Be afraid.

The party that thrives on spreading false fears is engineering a true reason to be afraid.  But of course, they won’t open this piece of legislation for debate, nor will they be honest to Canadians as to how it will affect us.

The package is benignly nicknamed “lawful access,” but isn’t benign.  If the Conservatives move forward with it, it would feature a three-pronged approach focused on information disclosure, mandated surveillance technologies, and new police powers.   

(Emphasis mine)

The first prong mandates the disclosure of Internet provider customer information without court oversight...The new system would require the disclosure of customer name, address, phone number, e-mail address, Internet protocol address, and a series of device identification numbers.

The second prong requires Internet providers to re-work their networks to allow for real-time surveillance...These include the power to intercept communications, to isolate the communications to a particular individual, and to engage in multiple simultaneous interceptions.

Having obtained customer information without court oversight and mandated Internet surveillance capabilities, the third prong creates a several new police powers designed to obtain access to the surveillance data.

Lawful access raises genuine privacy and free speech concerns, particularly given the fact the government has never provided adequate evidence on the need for it, it has never been subject to committee review, and it would cost millions to implement yet there has been no disclosure on who would actually pay for it. Given this, it is not surprising that every  privacy commissioner in Canada has signed a joint letter expressing their concerns.

Not only is the substance problematic, but the attempt to fast track lawful access virtually guarantees that it will not be fully vetted. For example, over the past few weeks there has been mounting concern that the legislation would also create new criminal liability for hyperlinking to content that incites hatred and for using anonymous or false names online.

As we cheered on countries who used social media to spread the desire for change and allowed people to organize, our own government plans to control freedom of speech here, on the Net in particular.

This is no big surprise since it has been one of the few areas where harper could not control dissent.  Social media has not been kind to him, and with good reason.  With nearly every newspaper supporting the harper regime, it has been left to the Net users to expose the serious abuses of his government and the obvious direction in which he is taking our country against the will of most Canadians.

Youtube has been especially unfriendly to the master strategist.  It is a powerful social engine due to brief messaging tightly scripted, presented with visuals.

A few months ago, several articles came out about limitations public servants are subject to during elections.  While the purpose of the legislation is to assure that public servants remain non-partisan and take a moment to assess their involvement with politics before over-stepping bounds, such limitations were deemed undemocratic, stifling public servants’ rights to be actively engaged in politics.

This access act would stifle every Canadian and do so without justification, without providing those silenced with recourse, without oversight agencies protecting individual privacy or freedom of speech rights.

Meanwhile, the harper government has just made sure it can deny access to its own doings.

In a major decision, the court decided that Canada’s Access to Information Act does not apply to the records controlled by the people at the top of the government’s power pyramid: the prime minister, cabinet ministers, and their staffs.  And though the current Conservative government promised in the 2006 election campaign to ensure that ministers’ offices would be subject to the access law, it fought that principle in court.

We can see where this is going.  The harper regime can operate in secrecy as it plans major changes that affect us all, while any person who questions or criticizes - as is not only our right, but our responsibility in a democracy - will be silenced, perhaps even charged.

With a majority, harper will slide the lawful access legislation through easily since there is no longer an opposition that can vote him down.  He owns the Senate majority as well, so forget sober second thought or in-depth review working out the legalities or fairness of the act.  Harper will bury this in another omnibus crime Bill that will allow even the little bit of debate in the House to turn to the usual harper dishonesty of criticizing opposition to parts of the Bill as criticism to the more benign parts he puts in for window dressing.


And silencing dissent, stopping the sharing of information, making criticism criminal...that's just the beginning.  There are reasons why leaders like harper want to control information and discussion at all levels.  They want to make sure we don't have any chance of opposing what he knows will be highly unpopular changes to our country, our way of life, our very rights in order to pursue his own very narrow, backwards, extremist view of what Canada should be and how Canadians should live, even at very personal levels of religion, marriage, rights, and how we spend our money.

Smoke ‘em while you got ‘em, because our days of free speech and activism on the Net are numbered.  The very people who have been resisting this type of tyranny will be the first to be silenced.

Is this the Canada we want?

The Harper government is planning a Taj Mahal complex for the Defense Department's spies, complete with a hockey rink, basketball and volleyball courts and a bank in a secure facility on Ogilvie Road, says the head of the department's largest union.

While the original Taj Mahal was build as a symbol of eternal love,  Harper’s is more of a big fuck-you to Canadians.

We are subject to the dire warnings of the ever frowning Finance Minister, Deficit Jim, day after day.  You know, the guy who gave Canada the biggest deficit in Canadian history.  As Flaherty warns us faceless Canadians that we need to tighten our belts, it being our duty and all, and as Stockwell (I-pinned-a-Loonie-on-my-lapel-to-show-my-respect-for-taxpayers) Day announces that DND’s budget must be cut by 1 billion, the very same harper government decides to build this monstrous testament to the crazy kill-em-all-let-god-sort-em-out path he wants to take Canada down.

The right calls lefties crazy conspiracy theorists, but here’s their Great Leader elevating spies to that elite level he constantly spits vitriol at and using much needed tax dollars to do it as he cuts, slashes, butchers the rest of the public service and social programs for Canadians.

Fuck human rights, fuck the poor, fuck minorities, women, aboriginals.  And in particular, fuck free speech.  It will just get in the way of the spies work.

As appalling as the utter hypocrisy of spending money on a lavish centre for spies - complete with a sports complex, a hockey rink with a zambone, volley ball courts, walking trails, and of yes, a large fireplace, what such spending indicates is far worse.

Harper cut daycare.  Bashed the hell out of it.  Tried to make it sound anti-democratic by labeling it as a government nanny.  But when it comes to spies, publicly funded daycare is just okey-dokey fine.  And those elitists who ride bikes?  Doesn’t apply to spies.  Lots of bike racks for them planned.

And that lazy, over-paid public service really shouldn’t have low rate parking.  Hell no, they should pay full price!  Unless you’re a spy in training, that is, then it’s free.

So what is harper telling us here.  He’s saying that there are two types of Canadians - the ones he decides deserve extra special treatment, and the rest of us who just need to tighten our belts, shut the fuck up, pay our taxes, and never, ever criticize his rule or question how our tax dollars are spent.

That harper decides to pamper this particular group with our tax dollars at a time when all departments are being hit with major cuts tells us what he thinks is important.  Not creating jobs, not fighting poverty, not education, not the arts which are the lifeblood of a nation, not aid, not women, not children...

No, what’s important to him is investing more money into paranoia.  Investing into information gathering, population control, and mostly, spreading fear so that we taxpayers are more easy to control and bleed for every last dollar.

Also, MacKay has noted that the government would move forward with the project through a public-private partnership but MacLennan said it is unclear what role private firms will play.  Plenary did not respond to a request for comment. MacKay's office referred questions to CSE, which did not respond...MacLennan questioned the wisdom of employees of a private corporation having access to CSE buildings.

Yeah, I question that wisdom as well, and not being able to get CSE to respond to questions makes me more than a little twitchy.  Are we going to rent out spy services to private companies now?

This obscenity of harper’s has to be stopped, and we, those faceless Canadians he has such contempt for are the only ones who can do it.

We need to become far, far more vocal in pointing out where he’s taking Canada, and we need to put a hell of a lot more pressure on all other parties to take this son-of-a-bitch down before he makes Canada a target for hatred and terrorism by his policies, before he guts our laws and rights and social programs so badly that it will take decades to recover, and before he gets such a strangle-hold on our right to protest that we who protest will be the ones filling his new prisons.

The man is insane.  His idea of reality is so out there, so cold-war 50s that it’s difficult for normal people to grasp how dangerous he is. 

If you need anything more to convince you: he’s building this huge spy centre on Ogilvie Road???!!