The Arrogant Autocrat: Stephen Harper's Takeover of Canada

New book coming out next week. From the presser:

"Passionate Canadian bestselling author and publisher Mel Hurtig calls upon Canadians to save our country, restore democracy, and adopt urgent measures to protect the future. 

Just months from the general election, political activist Mel Hurtig now launches an extensively researched polemic, The Arrogant Autocrat. In it he argues that Stephen Harper's government has had a devastating impact on the country, radically altering its democratic and economic fabric. 

Hurtig catalogues a litany of abuses, from violations of parliamentary procedure; controlling and destroying information; hobbling or axing sources of information; undermining the rights of Canadians; the use of the federal tax agency to frighten and control civil society; and badly mismanaging the economy - despite loud claims to the contrary.

The Arrogant Autocrat is a shocking portrayal of an admired, democratic country under seige from a far-right prime minister. It is a must-read for all Canadians and a clarion call to take back our country and restore democracy before it is too late."

Publication date : April 30, 2015       154 pages       Available : TBA [right here] later today

An associate of Hurtig's advises there is information found herein not covered in the rest of our pre-election summer reading list compiled by Sandra Finley :

1. Mark Bourrie.  “Kill the Messengers: Stephen Harper’s Assault on Your right to Know.” 2015

2. Michael Harris.. “Party of One. Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover” October 2014

3. Donald Gutstein. “Harperism, How Stephen Harper and his Think Tank Colleagues have Transformed Canada” . Sept 3 2014

4. Lawrence Martin. “Harperland : the Politics of Control”. October 5th, 2010

5. Christian Nadeau. “Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is Remaking Canada by Stealth”. 2010

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Steven Blaney calls a cat a cat

"The Holocaust," intoned Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney today, "did not begin in the gas chamber; it began with words."  

He's right, of course. It began with a government capitalizing on a disaster event to demonize a segment of the population and suppress civil rights - including freedom of expression, assembly, and the expectation of privacy in personal communications - while hurriedly implementing a legal basis for the secret imprisonment of anyone considered not friendly to the government's agenda of security over democracy.

So it began with a law something like Bill C-51.

Press Progress is already all over Blaney's peculiar mention of the Holocaust to justify certain measures of Anti-terrorism Act 2015 at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security studying Bill C-51 today, but I noticed it was a somewhat leading - dare I say, planted - question from Con MP Rick Norlock that preceded and provoked it.

Norlock awkwardly read a question off his prepared question sheet regarding the takedown of internet sites :

 Norlock at 49:35:

 "Can you explain the gap in the legislation you're trying to fill and I'm referring mainly to the promotion and and takedown threshold with regards to internet sites. We've heard some folks say that this portion of the legislation is an attack on our freedom of speech. I don't believe it is but I do believe, I do not believe, that promoting the commission of terrorism acts is acceptable. Can you explain the legislation and how it is different than the current hate speech laws that are focused on certain groups."

Certain groups? I hadn't realized we had "current hate speech laws that are focused on certain groups".

After JustMin Peter MacKay's response, Blaney signalled he wished to speak to the question also:

At the 53:45 mark, Blaney : 

"As you know our government has tabled a counter-terrorism strategy that has four pillars - to prevent, detect, deny, and response. And the fact that as a government , as a society, as we will be able to shut down those websites who are promoting hatred and violence is a tool helping us in the first pillar of prevention of radicalization because as we know, we've heard it, the Holocaust did not began in the gas chamber, it began with words. So we have to be careful and that's why this measure I feel is so important and I also am committed as Minister of Public Safety to work with my partners such as Minister Bernard Cazeneuve of France, our European partners, American - so that websites that could be hosted in other countries could also be shut down if they are promoting hatred, extremist ideology, and violence. So I believe this measure, C-51, is part, is helping the four pillar of our counter-terrorism strategy. Thank you."

Randall Garrison (NDP - Esquimalt- Juan de Fuca, BC) protested Blaney's rhetorical trivialization of the Holocaust and Blaney doubled down in the portion Press Progress posted :




Asked about possible abuses of C-51, Blaney explained he was not worried because he would be the one signing off on the warrants.

Gosh was it only six weeks ago that Blaney gave a speech to the UN General Assembly on the Holocaust and Canada's efforts to combat anti-Semitism in the form of the BDS movement? :

"One year ago our Prime Minister Harper stood in the Knesset in Jerusalem to declare that through fire and water Canada would stand with the people of Israel and all the Jewish communities in the face of anti-Semitism. ... That is why Canada plays a leading role in the fight against the Islamic State. Prime Minister Harper spoke at the Ottawa conference on combating anti-Semitism, clearly outlining the real threat of anti-Semitism and Canada's duty to respond. He said " We must speak clearly, remembering the Holocaust is not merely an act of historical recognition - it must also be an understanding and an undertaking - an understanding that the same threats exists today and an undertaking of a solemn undertaking to fight those threats."

.... Canada has a zero tolerance to anti-Semitism in all forms of discrimination, including in rhetoric towards Israel and attempts to delegitimize Israel such as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. This is because that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are a great threat to us all. More works needs to be done to combat the scourge of discrimination inherent to anti-Semitism and under Prime Minister Harper's leadership, Canada will continue to be a leader in those efforts."

And just a couple of weeks before that, John Baird was in Israel signing a new MOU:

• Deeply concerned by efforts to single out the State of Israel for criticism and isolate the State of Israel internationally including calls for a boycott of the State of Israel, for the divestment of investments, and for sanctions to be imposed on Israel
• Recognizing that the selective targeting of Israel reflects the new face of anti‑Semitism

while another MOU (there were five) promised Israel and Canada would develop "a coordinated, public diplomacy initiative" to combat such criticism.

Meanwhile the website of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada addressed the new MOUs and "the challenge posed by terrorism", including more "standing with Israel through fire and water" and concluding  :

"Whether the fight against violent extremism is conducted over the skies of Iraq or in the tunnels under Gaza, Canada and the State of Israel are fighting enemies whose hateful ideologies and goals threaten all peaceful, democratic societies. That’s why we are committed to enhancing our collaboration on security and defence, especially in the increasingly important area of cyber-security."

From Part One of Bill C-51 : Security of Canada Information Sharing Act :

"Whereas Canada is not to be used as a conduit for the carrying out of activities that undermine the security of another state"

and where the last of nine definitions of "activities" is : 

(i) an activity that takes place in Canada and undermines the security of another state

So I ask again : how much of Bill C-51 is about the Cons soppy infatuation with the current rightwing government of Israel?
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Wednesday Update : The first use I can find of the phrase "The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers - it began with words" is from Liberal MP Irwin Cotler writing for the Jerusalem Post five years ago. It's the title of his article.
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Harperism : From Harper and Hayek to Koch and Coyne

Neo-liberalism : trickle-down, deregulating, deunionizing, globalizing free market privatization of government.

When Stephen Harper was studying under the "Calgary school" in the 80's, he became so enamored with the neo-liberalism of Austrian philosopher Friedrich von Hayek - guru to Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the Chicago boys, the IMF, and the WTO - it formed the basis of his 1991 political economics thesis. 

Why, wondered Harper at the time, did the conservative revolution of Thatcher and Reagan bypass Canada and what could be done about it?

Happily, the Mont Pelerin Society - founded by Hayek and Milton Friedman of the Chicago School, and featuring Charles Koch CEO of Koch Industries as a board member - was there to help, founding and funding a plethora of free market think tanks in Canada via the corporate-funded neo-liberal prototype, the Institute of Economic Affairs in London UK. 

The Charles Koch Foundation on their Fraser Institute grant funding page :

"Since its inception twenty-five years ago at a series of conferences hosted by Milton Friedman and Michael Walker [executive director of the Fraser Institute from its inception in 1974], the Economic Freedom of the World Index has been used as a reliable measure of economic freedom in countries around the world."

As Donald Gutstein explains in Harperism: How Stephen Harper and his think tank colleagues have transformed Canada, this transformation was achieved through what Hayek called *professional second-hand dealers* - "newspaper columnists and editorial writers who parrot reports by neoliberal think tanks such as the Fraser Institute, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Frontier Centre for Public Policy, Montreal Economic Institute, and Atlantic Institute for Market Studies."

As it happens, the heads of all those think tanks he mentions :

• Michael Walker, founding Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute; 
• Brian Lee Crowley, founding President of Atlantic Institute for Market Studies [Atlantica!!!], and Managing Director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute;
• Peter Holle, President of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy;
• Michel Kelly Gagnon, CEO of the Montreal Economic Institute

are themselves all members of the Mont Pelerin Society.

Funding to link think tanks, politicians, and journalists comes from corporations and U.S. donors, but also Canadian billionaires like Peter Munk of Barrick Gold and his Aurea Foundation.
DeSmogBlog : 

The Aurea Foundation was founded by Peter Munk, the head of Barrick Gold, and is a major funder of a small but influential network of free-market think tanks in Canada, including: The Fraser Institute, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the Frontier Center for Public Policy, the Montreal Economic Institute and the MacDonald Laurier Institute.

Gosh, same bunch again.

National Post columnist/CBC political analyst/Manning Centre for Democracy advisor Andrew Coyne is a director at Aurea Foundation, along with former National Post editor Ken Whyte and, up until he became Stephen Harper's chief of staff, Nigel Wright.  

Hayek devotee, former advisor at the federal Department of Finance in 2007-8, and Coyne's friend, Brian Lee Crowley of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute is also particularly ubiquitous in promedia. Crowley has written regular columns for the Ottawa Citizen and G&M (where he spent two years on the editorial board) expounding on subjects dear to Harper : why all of Canada benefits from the tarsands, why we need more foreign investment, the benefits of two-tier healthcare and tankers off the westcoast, and why inequality is no biggie because poverty is a matter of character.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty hosted a private fund-raising dinner for Macdonald-Laurier Institute, advising invited corporate executives that he was giving MLI his personal backing and "I hope you will consider doing the same."

Charlie Smith at the Georgia Straight interviewed Gutstein two days ago :

"Gutstein makes the case that neoliberalism is far more sinister than simply having a desire for smaller government. A central tenet of his new book is that Harper is undermining democracy by marshalling the power of government to create and enforce markets where they’ve never existed before.

“He’s gradually moving the country from one that’s based on democracy to one that’s based on the market, which means that the decisions are not made by our duly elected representatives through the laws that they pass and the regulations that they enact,” Gutstein says."

Coyne responded : 

You can buy Harperism: How Stephen Harper and his think tank colleagues have transformed Canada directly from Lorimer Publishing. 

Book launch with expert panel on issues raised by the book and hosted by the author - Wednesday October 8, 5:30 to 7:30pm at SFU Harbour Centre 

OK, if you must have a sneak peak, here's a few pages on former Liberal leadership hopeful Martha Hall Findlay at the Calgary School of Public Policy advising Harper how he could successfully dump supply management without losing any votes in order to ease Canada's entry into the investor rights deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP. 
The "second-hand dealers" went absolutely apeshit for that one.
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Edited @ 11:15 for clarity

Monday update : Well this will help to cloister the second hand dealers....

The Tyee : Postmedia could soon own almost every English newspaper in Canada. What could possibly go wrong?

Tyee also has an excerpt from Gutstein's book up today : Meet the people who made possible Stephen Harper's reign.

which in turn leads to this from Andrew Mitrovica :  The Hill media war chorus clears its throat … politely
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Paul Manly - Not your NDP's candidate

Not your NDP Candidate

Dear Mid Islanders, Friends and Supporters

"I would like to thank you all for your support and encouragement for my bid for the nomination to be the NDP candidate for the new federal riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith. It is with regret that I write to tell you that the federal NDP has refused to allow me to stand as a candidate.

The local riding executive approved my candidacy for the nomination but the NDP National Director, Ann McGrath, has not approved me and the federal NDP executive will not let me stand as a candidate."

That would be this Ann McGrath, three months ago : 

NDP’s new national director promises open nominations

"[McGrath] said her party won’t repeat the mistakes of the federal Conservatives and Liberals, whose grassroots members have complained of interference in local nominations by senior party officials."

Yet they turned Manly down. 
Really, NDP? This guy spent his 16th birthday campaigning with Tommy Douglas! 

He made the 2009 doc You, Me and the SPP : Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule, frequently pillaged here at Creekside in the past, on his own dime after being turned down for funding by CBC and NFB.

He shot that footage you've all seen of the three 3 rock-toting Quebec police provocateurs at the Montebello protest back in Aug. 2007, and the magic disappearing act of the Toronto police at the G20 while a few black bloc rampaged through downtown in 2010.

Since then he's worked in his community for healthcare, First Nations rights, and marched to end violence against women. 

His 2013 doc Troubled Waters exposes the dangers to public watersheds in Canada from private ownership, privatization, P-3s, groundwater contamination, and international trade agreements. Great film - well worth your time - and inspirational as so much of what he documents is farmers and treeplanters leading the way to protection of our water. 

He's a well-known grassroots community guy working for the public good in his community long before his attempt to represent it in the next election.

So what exactly about this guy isn't good enough for the NDP?  Ah, here we go ...

That's his dad, 79 year old former Vancouver Island NDP MP Jim Manly, onboard the Swedish ship Estelle bound for Gaza in 2012 with humanitarian aid, shortly before it was boarded in international waters by an Israeli security team and all 30 crew members were arrested and detained in Israel.

So Paul wrote a letter, an entirely reasonable letter: My father, Jim Manly, must be released immediately. He was also quoted in the news :

“It would be nice to hear some politicians speak out in support of a retired Member of Parliament who has stuck his neck out to help people in a less fortunate part of the world,” Paul said. “It’s kind of shocking that nobody’s said anything.”

and there was also this : Son of detained ex-MP says NDP has lost its way

As Paul notes the day before yesterday in his letter to his supporters about being turned down by NDP Ottawa: 

"I have not received a written reason for this refusal and was told I will not receive a written reason. I was told verbally on the phone, that the reason was in relation to “what I said and did when my father was in Israel.” There was also concern that I was running to make Israel and Palestine an election issue. 

Israel and Palestine is an issue my parents are focused on, it has not been a focus for me except for the week when my father was seized illegally in international waters and held incommunicado in an Israel prison. This was not going to be an election issue on my platform."

He ends by quoting approvingly from the NDP policy book on Israel and Gaza.

So WTF?, NDP. You may not owe Paul Manly an explanation, according to your own nomination rules, but you sure as hell owe the rest of us one. 

I see a note on his FB page from CBC's Rosie Barton asking him to get in touch. Hope he does.

Update : The Star and CBC both have stories about this now. Nothing new in them except the CBC quotes from NDP Brad Lavigne's book on "bozo eruptions" and the Star says Manly alleges he was blocked "due to his comments on Israel".  Fuck you both.

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Thursday updates : More on this ...

Excellent piece from Greg Fingus@Accidental Deliberations in the LeaderPost [italics mine]:

"Now, it's questionable whether a single instance of past public disappointment with a party should ever be considered a reasonable basis for rejecting a candidate. In fact, a standard of "no past public criticism of one's party ever" seems sure to turn away anybody who has spoken up on any issue other than as a party cheerleader - limiting the pool of candidates either to people who have refused to serve as public advocates for their principles, or those who don't hold any principles strongly enough to speak up in their defence. 

Manly's rejection in turn followed a similar story in New Brunswick. There, provincial candidate Chris Rendell had his nomination approval revoked for the apparent offence of clicking "like" on a single Facebook post praising the province's Green Party leader."

Yeah, about that, from CBC :

"[Rendell] said NDP officials showed him a Facebook page where Rendell clicked “like” to a post supporting Green Party Leader David Coon. 

"The Facebook comment was made by Hugh Duncan Brown, who said: “Thank you, David Coon. This is how to fight for the people of New Brunswick. You have my vote as long as you don't have any posters of war criminals on your office wall.” 

Rendell and seven other people clicked, “Like,” under the Facebook post. 

The party cites Rendell’s Facebook "Like" as the reason why he is no longer a party candidate.

 “I can tell you that the decision to not disqualify Chris was genuine until days ago when the liking of the offensive post was noticed. The fact is if Chris had not liked that post on June 21, he would still be eligible as a candidate right now despite whatever interest in running arose from any other person,” according to Tony Sekulich, the director of communications for the NDP."

The NDP replaced Rendell with a former Progressive Conservative MLA.

Also : John Baglow at Rabble and on Dawg's Blawg : Paul Manly and "today's NDP"

Boris at The Beav : Party Poly-ticks

and a letter to the NDP posted at Babble.

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Thursday at 10am :*** A letter of further clarification from Paul Manly ***

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Friday : Independent Jewish Voices : NDP's anti-Palestine sentiment is part of a much wider problem

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Saturday 5th : Ok, this is really not on. On CBC's The House this morning, at the 43 minute mark, Terry Milewski said :

"The by-elections of course weren't the only unfortunate news, to put it politely, for the NDP this week. You know there was a nomination issue in Nanaimo, wasn't there, with the candidate Paul Manly who was blocked. He's the son of a former NDP MP and he says he was blocked as a candidate by the NDP executive because of his anti-Israel views.  It seems he blames Israel - not Hamas which runs Gaza - for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza so I'm wondering if there's still an anti-Israel streak in the NDP which keeps popping up despite Tom Mulcair's efforts to stamp it out."

An utterly unfair interpretation of Manly's position on ending the illegal blockade of Gaza, which, incidentally, happens to be the official NDP position also.

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July 17 Update : Good post from Richard Hughes :
Thomas Mulcair-Anne McGrath Stop Interfering In Local NDP Nominations which includes the text of a letter from the Nanaimo Ladysmith Riding Association protesting federal NDP interference.

IJV Letter to Tom Mulcair

Ricochet : Jim Manly responds
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Steve & Bibi : Book burning and honorary degrees

You didn't really think he was going to stop at muzzling scientists and librarians and historians, eliminating their jobs, burning books, and closing down Fisheries research libraries, did you?

CBC :Health Canada library changes leave scientists scrambling

Main Health Canada research library closed, access outsourced to retrieval company

Health Canada scientists are so concerned about losing access to their research library that they're finding workarounds, with one squirrelling away journals and books in his basement for colleagues to consult.

"One group moved its 250 feet of published materials to an employee's basement. When you need a book, you email 'Fred,' and 'Fred' brings the book in with him the next day."

James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers : "Scientifically, we are going to be a third-rate country."

 Tomorrow Stephen Harper will receive an honorary degree from Tel Aviv University :

"Mr. Stephen Harper will receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy for his exemplary conduct as a prominent world leader who promotes freedom, human rights and the rule of law; for his efforts to advance higher education; for his open and fundamental support of the State of Israel both as a private individual and as Prime Minister of Canada, and for his active and brave participation in the struggle against anti-Semitism and other forms of extremism.

“Mr. Harper has served as Prime Minister of Canada since 2006. Since Mr. Harper entered office, his government has promoted strict laws relating to public accountability; reduced personal and company taxation to the lowest level for forty years; introduced reforms in the criminal justice system; and strengthened Canada’s international reputation as a reliable ally in the defense of freedom, democracy and human rights."

Steve, Doctor of Book Burning, will join the company of previous Tel Aviv University honorary doctorate recipients Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Angela Merkel, and Brian Mulroney. 
They give out about a dozen a year.

Wednesday update : Steve's acceptance speech :

"I am extremely flattered by the degree and the reasons for which it was awarded. Let me just say this - that I want to accept it not just on behalf of Laureen and myself but the entire Jewish Canadian community who have in our country - and really for both of our countries - merited this award a million times over."

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China, Canada sign military co-operation initiative

If you aren't in the habit of reading the China People's Daily, you probably missed the news that Canada signed a military co-operation agreement with China this summer - because certainly our own media haven't seen fit to mention it. 

When DefMin Airshow MacKay met his counterpart General Chang Wanquan in Beijing in June, CBC only reported on how MacKay "laid down clear markers" on "cyberattacks originating in China", comparing hacking to terrorism. 

The People's Daily had a slightly different take on the same meeting : 
China, Canada sign initiative on military co-operation.

"China and Canada signed an initiative on military cooperation as defense ministers of the two countries held talks in Beijing on Monday. The two sides held that China and Canada are important countries to the Asia-Pacific region and bear common responsibilities in safeguarding peace, stability and prosperity in the region."

... called the tarsands, they did not add.                Here's the DND version.

Meanwhile, the Canada-China FIPA investment agreement, which had been tabled last September, was still quietly moldering away in some mysterious Con legal netherworld while Steve approved the $15.1-billion takeover of Nexen by the Chinese state-owned oil company CNOOC.  

Five days ago, China DefMin General Chang was in Ottawa signing the "People's Liberation Army military cooperation program and Canadian Initiative" according to Xinhua, and shaking hands with Canada's new DefMin Rob Nicholson, who swapped portfolios with MacKay in July.

Again from The People's Daily : 
China, Canada vow to strengthen military cooperation

"Chang said military relations between China and Canada have maintained a sound momentum of development, as evidenced by frequent contacts between military leaders of the two sides, and their smooth and close coordination on global and regional issues.
Meanwhile, continuous progress has been made in bilateral military cooperation, such as in military training, international peace-keeping, defense education and mutual visits by warships, he said."

Three days previously, Chang signed a similar sounding deal with U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in Washington ... peace, stability, security, prosperity, yadda yadda yadda.

Chang said China had been invited to participate in next year's RIMPAC in Hawaii, "the world's largest international maritime warfare exercise", along with 22 other countries including the US, Canada, Russia, Australia, and Japan.

The day after Nicholson and Chang signed their symbolic war games agreement in Ottawa, MultiCultMin Jason Kenney and CitImmMin Chris Alexander announced $1.5-million in federal funds to build a memorial in Ottawa to the tens of millions of innocent victims of Communist regimes around the world :

Once completed, this memorial will teach future generations how millions lost their lives and suffered in inhumane conditions at the hands of Communist regimes,” said Minister Kenney. “It will also serve as a reminder to all Canadians that glorifying Communist symbols insults the memory of these victims, and that we must never take for granted our core values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Ooodles of press gravy for the red meat base on this one.
I'm guessing the monument got a nice press kit and the military co-operation agreement did not.

Your second moment of irony - see the man to the left of Nicholson and Chang in the People's Daily photo op above ? That's former CSIS director Richard Fadden, who shocked people three years ago with his remarks about public officials and cabinet ministers in BC/Alberta being under the influence of China, however unwittingly.

This April, CBC reported that Fadden had been shuffled to Defence.

Here's part of that 2010 interview with Mansbridge :

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Update : Laila Yuile was on this days ago! and included a fascinating speech from Ambassador Zhang Junsai at a luncheon in Calgary in May :

“Many people have even started to talk about North America’s potential of becoming the new Middle East.”

Thursday night update : Murray Brewster/CP breaks media silence:

 China's defence minister meets with Tory ministers amid undisclosed stop
Notable from his story : 

"Defence expert Rob Huebert said the government’s silence is puzzling and troubling.

Earlier in its tenure, the Harper government took a hard line on China’s human-rights record, Huebert said, and the Conservatives may be reluctant to be seen “cozying up” to Beijing for domestic political reasons, and at a time of heightened international tension. 

Beijing has strong trade ties with the regime of Bashar al Assad

This government does have a history of secrecy regarding contentious trade and military agreements. There was the SPP with the US and the "homeland security" accord with Israel.

Back in Oct 2007, the Jerusalem Post announced : “Israel, Canada sign security accord”, a Canada-Israel agreement on “homeland security matters”.

Stockwell Day’s comm director first denied it, then said it was non-binding : “The minister didn’t sign anything” - but Israel’s Ministry of Public Security website said signing was imminent.

Five months later Day announced it from Tel Aviv : a Canada-Israel Declaration of Intent to cooperate on mutually agreed threats like border security, a Canada-Israel border pact. 

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If everything is under surveillance ...

A powerful two minutes with Jacob Appelbaum of Tor Project and Der Spiegel. 
Mr. Appelbaum has been flagged and detained many times like Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda was at Heathrow three days ago. An American citizen, he no longer travels to the US.

Wall Street Journal, Aug 20 2013 :

"The NSA, in conjunction with telecommunications companies, has built a system that can reach deep into the U.S. Internet backbone and cover 75% of traffic in the country, including not only metadata but the content of online communications."

The Guardian, Aug 1 2013

"The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programmes. The top secret payments are set out in documents which make clear that the Americans expect a return on the investment, and that GCHQ has to work hard to meet their demands. 

Ministers have denied that GCHQ does the NSA's "dirty work", but in the documents GCHQ describes Britain's surveillance laws and regulatory regime as a "selling point" for the Americans.

Appelbaum transcript:

"I think at its core what is at stake is the ability for a human being to have dignity and for journalists to have integrity with their sources, and from that I believe that it threatens the whole concept of a free democracy.

This is I think in a sense being shown in the last 48 hours to the extreme and I don't mean that as hyperbole but if everything is under surveillance, how is it that you can have a democracy? 

How is it that you can organize a political function or have confidentiality with a constituent or with a source or with a friend or with the lover?

That's fundamentally an erasure of fundamental things that we have had for quite some time.

And planetary surveillance has very serious concerns, not the least of which is economic espionage and not the least of which I think for me personally is about journalistic source protection.

I mean how is it that we will be able to protect our sources if there's no way to securely meet, no way to communicate about having a meeting, no way to actually communicate about basic facts? 

There's no such thing as on or off the record when in fact you don't control the record.

And it's not merely a matter of whether or not we have something to hide because it is not us that will decide whether we have something to hide - it is an analyst somewhere, it is a machine learning algorithm somewhere. And this is the thing that is perhaps the most terrifying : because people are flagged, then other people are dispatched. Each person plays their role and more and more a machine plays that role, a machine that does not understand constitutional protections, does not understand the Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, does not understand humanity. It's a machine and the humans they behave like machines too - which is a great fear - that humans will start to behave like machines. 

And so what is at stake is in fact democracy where we still have it."

Pink Floyd, 1975
"Welcome, my son, welcome to the machine.
Where have you been? It's alright we know where you've been."

h/t West End Bob for Democracy Now link.

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The Whistleblower vs Watership Down Syndrome

So that's what a real hero sounds like.

We don't talk much about freedom vs security up here in Canada, do we?
Sure we were taken aback when a 2009 RCMP mission statement colour-coded its surveillance subjects in advance of the G8/20 summit, warning of :

"notions/expectations regarding the environment, animal rights, First nations' resource-based grievances, gender/racial equality, and distribution of wealth etc."

... following which the Harper Government™ spent nearly $1-billion deploying 19,000 security personnel to make the largest mass arrest of 1,100 peaceful protesters in Canadian history.

But mostly we are pretty contented sufferers of Watership Down Syndrome : as long as the farmer supplies us with carrots on a more or less regular basis, we accept that some random noisome bunnies are going to get slipped a noose from time to time and, in exchange for a continued supply of carrots, we will never mention them again.

Then again, as Edward Snowden points out above, what happens when a new farmer makes changes to his end of the deal and it's too late for us to change ours?
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Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now : A Massive Surveillance State

The National Security Agency has obtained access to the central servers of nine major internet companies -- including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook

The Guardian : The NSA Files

Michael Geist : Why Canadians Should Be Demanding Answers About Secret Surveillance Programs

The Sixth Estate : The Obama Snooping Scandal and the Inevitability of the Surveillance State and Mass Surveillance: Shamrock, Prism, and Supercomputers

Ian Welsh : The Logic of the Surveillance State

Juan Cole : PRISM : The US Government is mad at Bradley Manning for doing to it what it is doing to all of us

Ronald Diebert in the Star: U.S. online snooping: What Canadians need to know

Update : Touché from Purple Library Guy in comments :

"... except actually the bunnies got a better deal. In our case, we have a farmer who isn't actually supplying any carrots, just propagandizing us into fearing that if we don't let him keep doing his thing, some evil terrorist/commie/feminist/whatever will take our carrots away."

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Abortion and the robot revolt

How heartwarming it was to watch five brave Con backbenchers rise up to defend Langley Con MP Mark Warawa's right to independent Steve-free abortion speech in the House of Commons. After years of having to recite member statements on whatever idiotic repetitive talking points the 30-somethings in the PMO assigned to them every day, this week the robots are revolting.

Con MP Brent Rathgeber : I would submit that if the House does not jealously protect the rights of members to bring forward matters of concern to their constituents and if it does not strictly enforce those rules, the roles of the private member, Parliament and ultimately democracy have all been equally compromised.

Really. You're just noticing this now?
And just like that it's no longer a matter of keeping the abortion debate on a constant low simmer in the House until we all get used to hearing womens' rights questioned there  - no, indeed our very democracy has been compromised if Con MPs aren't allowed to bring it up on a regular basis. 

Andrew Coyne has written two impassioned columns in as many days defending Warawa' right to speak. 
His Backbench revolt isn’t pro-life vs. pro-choice, it’s for the freedom of all MPs repeats some of the arguments he put forth in his 2008 column :
It's time to talk about abortion : This is not about abortion. This is about democracy 
and another one from a year ago :
The idea we can’t debate abortion is unworthy of a democratic country. 

The five Con MPs bravely supporting Mark Warawa in his campaign to save the very soul of democracy are Brent Rathgeber, John Williamson, Stephen Woodworth, Kyle Seeback, and Leon Benoit.  And here, as a gentle reminder, are the answers three of them - Woodworth, Seeback, and Benoit - gave to the Campaign Life Coalition Candidate Evaluation election questionnaire in 2011 and 2008 :

Williamson, Steve's former communications director, and Rathgeber declined to answer the Campaign Life questionnaire but both voted in favor of Woodworth's alternative abortion ploy - Motion 312 - to study when life begins in the womb, along with 86 other Con MPs and one third of cabinet.

While there are principled reasons to support MPs' right to speak freely in the House, it is notable that of all the issues this government has made a point of muzzling of their MPs on, including this one in its various previous anti-choice disguises, suddenly we are being asked to put the right of MPs to speak their minds in the House ahead of women's rights as a point of principle, led by MPs who have already committed themselves to introducing anti-choice laws.

So are we looking at a Backbencher Spring here?             
Here's Warawa free speech supporter Con MP Leon Benoit immediately after the weekly caucus meeting with Steve the following day :

Nope, guess not. Looks like Steve muzzled the groundhogs for yet another spring.
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Monday, April 1 update :  Con MP Brent Rathgeber, after the same caucus meeting :

“I think it was a good meeting. The media have reported, and I think accurately, that many members who were upset for a variety of reasons, seem to be satisfied that the issues have either been resolved or the issues are not worth resolving.”

The 24 hour Con Backbencher Spring is over.