay as a residential school.

In 2017, LLRIB exhausted its legal options when the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal ruled Timber Bay wasn’t directly government-run, and wasn’t eligible for residential school status.

PAGC Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte recently said the tragedy at Kamloops creates an opening to directly lobby the federal government, outside of the legal system.

In a prepared statement, a provincial government spokesman said the province has not been contacted by either LLRIB or PAGC to support their efforts with Ottawa.

He said there’s active litigation against the Saskatchewan government regarding both the Timber Bay and Île-à-la-Crosse schools, launched respectively in 2001 and 2006.

“Given the legal status of these files we are unable to provide further comment at this time,” he wrote.

Nick Pearce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The StarPhoenix