the closing society

commentaries on 42 trends to tyranny

introduction
In her book The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, scholar Naomi
Wolf undertook to research the de facto blueprint that’s been used time and again
throughout history to close down democracy and establish authoritarian states. She
identified 10 major steps in the process:
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizen’s groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and abuse
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Equate dissent with treason
10. Suspend the rule of law
Do any of these measures sound familiar? While Canada is not America, since 9/11 we
have been following in its footsteps by integrating certain troubling laws, assumptions,
and tactics into our culture. Under the pretext of keeping us safe from terror (when
you’re in fact more likely to be hit by lightning) similar changes are being adopted
incrementally throughout the Western world – as this free, non-partisan booklet
endeavours to show. While limited to presenting a sketch of the real issues facing us
and thus unlikely to convince some, it’s hoped that this humble effort will at least assist
in opening up a dialogue about the differences between liberty and tyranny, rather
than the farcical distraction of ‘left’ vs. ‘right’. Canadians are fortunate to live in one of
the freest countries in the world, but recent events demonstrate this is a situation we
can hope to maintain only by becoming engaged, active, and aware of what’s
happening under the radar of our busy lives and the evening’s soundbites that pass for
news…
about this booklet
To use this pamphlet, access corroborating news items by
manually entering shortened URLs (case sensitive) into your
browser - or scan the provided QR Codes with your smartphone. QR Code
Matrix
QR Code scanning software available from your app store or go to http://bit.ly/1dUIpu

The following topics and trends are covered, in alphabetical order:

afghanistan appropriation biometrics cameras

children corruption culture economics elites environment
eugenics food globalization health history integration internet law media

militarization money newworldorder pakistan parliament police privacy

prohibitions propaganda protest provocation rights secrecy
sovereignty surveillance tasers taxation terror
toronto torture tracking travel war
afghanistan
Afghanistan has always held a central position on the grand chessboard of the middle
east, and this is doubly true today – control of oil distribution (the puppet Karzai is a
former UNOCAL executive), CIA drug income, and proximity to Iran all motivate the
continued occupation of the nation that stymied Alexander and the British Empire. Back
home, domestic media need only brandish the spectre of terrorism, Osama bin Laden,
the Taliban (eg; loosely knit Afghan resistance) and just like magic, civilian drone
strikes and torture are justified in the name of the ‘war on terror’. Meanwhile, the
Afghan people suffer the charade of development and liberation, eyewash for domestic
audiences.
Afghanistan – News Links

Tories worked hard to paint bloody Afghan war as peace

mission: MEP documents http://bit.ly/aIm76F

Abuses at US ‘Black Jail’ in Afghanistan confirmed

http://bit.ly/avijCY

PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal,

prorogation http://bit.ly/brpm6V

How the US Funds the Taliban

http://bit.ly/d7gqcQ

Afghan leader’s corrupt brother paid by CIA, U.S. officials

say http://bit.ly/9YxAj9

US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

http://bit.ly/cdREpX
appropriation
“That government is best which governs least.” – Thomas Paine. These words, written
two centuries ago, still resonate today. While natural laws against fraud are ignored,
establishment pundits prevaricate and spin to justify massive state expenditures,
triggering a growing realization that the seats of centralized government power are
vulnerable to corruption and occupation by well-funded interests. Expropriations via
taxation are increasingly redistributed to the rich rather than needy populations and
the political scions of socialism are revealed for what they are – puppets of corrupt
multinational institutions. Did you seriously think you were going to get a cut?
Appropriation – News Links

Multiple Wall Street banks investigated over links to

ratings agencies http://bit.ly/c1Q3Xo

Paul Volcker: VAT, Carbon taxes may be necessary

http://bit.ly/d1Uvgw

Explosive Leaked Emails Expose Treasury Secretary

Geithner’s ‘Backdoor Bailout’ http://bit.ly/bERlUi

MPs from all four parties ink secret deal on cash

http://bit.ly/cA19m5

UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails

new world order (again) http://bit.ly/cGn4vl

Financial Rescue Nears US GDP as Pledges Top $12.8

Trillion http://bit.ly/aFIQFm

Morgan Chase Exec Brags Bailout Is for Takeovers,

Restructuring, Not Lending http://bit.ly/9CcECA
biometrics

As surely as feudal peasants were chained to their lord and land by culture, poverty,
and the occasional census the citizens of a high-tech surveillance state are chained by
an ongoing, ad-hoc census – informatics, data mining and tracking in the employ of the
state micromanagement corps and their partner corporations. And what better way to
keep track of citizens within this control grid than by measurements of their body – no
ID required. Now we see the growing spectacle of our global neighbours meekly
submitting to thumbscans for banking and access privileges, to facial tracking as
increasingly employed at national borders, and to genetic databases compiled on
civilian populations in the interests of law enforcement. Yet where does the greater
danger lie? With the disorganized criminal element, or the global economic hitmen that
have seized control of our governments? We forge our chains anew.
Biometrics – News Links

Australia recording features for facial recognition

http://bit.ly/dw86gw

Canadians to get biometric, RFID enabled passports in

2011,security experts voice concerns http://bit.ly/9d5u7S

The government has your baby’s DNA

http://bit.ly/bA33IG

Incoming CSIS chief to seek biometric data at border

http://bit.ly/cXkBle

Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street,

vendors say face scanning next http://bit.ly/9TWS30
cameras
The impact of Orwell’s phrase ‘Big Brother is watching you’ is under threat – it seems
now almost quaint, antiquated, drained of its horror by our growing familiarization with
the very real proliferation of surveillance infrastructure. The domestic use of CCTV,
unmanned drones, and even blimps proliferate or are under discussion as we become
conditioned, acclimatized to a security culture of fixed and mobile platforms for
enforcement and surveillance. The average citizen of London, England may be
photographed 300 times a day in the course of their activities by around half a million
cameras and yet multiple studies have shown that CCTV are ineffective at preventing
crime. The question, then, must be – whom are they protecting and to what end?
Cameras – News Links

FAA Experiments With Integrating Drones in Civil Airspace

http://bit.ly/d0MWfp

Toronto streets get 77 more surveillance cameras for

G20 http://bit.ly/c0iJ22

UK Parents Angry Over CCTV In School Toilets

http://bit.ly/a5oWOv

B.C. to get license-plate scanning system

http://bit.ly/9mDDgE

EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would

Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” http://bit.ly/9YPsZf

In UK, 1,000 cameras ’solve one crime’

http://bit.ly/bySYAs
children
One important cultural bellweather is the way a society treats its most vulnerable
members, and most particularly its children. So what kind of a standard are we setting
for future generations when our children are increasingly overmedicated, abused by
authority figures, surveilled, tracked by GPS and watched by armed guards in their
schools? Are we enabling them to be free, productive members of society or are we
bringing up the new generation within a social panopticon: suckled on state
propaganda and conditioned into happy compliance with their new electronic serfdom?
Children – News Links

The Psychiatric Drugging of Children: Inventing Disorders

http://bit.ly/bJE4E8

Officers suspended after using Taser on 10-year-old

http://bit.ly/atNioa

Shock study: 12% of kids sexually abused in govt. custody

http://bit.ly/aPxJnk

Television – not in front of the children?

http://bit.ly/aZZuYj

UK Schoolkids Protest CCTV, Hidden Microphones in Class

http://bit.ly/cBzCO5

Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More

http://bit.ly/9gtGoP
corruption
Deception, graft, and the selective enforcement of the law are all hallmarks of the
innumerable tinpot dictatorships and banana republics we’re accustomed to deride, and
rightly so. But our righteousness is on increasingly shaky ground. Scandals and
coverups continue to mount even in our supposedly enlightened societies, tainting the
rule of common law and shaking the people’s faith in its tenets. We’ve ‘turned our gaze
from the castles in the distance / eyes cast down on the path of least resistance’ – or
more likely, towards the latest sitcom or reality TV show. The death of accountability,
the cavalier destruction of civil rights and the rise of predatory leaders and institutions
to the highest offices of the land should come as no surprise, then. It has always been
thus for cultures that chose to turn a blind eye to corruption as they collapsed into
looting and the rule of the thug. You get the government you deserve.
Corruption – News Links

Fake Lakes not Required, But $50 Million of G8 ‘Legacy’

Spending Pours into Clement’s Riding http://bit.ly/dslcHS

UK Report condemns WHO swine flu experts’ ties to big

pharma http://bit.ly/cXvmSm

Climategate Investigation A Monumental Whitewash

http://bit.ly/cZ3g3I

Goldman Sachs Helped Greece Obscure Debt Through

Currency Swaps http://bit.ly/csdmDA

Ont. Liberals block committee probe of eHealth chiefs

http://bit.ly/bRZc2m

Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the Crack Explosion

http://bit.ly/bvgYfT
culture
If we see culture as the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and
artifacts that we use to order and understand our world, it follows that alteration of
these cultural patterns and symbols would have an impact on our perceptions of the
world as well. Culture provides many of the attitudes we adopt and enact, often by
rote. A culture’s militarization and the subsequent hardening of attitudes strengthens
this feedback effect by emphasizing hierarchy and introducing additional factors such
as propaganda. This is a pattern we see in periods of history such as those following
the burning of the German Reichstag and the demolitions of 9/11. The German people
of the Weimar Republic era were as urbane and educated as they came – and yet they
chose a dictator in the face of internal and external threats fabricated by National
Socialism. Why? Because they’d been well prepared in advance by their culture and
media.
Culture – News Links

Chomsky Warns of Risk of Fascism in America

http://bit.ly/95bz16

The Culture of the Warrior: Canada’s military invisible

no more http://bit.ly/bD09HE

Atlas felt a sense of déjà vu

http://bit.ly/bLrBWG

Toronto School Board to ‘review’ The Handmaid’s Tale

on one parent’s complaint http://bit.ly/ab7EAI

They killed their neighbors: genocide’s foot soldiers

http://bit.ly/9Jk1fa

Comedian begins asking Harper question, cuffed by

RCMP http://bit.ly/dltDOX

You Are a Suspect

http://bit.ly/avaq4G
economics
As the institutions culpable for economic meltdown benefit most from the injection of
trillions of bailout cash worldwide, we may be forgiven for viewing economics as the
‘dismal science’. Yet basic economic literacy is more vital than ever to understanding
the hidden currents determining the direction of global events. This is about the
artificial creation of debt. There is no capitalism – the market’s ecology has been
destroyed, its tidal forces dammed up, diverted and controlled by a simple Ponzi
scheme – the issuance of fiat currency, paper IOUs by privately held central banks.
Ideologues and alumni of investment houses have infiltrated government and firmly
grasped the macroeconomic levers of economic power. It’s a racket – banks are
merging with government and they’ve written themselves a blank cheque. Now global
populations are informed that ‘austerity’, taxation, and the adoption of increasingly
virtualized payment systems will be required to balance accounts.
Economics – News Links

Dollar should be replaced as international standard, UN

report says http://bit.ly/98lSsN

G20 banking reform agreed upon, to be finalized in

Seoul http://bit.ly/93XLKm

G20 decides to become world’s new ruling economic

council http://bit.ly/cPsVZa

Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine

http://bit.ly/9tVQtQ

IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central

bank” as crisis spreads http://bit.ly/9YgzPc

Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda

http://bit.ly/abR9FK
elites
In his book Superclass, the former Kissinger and Associates managing director Philip
Rothkopf details the existence of a global power elite numbering not more than 6,000 –
those movers and shakers that treat national boundaries as mere lines on a map, see
each other at the World Economic Forum in Davos, hobnob at The Bilderberg group or
the G20 or climate conferences. Rothkopf says it must be thus, making only a plea for
a form of a modern noblesse oblige – that the unofficial oligarchy look out for the little
guy, too. Historically speaking, that’s not a good bet. So the book is explicit – there
exists a class, a jetset clique that shapes policy and has a very tenuous line of
accountability to the public. The rockstars of the state, financial, and corporate worlds
combined, these powerbrokers of ‘governance’ drain sovereignty from their client
states and insist on economic micromanagement on their terms. That’s not ‘free
market’. On Parliament Hill, this is called backroom dealing and it has no place in a free
republic at any level of government.
Elites – News Links

George Soros Calls for World Currency and “New World

Architecture” http://bit.ly/ajXYE2

Leaked 1955 Bilderberg Docs Outline Plan For Single

European Currency http://bit.ly/af9vYJ

Geronimo’s descendants fight Yale secret society for their

ancestor’s remains http://bit.ly/bsKsHZ

Kissinger Calls for a New World Order

http://bit.ly/daDxcX

Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System

http://bit.ly/bFrAp5

How Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power

http://bit.ly/ah5BBO
environment
While the global mainstream press continues to prevaricate and absolve the University
of East Anglia for delivering skewed science to the UN’s International Panel on Climate
Change, the real story is to be found in the motivations for and continuing fallout from
the establishment of carbon trading and carbon market exchanges. This attempt to
construct the next debt bubble (and make no mistake, carbon credits are monetary
instruments) is backed by precisely the same corporate interests the average
environmental activist believes they’re railing against. Greens are merely useful pawns.
And it’s as simple and effective as the ploy, if you think about it. Carbon exchanges
and taxes do nothing to solve any issues related to climate change – in fact they
incentivize the dirtiest industries to move offshore to those developing nations exempt
from the plan, and create a new brokerage market enabling global banks to make a
bundle in the process. Meanwhile real environmental disasters (eg; Monsanto’s attempt
to monopolize global seed markets) are either given short shrift for their ties to
industry or, in the case of the BP oil spill, played as opportunities to herd public opinion
towards carbon taxation and austerity. That’s austerity for you, it must be understood
– the palatial homes and private jets of the globalists pushing these taxes, well
naturally those are exempt.
Environment – News Links

States Need To Launch Criminal Investigation Into BP,

Federal Government’s Role In Oil Spill http://bit.ly/9oFhKX

Britain pushes for new climate talks; IMF, global taxes

to figure in redistribution scheme http://bit.ly/9HUbqN

Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End

Run” Around National Sovereignty http://bit.ly/aFYMyX

Copenhagen, carbon, and the global corporate agenda

http://bit.ly/c2oleD

Obama, Gore, tied to Chicago carbon exchange

http://bit.ly/bBrNi5

U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax

http://bit.ly/duXH6a
eugenics
The term eugenics, for most, conjures images of Nazi death camps, Dr. Mengele,
propaganda images of a fictitious and well-scrubbed Aryan race, etc. But what’s less
commonly understood is the long and continuing history of the ideology that humanity
should place the control of its numbers, its genetic heritage, and even its future
evolution under the technocratic control of a scientific class. In fact, a quick look at the
history of the movement – funded and advanced by American and British elite interests
and only later exported to Germany – should give any rational person pause to
consider the folly of such coercive hubris. Indeed, the divisions between ‘positive’ and
‘negative’ eugenics are still debated today within medical ethics disciplines. Global
populations, meanwhile, are experiencing precipitous declines in fertility as we eat
genetically modified foods off plastics proven to impact the endocrine system, line up
to have our genomes sequenced, and seriously discuss the suddenly pressing need for
overt population control measures on the model of China’s one-child policy. In his 1952
work, “The Impact of Science on Society”, Bertrand Russell forecast the principles and
practices technocratic, authoritarian societies would take to implement a modern
version of Plato’s Republic, averring that “Gradually, by selective breeding the
congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost
different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organised
insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.”
Eugenics – News Links

Storage of newborns’ blood samples raises privacy

concerns http://bit.ly/cWpX93

Copenhagen: Global Population Control Program

Suggested To Stop Climate Change http://bit.ly/bkUuOO

The Case for Killing Granny

http://bit.ly/ckKgQ7

Obama Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To

Enforce Population Control Measures http://bit.ly/cmw0gf

HIV positive women in Africa sterilized, stigmatized

http://bit.ly/atOrxP

‘Accidental’ Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian

Flu Virus Virtually Impossible http://bit.ly/dgNxGf

The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

http://bit.ly/9yiHaj
food
Despite the fact that GMO food products and sweetening additives have been linked to
sterility, organ failure, and autoimmune disease, agribusiness and international food
authorities like the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization continue to press for the
adoption of patented farming processes. In some cases, lobbying efforts by agri-pharm
giants have successfully motivated legislation requiring the adoption of genetically
modified seed products and chemical farming methods. In other cases, onerous laws
are enacted around traditional food practices – paperwork, equipment and additional
costs for tracking chips and ’safety’ that impact small local butchers and farmers,
pricing these operations out of the market. Farmers in India regularly commit suicide
by drinking the very insecticide they’re now forced to buy to produce annual yields,
while financial institutions stand as eager to possess their land as they ever did by
squeezing Western farmers out of a living. If this continues, we will see the end of legal
self-sufficiency. As Bob Dylan wrote in the 1983 track Union Sundown, “I can see a day
coming when even your home garden is going to be against the law”.
Food – News Links

Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility, Infant

Mortality http://bit.ly/bLE4I2

Monsanto’s GMO Corn Linked To Organ Failure, Study

Reveals http://bit.ly/bJaczI

US House approves sweeping new food powers for FDA

http://bit.ly/ab7kSx

Genetically Modified Seeds: Monsanto is Putting Normal

Seeds Out of Reach http://bit.ly/caASMb

Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury

http://bit.ly/aulcJC

SWAT Teams raiding Amish, Food Co-ops in Rural US

http://bit.ly/bVbCrh

Codex Alimentarius — An Emerging Threat

http://bit.ly/aQwajF
globalization
The ongoing process of globalization is often presented as an example of and an
argument against the liberalization of trade. What does globalization consist of?
Ongoing calls for economic ‘governance’ and budgetary oversight by central bankers.
The administration of trade policy by treaties unaccountable and unexposed to national
parliamentary debate. The discussion of various models of international taxation in the
name of climate and economy. And yet with palpable irony, not a single one of these
trends bears even a family resemblance to liberalization on the classical model. That
would require a decentralization of economic control and an accompanying limitation of
government power, not wider oversight by an EEC, GATT, WTO or NAFTA. Instead, the
ways in which power is being uploaded, centralized, and institutionalized far beyond
the reach of your vote looks every day more like the old mercantile expansionism of
the European crowns and their chartered agents or China’s contemporary authoritarian
economy than anything that could be called free market. In a free republic, state and
economy are separate and the people rule themselves via elected representation.
Under metastasizing global technocracy, we’re increasingly ruled by a complex of
integrated state and business interests steered by appointed mandarins.
Globalization - News Links

Harper calls for global economic governance, lauds G20 as

ruling forum http://bit.ly/bdFmHY

EU ‘Free Trade’ and CETA: Advancing the Transatlantic

Agenda http://bit.ly/aXnx8B

Leaked UN Documents Reveal Plan For “Green World

Order” By 2012 http://bit.ly/a1UBqg

UN Chief: We Will Impose Global Governance

http://bit.ly/aGPPt7

World Bank President Admits Agenda For Global

Government http://bit.ly/dsHh71

Jim Flaherty Urging Greater Federal, International

Control over Canadian economy http://bit.ly/cSafVr

The Resurgent Idea of World Government

http://bit.ly/bkWFkB
health
The greatest part of the threat of corporatist integration of business and state is the
incentive and the ability to artificially create or grow markets by legislative diktat. This
is the basic survival instinct of any office, to accumulate influence and power. The
question is, by which method is this accomplished - open-market forces or coercion?
The incestuous, revolving-door relationship between the top offices of the
pharmaceutical industry and its regulators provides a sterling example of the latter
dynamic. Between dumping the toxic byproducts of the aluminum industry into
tapwater to ‘protect your teeth’, attempting to enact mandatory vaccination laws, and
convincing governments to spend your tax dollar on overhyped ‘pandemics’, this state-
pharma axis is subject to systemic bias and politicization. It ought to be dismantled as
hazardous to your health.
Health - News Links

Naked body scanners ‘could give you cancer’, children

especially vulnerable warns expert http://bit.ly/cdGeRa

Federal product safety seizure bill C6 back from the

dead http://bit.ly/bYjAhe

UK Report condemns WHO swine flu experts’ ties to big

pharma http://bit.ly/cXvmSm

Bisphenol A remains off toxic list as Ottawa reviews

mystery complainant’s objection http://bit.ly/9QQU8I

Teen Diagnosed With Guillain-Barre Syndrome After Swine

Flu Shot http://bit.ly/bLGYrb

Scottish parliamentarians seek answers as cervical

cancer vaccine injuries mount http://bit.ly/9l1sh0

Cut ties between Health Canada, drug companies, grieving

MP urges http://bit.ly/c80s5r
integration
The balance that the Canadian federalist system attempts to strike between the powers
of Ottawa and the provinces (and the fallout throughout our country’s history)
illustrates a fundamental dynamic of political systems – the tension between the
centralizing principle, which accrues and ‘uploads’ hierarchal power to the central
government, and the decentralizing principle, which demands control be diffuse, local
to those its decisions impact. On a global timescale and as seen from above, nations
merge and devour one another on the same pattern. Such mergers – when not the
result of outright war or economic siege – are typically shotgun weddings, resulting in
negative impacts on the constitutional rights of citizens. (See: Ireland’s experience
with the Lisbon treaty.) This is the dance of tyranny and liberty, and to judge by
present trends, nation-states are integrating further, silently ceding national
sovereignty via summits, trade negotiations, and the creation of international law.
Integration – News Links

EU wants control over member budgets

http://bit.ly/dincpB

EU ‘Free Trade’ and CETA: Advancing the Transatlantic

Agenda http://bit.ly/aXnx8B

Pacific North American Regional Integration and Control

http://bit.ly/ad1F86

Leaked 1955 Bilderberg Docs Outline Plan For Single

European Currency http://bit.ly/af9vYJ

TILMA interprovincial “trade pact” represents further

centralization of political power http://bit.ly/cRrCTl

Consider a continental currency: Jarislowsky

http://bit.ly/crI93G
internet
The Internet, that great leveler when it comes to open access to information, is under
threat. Its increasing nationalization, the deployment of increasingly restrictive terms
of use, traffic throttling, and the outright censorship of websites at the level of national
firewalls all contribute to the choking off of this valuable resource. The pretexts being
employed are the threat of piracy and, more recently, ‘cyberwar’ – but the true quarry
is political power as the state-media complex lobbies behind the scenes to stuff the
genie back in its bottle, transform the web into the World Wide Wiretap and reestablish
themselves as the online gatekeepers of cultural messaging, news and information.
Internet - News Links

Iceland Unanimously Approves ‘Wikileaks Bill’ To Establish

Free Speech Press Haven http://bit.ly/cd7eJC

Internet ‘kill switch’ proposed for US President

http://bit.ly/bQeL41

Tories unveil tougher copyright bill, requires ISPs to keep

user info http://bit.ly/cGgKpf

CETA worse than ACTA – EU Negotiators Demand

Canada Change Its Copyright Laws http://bit.ly/9fOL18

Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet

http://bit.ly/aBC5fi

Death Of The Net: Censorship Bills In UK, Australia, U.S.

Aim To Block “Undesirable” Websites http://bit.ly/aLyePl

Murdoch CEO Labels Bloggers “Political Extremists”

http://bit.ly/crMVjP
law
One of the fundamentals of a free republic is ‘the rule of law’ – and not the rule of
men. Of course, this presupposes a starting point of just laws and a constitutional
culture, since it’s not the law on the books that provides the source of justice – justice
requires an understanding of various underlying moral issues and their judicious legal
application. In the rush to be ‘tough on crime’ and ‘tough on terror’ – not to mention
‘tough on immigration’ and ‘tough on security’ – Canada’s leaders have apparently
forgotten this important caveat. In the rush to employ executive power and pass new
crisis legislation enabling expanded state powers it is often legal precedent, ancient
common law precepts, and civil rights that are left on the ash-heap. We live in an age
wherein our shared legal heritage in the form of free speech and political expression,
the onus of proof of guilt, mens rea, habeus corpus, and open government are all dying
the death of a thousand slow legislative cuts. As citizens of Canada, it is incumbent on
us all to sit up a little and ask if we really want to walk down that path. It is not law,
but tyranny that lies in wait round the next couple of turns and our government is
herding towards that legal pen via a simple, time-tested expedient: fear.
Law - News Links

US top court: Human rights advice, nonviolent aid to

banned groups equates to ‘terrorism’ http://bit.ly/9LqbVy

Tories reintroduce anti-terror act provisions that cross

line, former CSIS chief warns http://bit.ly/bbeeLX

Random sobriety tests would breach constitutional rights:

Bar association http://bit.ly/9YQi7a

An American Detention Bill You Ought to Read More

Carefully

Harper government violating Constitution: prof

http://bit.ly/bv6InK

You Commit Three Felonies a Day

http://bit.ly/cma34k

Was Canada’s Privacy Commissioner targeted for

opposition to intrusive security policies? http://bit.ly/cLYvRa
media
Pity the poor media, the ‘fourth estate’ of our society – expected to deliver timely,
entertaining content by the people, expected by the state and those shareholders
financing its debt to push an agenda. In their 1988 book ‘Manufacturing Consent’
Herman and Chomsky define the modern media’s systemic biases by crafting a
‘Propaganda Model’, stating the mainstream media’s social purpose is not to deliver
information to viewers, but viewers to advertisers, and that further, “… the study of
institutions and how they function must be scrupulously ignored, apart from fringe
elements or a relatively obscure scholarly literature”. Ill-served by this evident conflict
of interest, viewers are abandoning mainstream news in droves, and the industry is in
crisis. Canadian viewers, to be fair, are not so ill served by our media institutions,
which do question institutions although only up to a point. In response, the
government has shut down federal Access to Information databases, has uprooted an
established media gallery to a more controlled environment, and essentially forbidden
the essential media scrum, deeming all interactions between MPs and the media to be
authorized by the PCO. A chill has been created, the art of the tough question is an
endangered one, and the ongoing consolidation of the press towards a bland
homogeneity endangers the openness of Canadian democracy.
Media - News Links

US Senator: China Can Shut Down The Internet, Why Can’t

We? http://bit.ly/aJvFH4

Fox News Caught Aggregating Copyrighted Photos -

Something Murdoch Insists Is Illegal http://bit.ly/aGvB9y

Canadian Journalists Barred From Gitmo

http://bit.ly/ca9XxA

US Government Propaganda To Infest Network TV

Shows http://bit.ly/9Ey6vh

Canadian media watched closely in Afghanistan

http://bit.ly/cSvayk

Canadian Parliament Threatens People Posting Video Of

Proceedings Online http://bit.ly/ahHlej

Cheney Orders Media To Sell Attack On Iran

http://bit.ly/9giYSY
militarization
TASERs. Public surveillance cameras. Military drone reconnaissance. The incremental
militarization of Canada can be as overt as the domestic use of military technology or
as subtle as the creeping regimentation of law and culture. Countless historical
examples exist to show that what begins as the desire to sacrifice a little liberty for the
sake of security ends in the destruction of both; replaced instead by sterile
authoritarian monoculture, internal checkpoints and restrictions on travel, a command
and control economy, and a continual state of war.
Militarization – News Links

G8/G20 Police Fusion Centres Unmasked in Barrie, North

Toronto http://bit.ly/aGUdqC

America would send troops to G8/G20 if required

http://bit.ly/ajMIHh

The Culture of the Warrior: Canada’s military invisible no

more http://bit.ly/bD09HE

Military spycraft patrols Ontario border from Fort Drum

http://bit.ly/bZerdC

Military readies reservists for threats to ‘domestic front’

http://bit.ly/b5Z7j9

Military and police practice integration during Olympic

security exercises http://bit.ly/bxAHBk
money
Mayer Amschel Rothschild has been famously quoted as saying, “Permit me to issue
and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.” To understand
why, look no further than the monthly interest rate on your credit card. In the absence
of a decentralized, commodity-based currency such as gold or silver (or a true national
scrip at the very least), there is no such thing as economic sovereignty. Today,
commercial banks create money out of thin air and lend it to governments at interest.
Every fiat dollar created in this manner silently extracts purchasing power – real value
– from the people and uploads it to the issuer by the process of inflation, thereby
building a political incentive to spend into the system. And what human activity
requires the greatest expenditures? The present continual state of war is a logical
outcome of modern monetary policy.
Money – News Links

Dollar should be replaced as international standard, UN

report says http://bit.ly/98lSsN

Why Governments Hate Gold

http://bit.ly/aY4bUD

The Federal Reserve as Giant Counterfeiter

http://bit.ly/cdPdQZ

Leaked 1955 Bilderberg Docs Outline Plan For Single

European Currency http://bit.ly/af9vYJ

Mainstream Financial Publication Finally Admits that

Austrian Economists Were Right http://bit.ly/c9JLk4

IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central

bank” as crisis spreads http://bit.ly/9YgzPc
new world order
Demagogues, visionaries, and heads of state have at various times in the past century
all called for the rise of a ‘new world order’. Indeed, there is very little that’s ‘new’
about it. HG Wells, Adolph Hitler, Presidents Woodrow Wilson and HW Bush as well as
Henry Kissinger number among those that have used the term, shorthand for the
centralization of power under some system of global governance, be it by soldier or
bureaucrat. While most proponents of new global political orders profess to good
intentions, closer examination reveals the desire for outcomes similar to those political
authoritarians like Plato have been calling for for years: a strictly hierarchal social and
political system in which typically corrupt financial and political elites rule and
administer society. And in fact, new systems of currency and taxation are presently
being debated on the global stage, at economic councils and G8/G20 summits. As an
evergreen symbol in the international media, the ‘New World Order’ serves to rally
globalist politicians to the cause – former English Prime Minister Gordon Brown has
invoked it on numerous occasions within the last couple of years.
New World Order - News Links

How will democracy fare under the G20’s new world

order? http://bit.ly/axf60V

George Soros Calls for World Currency and “New World

Architecture” http://bit.ly/ajXYE2

G20 decides to become world’s new ruling economic

council http://bit.ly/cPsVZa

‘New world order’ needs better economic grounding:

Carney http://bit.ly/c6LAZe

UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails

new world order (again) http://bit.ly/cGn4vl

Kissinger Calls for a New World Order

http://bit.ly/daDxcX

Financial Times: And now for a world government

http://bit.ly/cnWNcU
pakistan
Pakistan is a hub of covert activity in Central Asia, with strong ties to the US reaching
back to the Afghan war against the Soviets. The resulting relationship between the CIA
and the ISI, the Pakistani secret service, has been well documented elsewhere. These
ties persist – CIA drones fly sorties out of secret bases in Pakistan to bomb rebellious
Pashtun tribes (‘Taliban terrorists’) in the north, meanwhile, the ISI makes no secret of
having created and operated Taliban proxy militias to destabilize its neighbours.
(Tellingly, the Taliban Shura was airlifted to safety inside Pakistan by the US during the
2001 invasion of Afghanistan.) Today, American security contractors and ‘Al Qaeda’
mercenaries for hire run similar operations across the border into Iran, shady training
camps disgorge wind-up terrorists to menace Western populations into a state of
panicked xenophobia, bombs and propaganda are unleashed, and the war continues to
expand.
Pakistan – News Links

LSE Report: Pakistan ISI backs Taliban

http://bit.ly/d5hB80

1 in 3 Killed by U.S. Drone Attacks In Pakistan Are

Civilians http://bit.ly/dfZJVD

Arrested Terrorist Leader Exposes Extensive CIA

Connections http://bit.ly/bmYKKg

CIA admits Blackwater presence in Pakistan

http://bit.ly/8YVItX

CIA, Pakistani ISI have long, complicated relationship

http://bit.ly/cEj53t

US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

http://bit.ly/cdREpX
parliament
Canadians, take note. The federal parliament is the institution that exists to provide
representational government to the people of Canada – often by means of rancorous
debate, grandstanding, and partisan manuevering. This is by design. As in
parliamentary democracies throughout the world, cumbersome procedures and
carefully balanced legislative powers are a feature rather than a drawback of a
bicameral parliament: they exist to make it difficult for any would-be tyrant to make
sweeping changes to the fabric of the country, if guarded by a vigilant and loyal
opposition. Yet decades of apathy, corruption, bid rigging, and an expanding civil
service all weigh heavily upon our parliament, itself increasingly under threat by the
impulse to institute administrations capable of executing the wishes of the ruling party
with minimal interference. As access to information and accountability is choked to a
trickle under the control of a centralized corporatist executive, as global treaties are
increasingly negotiated not on the Hill but among the peaks of international finance,
the House is increasingly relegated to a vestigial status, a compliant rubber stamp
isolated from the decision-making process.
Parliament - News Links

Harper’s Privy Council message control system is

unprecedented, critics say http://bit.ly/aIIQcx

Access to information risks being ‘obliterated’: report

http://bit.ly/ahBTdt

Feds mulling plan to turn Parliament Hill into high-security

zone http://bit.ly/9dp1wV

Thousands of Canadians protest shuttering of

Parliament http://bit.ly/cXrgqU

Protesters disrupting question period detained and

bloodied by hill security http://bit.ly/9dcKCC

MPs from all four parties ink secret deal on cash

http://bit.ly/cA19m5

Parliament losing power, author says

http://bit.ly/bW5Ru4
police
Police in a state with a working justice system are by rights considered paragons,
sworn to uphold just law and protect the rights of citizens. Under authoritarian
regimes, they become thuggish enforcers and assassins. Canada now lies on a
transition point between these opposite poles, and it would appear we’re headed in the
wrong direction – as new prisons are built, as TASERs are increasingly deployed to
front-line officers that have not proven themselves above torture, as old couples are
beaten at the border for asking questions. While undoubtedly most interactions with
Canadians are within the desired frame, while most officers are courteous and
professional, there is a shift in weapons and tactics that is being simultaneously
undertaken in Canada, The UK, The US, and elsewhere.
Police - News Links

The G20’s ignominious end: Panic, outrage as police detain

hundreds for hours in pouring rain http://bit.ly/aeRhvM

Elite Toronto police squad stops and questions

thousands http://bit.ly/9mmYi9

Mounties discussed Tasing Dziekanski prior to altercation

http://bit.ly/9Hynxv

Military and police practice integration during Olympic

security exercises http://bit.ly/bxAHBk

Safety report author Falconer on armed police in schools:

“Facile” http://bit.ly/awZYHo

RCMP conducts random search and seizure on Canada

Day http://bit.ly/aypERu

Dark Alliance: The Story Behind the Crack Explosion

http://bit.ly/bvgYfT
privacy
While Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has recently declared privacy to be obsolete,
most Canadians would likely say they value their privacy. However privacy is
increasingly under threat on multiple fronts; from calls to abolish privacy on the
Internet to corporate data mining, more people want to know where you are, what you
buy, and how you think than ever before and in real-time if possible. Canada, while
better at protecting privacy than some jurisdictions thanks to the PIPEDA act is not
immune to the trend, to judge by a steady stream of reports on new privacy concerns
emanating from the office of the federal privacy watchdog..
Privacy - News Links

School laptops took thousands of images of students:

Lawyer http://bit.ly/biEeGs

UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s

license’ for Web users http://bit.ly/aBum5O

Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned

http://bit.ly/aW2T8g

Laptops fair game for border searches

http://bit.ly/92W5kK

ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill

http://bit.ly/98iMfz

NSA Surveillance Exploding, Americans Wiretapped

Beyond Congressional Limits http://bit.ly/cJRCw1

Was Canada’s Privacy Commissioner targeted for

opposition to intrusive security policies? http://bit.ly/cLYvRa
prohibitions
The proper function of a government in a just republic is to protect the rights of
citizens, to free them from interference by ignorant or hostile parties. But in states
adopting an authoritarian model, these rights are no longer seen as a necessity for
individuals in a society. Instead, the conception of rights Thomas Hobbes outlined in
Leviathan is adopted – rights are granted by the state, and since a right is really just
on loan from the state these privileges may be revoked arbitrarily. Slap enough
prohibitions on the public, and you’ve created a ‘nanny state’ in which the public’s right
to make its own choices is eroded and specific rules and regulations overgrow the
whole of society. In case you think it can’t happen here, witness the fact that in recent
months, your right to express dissent, use the internet anonymously, pilot a boat, own
a gun, purchase local (unprocessed) food products, talk on your cellphone in a car and
take pictures of police officers have all come under threat, either by outright ban or
cumulative restrictions.
Prohibitions - News Links

Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New

Emergency Powers http://bit.ly/dBq77I

Federal product safety seizure bill C6 back from the

dead http://bit.ly/bYjAhe

Official ACTA Draft Released, Only Very Slightly Less Awful

Than Expected http://bit.ly/9bnTNP

Toronto police seize 400 guns in ’safety push’

http://bit.ly/b6HMhI

Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government

Regulation & Control Of Our Lives http://bit.ly/9GD6rz

Ban-happy Ontario accused of ‘Big Brotherism’

http://bit.ly/96HpRS

Turning Toronto into a nanny state

http://bit.ly/anMXQY
propaganda
In 1928, Edward Bernays, intellectual father of the public relations industry, wrote a
book entitled Propaganda. The first two lines read “The conscious and intelligent
manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important
element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of
society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our
country.” Noted linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky has also identified the
operation of propaganda in the mass media as a means by which consensus around
social and political policies may be engineered in the public mind. (See ‘Necessary
Illusions’, 1989) And the operation of this mechanism is not difficult to spot in
Canadian culture – message control is a primary concern of the present federal
government. Leaders and public officials are often caught in acts of naked deception.
But propaganda need not be imposed from above – systemic biases may be applied by
writers seeking to curry favour by singing with the choir. Recent examples may be
identified; from flag-waving exercises and fulmination in support of foreign war and
‘national security’ to the fanning of moral panics pressing the need for some desired
legislation, the manipulation of public opinion is an integral part of the media culture in
which we live and breathe. Being able to triangulate when and how one is being
manipulated is a vital skill for anyone that desires to understand the sort of ‘democratic
society’ Bernays had in mind.
Propaganda - News Links

Harper’s Privy Council message control system is

unprecedented, critics say http://bit.ly/aIIQcx

Washington Post: CIA Created Fake Bin Laden Video,

Discussed ‘Gay Saddam’ Campaign http://bit.ly/dbynRu

Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet

http://bit.ly/aBC5fi

Are the U.S. and Britain covering up Bin Laden’s death

to continue war on terror? http://bit.ly/9x9I7k

Statistical Deceptions: How Fake is the “Recovery”?

http://bit.ly/b7TRt5

Canadian, Australian PM Used Same Speech Urging

Participation in Iraq http://bit.ly/bcT3EB

Former British Ambassador Says Liquid Bomb Terror Alert

Is “Propaganda” http://bit.ly/dtIshL
protest
Prior to the divisive segregation of the modern political conscience into “left” and
“right” – increasingly meaningless labels – there was only one cause, that of freedom
versus tyranny. People that have toiled under the yoke of monarchs, of conquerors, of
racial apartheid and genocide all understood this distinction in a way that perhaps
cannot seem quite real to those of us living in a time and place when liberty and wealth
is the norm. But seen against the backdrop of history, this is a precious and vulnerable
enclave. Jefferson said that the “price of freedom is eternal vigilance”, and in fact any
time a people, satiated and happy, turn their eyes from the castles in the distance they
will be overrun by a most banal evil – the consent of ordinary people to conform to
mass opinion and sanction injustice by their inaction. Protest is not, must not be seen
as some tiresome imposition by ne’er-do-wells, but a crucial heritage of freedom, and
when a state is incrementally degrading civil rights, bombing wedding parties half way
around the globe, taxing its citizens into poverty and imprisoning political activists it
becomes the crucial duty of everyone who values justice and can still draw breath.
Protest - News Links

Bilderberg 2010: Why the protesters are your very best

friends http://bit.ly/dqh8j2

Thousands of Canadians protest shuttering of

Parliament http://bit.ly/cXrgqU

Protesters disrupting question period detained and

bloodied by hill security http://bit.ly/9dcKCC

G20 protesters blasted by sonic cannon

http://bit.ly/9kDQW1

DoD Training Manual Describes Protest As “Low-Level

Terrorism” http://bit.ly/bgUmUT

G20 protests: Riot police, or rioting police?

http://bit.ly/aDcl2Q

Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The

Shit Out Of Protesters” http://bit.ly/9YHFHZ
provocation
The use of deception and misdirection for gain is a fundamental aspect of the human
condition, clearly linked in the history of primate evolution to the enlargement of the
neocortex. Observers from Sun Tzu (‘war is deception’) and Machiavelli (‘princes… have
little respect for keeping their word’) to the Mossad (‘by war of deception thou shalt
wage war’) have noted the historical importance of deception to war and statecraft.
Why, then, does it come as such a surprise to domestic populations that the state, like
a schoolyard bully, is liable to point to its enemies and declare ‘he pushed me first’?
The art of the provocation, the sacrifice of the pawn to pin the blame on one’s enemy
in order to discredit them, is one of the oldest tricks in the book. History is rife with
examples. From the the sinking of ships and the destruction of landmarks to the
infiltration of protest by police to justify armed crackdown, state sponsored terror, the
product of some 50 million years of deceit, should come as a surprise to no one. Yet we
also desperately desire the security of trust, wish to believe that the leaders of our
pack, our social group, our state are the infallible exception.
Provocation - News Links

Ban G20 summit agents provocateurs: activist groups to

PM http://bit.ly/cbMru0

Arrested Terrorist Leader Exposes Extensive CIA

Connections http://bit.ly/bmYKKg

Crotch Bomber Mutallab’s Visa Approved by State

Department http://bit.ly/at8iov

A Sibel Edmonds Bombshell – Bin Laden Worked for U.S.

Until 9/11 http://bit.ly/cpXIeC

Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill

U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries http://bit.ly/9VESRY

Canadians who trust our secret police should think

again http://bit.ly/bjdybm

Operation Northwoods Declassified: U.S. Military Wanted

to Provoke War With Cuba http://bit.ly/a6wfhF
rights
In a free society, the political and moral principle of a human right exists to
subordinate the laws of society to the fundamental requirements of human life. Thus,
rights inhere in the people that constitute a state – they are not granted to a people by
the government. In fact, for a government to be of any use to those living under its
terms, its first order of business must be to forbid the initiation of force against one’s
fellow citizens; meaning others must not use or threaten to use force to take away
your life, your freedom to act, or your means of sustaining your life. In other words,
live and let live. Any state that initiates force against its own citizens suffers from a
terminal corruption – like a cancer or an immune system gone rogue, such a state
attacks the very living cells it is supposed to protect. What are we to make, then, of
the new-found enthusiasm of governments in the west to surveil us, detain and beat
those expressing dissent, subject travellers to increasingly invasive and indiscriminate
searches, all the while hiking taxes and handing the proceeds to political cronies? To
protect our freedom from ‘terror’, it seems, we must submit to an authoritarian
gradualism and accept our new status as prison inmates while we watch our liberties
drain away. Such a disease can only metastatize until it eventually kills its host. Such a
state has come to serve its rulers rather than its citizens.
Rights - News Links

The G20’s ignominious end: Panic, outrage as police detain

hundreds for hours in pouring rain http://bit.ly/aeRhvM

72% of Guantanamo detainees given hearings found to

be wrongfully detained http://bit.ly/bJsKkQ

Tories reintroduce anti-terror act provisions that cross

line, former CSIS chief warns http://bit.ly/bbeeLX

CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens’

rights http://bit.ly/bWCEiD

Supreme Court rules tainted evidence admissible in ‘minor’

Charter violations http://bit.ly/9oxXjC

Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners

http://bit.ly/bI9u8g

Former MI5 chief: UK Ministers ‘using fear of terror’ to

restrict civil rights http://bit.ly/9i7piL
secrecy
In January 2010 Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, informed a press conference
that privacy is no longer a social norm. Similarly, the refrain of apologists for
expanding state surveillance networks and naked body scanners is that they’ve nothing
to hide. Yet if such radical openness and ‘transparency’ is such a good thing when
applied to (formerly) private citizens, would it not also be of value when applied to the
operation of our governments, which, believe it or not, are also comprised of fallible,
imperfect, corruptible citizens? A curious double standard obtains. Criminal cases
increasingly turn on secret evidence. Politicians and CEOs meet to discuss public policy
not before elected legislative bodies, but behind closed doors in conference centers
transformed into armed citadels. The present administration works overtime to gut
public access to information. Meanwhile, we’re being told increasingly that the less we
know the better off we’ll be. Clearly, we’re not to be trusted and indeed ought to trust
such trifles as the maintenance of our liberties to an increasingly shifty glut of expert
councils that no longer demonstrate any interest in such quaint notions as the consent
of the governed.
Secrecy – News Links

Bilderberg 2010: What we have learned http://bit.ly/b3fwTp

Cabinet ministers’ offices regularly interfere in access

to information requests, staffer says http://bit.ly/9n7e72

UK: CIA ‘put pressure on Britain to cover up its use of

torture’ http://bit.ly/bPpDAm

Taibbi: NYSE ends transparency to protect Goldman

Sachs http://bit.ly/a4LOSM

Canadian Parliament Threatens People For Posting Video

Of Proceedings Online http://bit.ly/ahHlej

Banks won’t say where U.S. bailout money going

http://bit.ly/HYtQ

Top secret: Banff security meeting attracted U.S., Mexico

officials http://bit.ly/9kIoqO
sovereignty
A nation, like an individual, must nurture its independence in order to maintain control
of its destiny. Those that have failed at this task have in the past been colonized, or
accepted the lesser status of protectorate or province. In his seminal 1965 work on
Canadian nationalism, ‘Lament for a Nation’, philosopher George Grant viewed this
independence as contingent upon Canada’s British roots, its past status as colony
providing the cultural and ideological differences which had, until that point, set it apart
from dreadnought America. Yet sovereignty is as much a function of economic
independence as it is of identity, and both of these factors remain under threat. While
Canada’s identity has left the crown behind and we now value our status as a
peaceable, multicultural nation, successive leaders have accelerated Canada’s headlong
dash towards not only a continental integration based upon economics and security,
but a global one as well. While it may once have been arguable that balancing this
uneasy bilateral relationship provided Canada with a clever opportunity to play these
ends against each other, America has been diminished and now, backroom deals and
treaties being formed without the knowledge or consent of the Canadian public tilt
towards a ‘global governance’ steered by unelected central banks and stateless
corporations. Canada, a nation with vast economic resources, must make this a matter
of urgent national debate before we wake up one day, dependent and colonized once
more by parasitic oligarchies far beyond the reach of democratic processes.
Sovereignty – News Links

Strengthening NAFTA Ties and the Push Towards a

Common Security Front http://bit.ly/doeN2x

Lewenza: Canada-EU deal will affect more than trade

http://bit.ly/cOnt94

Harper calls for global economic governance, lauds G20 as

ruling forum http://bit.ly/bdFmHY

UN Chief: We Will Impose Global Governance

http://bit.ly/aGPPt7

The time has come for North American monetary union

http://bit.ly/aGGlyl

History: How the US Government Was Overthrown In

Three Easy Steps http://bit.ly/dufHTT

“North American Parliament” Meets At Integration Forum

http://bit.ly/brUWam
surveillance
Were George Orwell to read the news in 2010, he might well recognize the foundations
of the society depicted in his famous dystopic novel, 1984. The proliferation of police
security cameras in Canadian cities and towns is just one aspect of the growing
technological Panopticon we’re to be subjected to – Jeremy Bentham’s famous prison
organized around sightlines for the purpose of control. Recent innovations in Canada
also include stop and search police patrols, a provincial license plate scanning network
in BC, and the now infamous airport naked body scanners. Big Brother is watching you.
Only this time, he’s going global.
Surveillance – News Links

UK Police use spy drone for first domestic arrest – without

airspace clearance http://bit.ly/aS74XD

B.C. to get license-plate scanning system

http://bit.ly/9Xc3RD

EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would

Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” http://bit.ly/doIbq4

Britain To Put CCTV Cameras Inside Private Homes

http://bit.ly/bYS3ye

Toronto TAVIS special police corps demanding ID on city

streets http://bit.ly/bEpqZQ
tasers
Since the story of Robert Dziekanski’s execution at the hands of the RCMP broke in
2007, TASERs have become a potent symbol of police militarization. To date, however,
Canadians have yet to effectively question the wider issue of the motives and
consequences of the powerful economic and political lobbies pushing to create markets
for devices such as TASER International’s pain compliance weapon. Like something
from a dystopian nightmare, the TASER skews relations between citizens and police by
normalizing torture – many examples exist of multiple TASER deployment against the
passively resistant and those who’ve merely spoken back to police – and the
Scottsdale, Arizona manufacturer helps twist our former ‘peace officers’ into enforcers
by promoting the use of electrocution as a safe and consequence-free alternative to the
use of negotiation or physical restraint. Despite multiple studies demonstrating the
dangers of the TASER, TASER International’s storied litigiousness, propaganda, and
sponsorship of police events has effectively neutered dissent on both sides of the thin
blue line, and the use of TASERs continues to accelerate, a trend symptomatic of the
ongoing shift in western culture towards a closed society.
Tasers – News Links

Police TASER Grandmother in Bed

http://bit.ly/auyeR7

RCMP defend Taser use on girl, 16

http://bit.ly/bgC3L5

Mounties discussed Tasing Dziekanski prior to altercation

http://bit.ly/9Hynxv

Inquiry says ‘insidious’ TASERs being used as tool of

convenience calls for restrictions http://bit.ly/ajqmSD

Chicago study calls Taser’s safety claims into question

http://bit.ly/aCTUzL

Witness blames RCMP, Vancouver airport for death of

Tasered man http://bit.ly/9FFjQs

Officer injured in Taser demonstration

http://bit.ly/bH96Gn
taxation
Suppose a man steals your car. We can all agree this is immoral. Suppose ten men
steal your car, but give you a bicycle in return. Most would object to this arrangement
as well. Now suppose an organization of thousands forcibly takes your money under
threat of force or imprisonment but provides a nominal set of services in return. How
big does such a gang have to be before it’s okay for your wealth to be expropriated
regardless of your consent? Despite the obvious similarity to a mafia protection racket,
this is the situation that obtains under state taxation and this, the famous ‘How many
men?’ thought experiment, frames an ethical argument against taxation by challenging
the listener to differentiate between institutionalized coercion and outright theft. Even
those who happily pay their taxes and buy the myth of a ’social contract’ must
recognize that this arrangement, historically, often spirals dangerously out of control as
the state – and the powerful interests that attach themselves to it – has a powerful
incentive to grow larger, increase its power to exproprate wealth, and eat out the
substance of the citizenry until corruption overwhelms civil society. In the current
economic climate, the hailstorm of proposed taxes on everything from energy to travel
to goods and services could hardly provide a better example of this trend. Even as
some resist the headwinds, bravely railing against the national imposition of the HST,
millions slip further into poverty while international agencies seek new means to
expropriate wealth on a global scale and sell us ‘austerity’ to bail out billionaires.
Taxation – News Links

HST will cost families, McGuinty finally admits

http://bit.ly/aldZXX

Up to 50,000 protest Charest’s tax hikes

http://bit.ly/bQY5N0

IMF chief calls for quota-based global warming slush fund

http://bit.ly/aFsZxC

Leaked G20 Documents Shed Light on Global Carbon

Tax http://bit.ly/9xPBlO

GPS Tracked Road Tolls Back On Agenda for Toronto

Metrolinx http://bit.ly/bbx7Kf

‘Smart meters’ set to boost prices, track energy use by

time of day in Toronto http://bit.ly/bjnWe2

Revenue Canada destroys man’s life, refuses to pay for

million-dollar mistake http://bit.ly/boi7S9
terror
Since 9/11, the media has become so saturated with references to terror that it’s easy
to forget how controversial the use of the term once was to journalists. Commonly
understood to mean attacks on non-combatants to cause widespread psychological
trauma and provoke political change, the use of the term is complicated by the fact
that this is but one definition and there are, in fact, many kinds of terror and many
kinds of terrorist. From the self-directed terror of a nationalist or sectarian insurgent
organization, to state-sponsored and funded terror organizations intended to
destabilize rival countries across international boundaries, to terror directed against a
state’s own citizens or troops under the pretext of attack from a rival as a means to
mobilize for war (look up ‘false flag’ terrorism), history provides numerous examples of
these and other forms of terror. As a pejorative, the term has also been abused by
countries across the globe as a broad brush to demonize political enemies and
undesired minority cultures. Western democracies aren’t innocent of this tactic, either.
Long before whistleblowers and independent researchers began raising uncomfortable
questions about the tragedy of 9/11, false flag terror had been employed by Italy
during Operation Gladio, the Gulf of Tonkin incident which precipitated the Vietnam war
has been declassified as a deliberate deception, and the RCMP, via the informant
‘Poupette’, was guilty of creating fake FLQ cells and staging bombings during the
October Crisis – to name just a few now well-documented instances. This is a wake-up
call, then, to those who believe it can’t happen here. It already has, and as tensions
mount during conflict and police informants continue to agitate within suspected terror
cells, terror – both real and manufactured – can only increase in an expanding cycle of
violence.
Terror – News Links

Homegrown terrorist threat to be part of new US National

Security Strategy http://bit.ly/dqHt17

Boy Charged With Making Terrorist Threats Over Stick-

Figure Sketch http://bit.ly/d2Zwjr

A Guide to the 9/11 Whistleblowers

http://bit.ly/bbncBJ

Crotch Bomber Mutallab’s Visa Approved by State

Department http://bit.ly/aZGeh9

How the US Funds the Taliban

http://bit.ly/d7gqcQ

Toronto 18 Terror case: RCMP agent Shaikh was

instigator who broke law: defence http://bit.ly/9BhjIi

London terror plotter was ‘hardened’ in ISI camp

http://bit.ly/dmoDbW
toronto
In London, New York, Chicago, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto; in fact throughout the
West, a disturbing change is taking place in major urban centres. Though timelines
may vary with city budgets, though local populations may be more or less compliant or
resistant, our great cities are all tacking towards a similar end: increased surveillance,
tracking, and centralization of control. Until recently these changes have been steady,
incremental, slow enough perhaps to escape the notice of citizens busying themselves
with their lives and their families. Then came the G20. Even given the distortions and
spin introduced by the media during June 2010’s summit debacle, honest observers
could not help but be shocked by the spectacle of hundreds of innocent civilians being
‘kettled’ and held for hours in the pouring rain by the state’s armoured, black-garbed
enforcers. In the aftermath, those with any civic instinct whatsoever must be asking
themselves some hard questions – do we wish to live under the authoritarian model?
And how far is too far?
Toronto – News Links

The G20: Brutal spectacle failed a city and its people

http://bit.ly/9q6uSW

University of Toronto, Peter Munk to reveal new School

of Global Affairs http://bit.ly/c9XPv3

GPS Tracked Road Tolls Back On Agenda for Toronto

Metrolinx http://bit.ly/bbx7Kf

More police security cameras approved for Toronto

http://bit.ly/aS3Hjv

Toronto police seize 400 guns in ’safety push’

http://bit.ly/b6HMhI

Toronto TAVIS special police corps demanding ID on city

streets http://bit.ly/bEpqZQ

50 Toronto high schools to have armed police presence

http://bit.ly/9rn21j
torture
During WWII, American POWs were waterboarded in Japanese prison camps, a
violation of human decency that was rightly condemned as a war crime, its
practitioners sentenced to hard labour during post-war tribunals. It did not take long
for this sort of moral indignation to become a sham, however, as US military and
intelligence agencies routinely practiced torture during the coming decades, conducting
medical experiments on American servicemen and teaching its methods to foreign
dictators amenable to American interests. (See documentation on CIA training of the
Iranian SAVAK for just one example.) After 9/11, the use of torture was sexed up as
the mainstream media went into full spin mode, producing apologias for the practice –
now rebranded as ‘enhanced interrogation’ – and personified in the chiseled visage of
Jack Bauer. As a species, we’re incredibly adaptable, and it should be red flagged that
our children are growing up in a culture where rendition and torture are the new
normal. Psychologically speaking, as we laugh at the latest atrocities in the ‘Saw’
franchise we have become the enemy our grandparents fought on the killing fields of
Europe, cynical and desensitized to the value of human life.
Torture – News Links

72% of Guantanamo detainees given hearings found to be

wrongfully detained http://bit.ly/cmokLk

Report: Afghans in secret jail ‘made to dance’ to use

bathroom http://bit.ly/9t2vzV

Canada wanted Afghan prisoners tortured: lawyer

http://bit.ly/blb4B8

Government Experiments on U.S. Soldiers: Shocking

Claims Come to Light in Court Case http://bit.ly/9GyxdC

After Obama praises torture ruling, civil liberties group

appalled http://bit.ly/9GbBLa

US police could get ‘pain beam’ weapons

http://bit.ly/bclRcR

Canadian MKULTRA project mind control victim to tell of

pills, shocks, brainwashing http://bit.ly/b9OQSZ
tracking
From cradle to grave, like the children of Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, we are
increasingly pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, and numbered. From
your social insurance number to your wallet full of ‘loyalty’ cards to the final liquidation
of your estate, states and international corporations are increasingly interested in
building personal, political, and commercial profiles of your activities – a practice
commonly known as ‘data mining’. And while we may evade knowledge of this trend,
declaring (like all populations in thrall) that we’ve nothing to hide, future generations
may well look back and wonder how we could so easily have submitted to such a
skewed relationship, one in which centres of power expected absolute an absolute
accountability of their clientele but in turn demanded the asymmetry of secrecy and
copyright in regards to their own activities.
Tracking – News Links

Privacy commissioner outlines concerns surrounding

Ontario’s Smart Grid plan http://bit.ly/asNyzx

Canadians to get biometric, RFID enabled passports in

2011,security experts voice concerns http://bit.ly/9d5u7S

Suit possible over baby DNA sent to military lab for

national database http://bit.ly/aC3GRW

Feds push for tracking cell phones

http://bit.ly/czP2Lc

B.C. to get license-plate scanning system

http://bit.ly/9Xc3RD

GPS Tracked Road Tolls Back On Agenda for Toronto

Metrolinx http://bit.ly/bbx7Kf

EU Plans Massive Surveillance Panopticon That Would

Monitor “Abnormal Behavior” http://bit.ly/doIbq4
travel
Travel has become an intrusive pain in the ass. Do you remember? Previously, we
would have simply boarded a plane. These days, we’re prodded and scanned and
beaten and/or TASERered at the border should we dare question our inquisitors.
Nevermind the fact it’s impossible to whip up a bomb in the Boeing washroom. Like
sheep, we’ve grown accustomed to handing over our travel-sized liquids for disposal, to
removing our shoes, to submitting to an invasive groping should we decline to have
our bodies imaged and bathed in high-energy radiation. On balance – considering we’re
more likely to be struck by lightning twice than to fall victim to ‘terror’ – does this keep
us safe? Or does it simply lock us down, pen us in, and restrict our movements across
national borders within a nascent global police state?
Travel – News Links

‘Naked’ scanners may increase cancer risk

http://bit.ly/dkHaAb

Government Lied: Naked Body Scanners CAN Transmit

Images http://bit.ly/do2fHe

New OPP cameras scan licence plates

http://bit.ly/chrLIA

Border guards resorting to force more often

http://bit.ly/aixaA1

Greyhound introduces security screening of passengers,

bans fruit, carry-ons http://bit.ly/aSB7RI

Interpol wants facial recognition database to catch

suspects http://bit.ly/cqfgfN

American Rail Passengers Subject to Random Searches,

Police Presence http://bit.ly/bEkN15
war
War – what is it good for? Certainly, in an ideal world, it would be justifiable to mount
a strenuous defence against a determined external invasion. However, this is not the
world we live in, nor is it the circumstance of the regional conflict in which we find
ourselves embroiled. Must there be a pretext in every generation to send the best of
our youth off to war’s grindhouse, to ship billions in tax dollars to weapons
manufacturers, to psychologically damage a new crop of parents and continue the cycle
of violence anew? Apparently so – we keep falling for this scam, we wear our yellow
ribbons, we dress up sharp in suits of green and we’re placed upon the war machine.
As former US President Eisenhower warned in his last official speech, “the potential for
the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist… only an alert and
knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and
military machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals…” Who among us
can seriously believe that we are today ‘alert and knowledgeable’ enough to hold the
state accountable for the bloody sham of regime change in Afghanistan? Who among
us could claim we’re informed enough to support the hail of depleted uranium
munitions and drone strikes on the nomadic tribes of the AfPak border? Would you pull
the trigger? Or would you rather go back to watching Canadian Idol, a passive
participant, content to let the killing in the name of your flag and your country
continue? This is the lesson of war – we’re too anxious to follow our peers over the
cliff. Like lemmings, we’re only too willing to exterminate ourselves and our neighbours
once some authority points the finger. After some 9,000 years of civilization you’d
think we would have figured this one out.
War – News Links

‘Vast’ biometric database prompts troops to open fire on

vehicle, 4 unarmed Afghans killed http://bit.ly/djUrwT

1 in 3 Killed by U.S. Drone Attacks In Pakistan Are

Civilians http://bit.ly/dfZJVD

Israeli preparations for war with Iran troubling

http://bit.ly/bqmMWa

Obama’s War for Oil in Colombia

http://bit.ly/cm4M7u

Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill

U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries http://bit.ly/9VESRY

Sri Lanka has ‘nothing to hide’ yet detains, deports Bob

Rae enroute to observe camps http://bit.ly/cpBpBY

The Lies that Led to War http://bit.ly/94wNC6

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never
be a time when we fail to protest.” – Elie Wiesel

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” – Abraham
Lincoln

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” – Howard Zinn

courtesy of

wearechangetoronto.org
“Be the change you want to see in the world”

research sourced from statismwatch.ca/the-memory-hole

“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning
of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom
versus tyranny.” – Hannah Arendt

“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to
stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose
those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for
myself and all mankind.” – John G. Diefenbaker