I'd like to believe Canada's spy masters when they tell me they're not spying on Canadians. I'd like to believe I'm still living in a democracy and not a budding police state. I'd like to think that I'm not being tracked like a criminal or a terrorist, for having used the free
Continue readingTag: Surveillance State
Montreal 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 readingMontreal Simon: Why Has Stephen Harper Not Fired Chuck Strahl?
It's been more than two days since we found out that Chuck Strahl, Canada's spy watchdog, is moonlighting as a lobbyist for Enbridge.And by so doing has erased the boundaries between the petro state and the surveillance state.Now to make matters even worse, we find out that Strahl is also a
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 readingMontreal Simon: Stephen Harper’s Sinister Plan to Monitor Social Media
He invited world leaders to his G20 summit, and then allowed the Americans to spy on them. He had his CSEC agents spy on the Brazilians. He has just unveiled a Trojan horse cyber-bullying bill that would allow police easy access to our so-called metadata, the records that internet service providers
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Mother Jones’ Modest Proposal
Like me, you probably share that sinking feeling that privacy is gone for good, dead without so much as a fight. If you want a reasonable degree of privacy any more you have to live self-sustainably in a cabin on a lake deep in the forest and hope you’re not
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Con Regime and the Surveillance State
Normally the sight of the moon rising over Mount Royal on a beautiful cloudless night would make me whoop with joy at the thought that I had finally escaped from Harperland. If only for a few precious moments. Or smile at the sight of the Muslim crescent and the Christian
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Is the Harper Regime Spying on the Brazilians?
We know he wants total control. We know that he believes that the end justifies the means. We know that Canadian mining companies are some of the most ruthless and rapacious companies on earth.But did Stephen Harper really authorize the spooks at CSEC to spy on the Brazilians? Read more »
Continue readingMontreal Simon: General Alexander’s Scary Star Trek Fantasy
He is the man most responsible for taking the surveillance state into a new and even more sinister Orwellian age. The General who while working in Iraq decided that instead of just monitoring terrorists and suspects he should monitor EVERYONE. And as the head of the National Security Agency is now
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Real Crime of Bradley Manning
I suppose it could have been worse. He could have got sixty years, he got thirty-five. Thirty-five years for telling the truth, blowing the whistle on war crimes. Among the 700,000 classified documents Mr Manning downloaded while stationed in Iraq was a video that showed a US Apache helicopter in Baghdad
Continue readingEclectic Lip: The surveillance state is an autoimmune disorder
Autoimmune disorders (Wikipedia prefers autoimmune diseases) occur when the body’s defenses — antibodies — no longer distinguish between healthy tissue and harmful cells. Instead of focusing on the dangerous antigens, they attack the body itself. Type 1 diabetes is an example, where the patient’s immune system attacks the insulin-producing regions
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Face of Corporate Feudalism
Democracy is reeling. Corporatist authoritarianism is quietly ascendant. Rights and freedoms are now being issued with price tags and, if you can’t afford them, you don’t get them. Zoe Williams, writing in The Guardian asks, “When did being lowly become a criminal offence?“ It’s a new world order that you
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: You’re Toast. Raytheon’s RIOT Has Your Number
Leading U.S. defence contractor, Raytheon, has developed RIOT, the Rapid Overlay Information Technology software programme that can gather, sort, digest and analyze all your social media telltales. It can even predict where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing in the future. The Guardian recently got their hands on a
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: F-35 Jet Fiasco: Harper Conservatives Heavily Monitored Public Perception
Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, Canada is fast becoming a real “surveillance state”. One that obsessively monitors critics of public policy and government action… and the “tone” of what these critics say. The Ottawa Citizen gives us a glimpse into the Harper government’s emerging heart of darkness.
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