How can you tell a spy is lying to Parliament? Their lips are moving. Or at least I’d assume they were moving while he was telling us that they didn’t conduct mass spying on Canadians, while also defending illegal mass “meta-data” spying on us. MT @CBCAlerts "#CSIS says they don't
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Susan on the Soapbox: Forget “Angry Birds” Where are the Angry Canadians?
Saturday’s headline in Canada’s “newspaper of record”, The Globe and Mail, was not “Harper government caught spying on Canadians” but “Rob Ford admits jaywalking ticket in Vancouver”. Are you kidding me??? Let’s review the week, shall we? Angry Birds It started with Edward Snowden revealing that American and British spy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Zoe Williams interviews George Lakoff about the need for progressive activists and parties to work on changing minds rather than merely pursuing an elusive (and illusory) middle ground: (T)he left, he argues, is losing the political argument – every year, it cedes more ground
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: On Mass Surveillance
The revelation this week that CSEC has the capability to monitor the movements of Canadians simply by gathering some metadata from the traffic that goes by on public networks raises a lot of interesting questions that are worth discussing. In an e-mail conversation on the matter, the following question was
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: QOTD: On CSEC
Ron Deibert, the cyber-security expert quoted in the CBC story I posted about last night, has an op-ed in today’s Globe and Mail. It’s all worth a read but he sums things up pretty nicely in this paragraph. In reference to the most recent revelations concerning CSEC’s activities: The revelations
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Harper Now Has His Own Secret Police
A feature of totalitarian states around the world is a “secret” police force that is engaged in spying on a nation’s citizens and keeping them in line with implicit threats of “legal action”. Most notorious among these would be East Germany’s Stasi, but there are many examples. In Canada, it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ian Welsh discusses the nature of prosperity – and the illusion that it means nothing more than increased economic activity: All other things being equal more productive capacity is better. The more stuff we can make, in theory, the better off we’ll be.
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Harperland: Where Big Brother Meets You at the Airport
You've just got back to Canada. You have some time to kill before your connecting flight.You whip out your mobile phone to check out the web, using the airport's free Wi-Fi.Only to have Big Brother start following you around.Welcome to Harperland. Read more »
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: A trial run
CSEC used airport Wi-Fi to track Canadian travellers: Edward Snowden documents A top secret document retrieved by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden and obtained by CBC News shows that Canada’s electronic spy agency used information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne calls out Stephen Harper’s hypocrisy in paying lip service to the problems with the use of disposable temporary foreign labour while expanding exactly that policy throughout his stay in power: The program was supposed to be a last resort for employers
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: PRISM: Telcos Violating Privacy
It apparently doesn’t matter if the Canadian spy agencies don’t spy on Canadians. To be clear though, the Ed Snowden leaks make it clear that they do spy on us. Canada’s intelligence agency deliberately kept the country’s Federal Court “in the dark” to bypass the law in order to outsource
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: The Ryan and Amy Show tackles surveillance issues with a catchy music video
Check out this great video by The Ryan and Amy Show. Do you always feel like somebody’s watching you too? You can learn more about Canada’s largest pro-privacy coalition at https://OurPrivacy.ca read more
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Bob Hepburn writes that more Canadians approve of the idea of a guaranteed annual income than oppose it – even as the concept is all too frequently dismissed as politically unpalatable. And Stuart Trew points out that a majority of Canadians disagree with
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: I think we need a new watchdog
Alison at Creekside picked up on this interesting Globe and Mail piece in which the man charged with oversight on CSEC — Canada’s signals intelligence agency — explained his priorities. Jean-Pierre Plouffe, whose formal title is Communications Security Establishment Commissioner, was testifying before a parliamentary committee concerning recent reports based
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Spysplaining
The CSEC commish, entrusted to the task of ensuring CSEC doesn’t break the law during its spying on, err, for this country, is not coming out smelling like a rose. It was a puppet head trifecta today – the new CSEC *watchdog* defending NSA puppet CSEC to the PMO puppet
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Is Stephen Harper Working for the Americans?
It's a chilling story, a dark tale of spooks and Cons, with a little bit of Big Brother, and more than a hint of treason. And I hesitate to write about it eh? Lest my phone start clicking and hissing like Stephen Harper himself. But all patriotic Canadians should now ask
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: #cdnpoli Spying On You
The G20 scandal just got broader. Besides Canadian police massively violating protester’s rights, the NSA appears to have been assisted by CSEC to illegally spy on Canadians in Ontario for the G20. Canada Defence Min declines to answer question from NDP about CBC report on NSA/G20 surveillance— Paul Vieira (@paulvieira)
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: ShitHarperDid to execute “creative action” against Harper’s $1.2B CSEC spy castle
ShitHarperDid to execute a “creative action” at the site of the $1.2 billion “spy castle” Harper is building for the secretive spy agency CSEC in Ottawa. The post ShitHarperDid to execute “creative action” against Harper’s $1.2B CSEC spy castle appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Civil Liberties Group Sues Spy Agency Over Illegal Spying On Canadians
The BC Civil Liberties Association has filed a lawsuit against Canadian spy agency ASEC, claims its surveillance of Canadians is unconstitutional. The post Civil Liberties Group Sues Spy Agency Over Illegal Spying On Canadians appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Agence France-Presse reports that even the IMF has reached the conclusion that higher taxes on wealthy citizens are a necessary part of competent economic management – even as the Harper Cons and other right-wing governments keep trying to peddle trickle-down economics to
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