Tag Archives: politics

Being Insulted By Cheney Is An Honour

Posted on by John Klein

It bothers me that American media doesn’t preface interviews with Dick Cheney by pointing out he’s evaded charges for war crimes (re: Iraq War). It does please me that Snowden has had a chance to respond to Cheney’s hypocritical rebuke of Snowden’s epic NSA PRISM leak.

Cheney and Bush started spying on Americans prior to 9/11, according to court documents. It didn’t prevent 9/11. 2007′s PRISM didn’t prevent the overblown [no pun intended] Boston Bombing.

In 2007 the Denver Post reported:
“”Nacchio suggested that the NSA sought phone, Internet and other customer records from Qwest in early 2001. When he refused to hand over the information, the agency retaliated by not granting lucrative contracts to the Denver-based company, he claimed.”"
Other sources corroborate the former CEO’s allegations, which were made in the course of his legal defense against insider trading charges.

The lying, and hiding NSA came out to spread more lies.

Addressing the most basic questions that have emerged, Rogers asked Alexander if intelligence workers have the ability to simply “flip a switch” in order to listen to phone calls or read the emails of Americans.

When Alexander replied “no,” Rogers asked again to reinforce the message for anyone listening.

“So the technology does not exist for any individual or group of individuals at the NSA to flip a switch to listen to Americans’ phone calls or read their e-mails?” he repeated.

“That is correct,” Alexander answered.

He and others also asserted that the leaks were egregious and carry huge consequences for national security.

“I think it was irreversible and significant damage to this nation,” Alexander said when questioned by Rep. Michele Bachmann.

“Has this helped America’s enemies?” the conservative Minnesota Republican asked.

“I believe it has and I believe it will hurt us and our allies,” Alexander said.

Challenge someone to explain how revealing details of what is commonly available in news stories for years, compromises signals intelligence (SIGINT).

President Barack Obama has defended the programs as necessary in an era of terror./blockquote>

An era of terror? CNN, did Obama actually say that? That’s ridiculous! People are terrorized and killed by cancer and drunk drivers, not ‘terrorists’. What people need to be worried about is an American government that has brazenly abandoned the Rule of Law, and any pretense of respect for the Constitution.

Deep Municipal Scandals

Posted on by John Klein

When we thought Toronto’s crack Mayor Rob Ford was about to take the national scandal prize, Montreal’s replacement Mayor Michael Appelbaum rides (in a police car) to the rescue with corruption charges. What major city mayor is next to implode? Are Canadian municipal elections selecting the best political candidate they could be?

http://www.twitter.com/Steverukavina/status/346675569058013184

Added to the Harper Parade of Perps is the accused Saulie Zajdel, a “shadow MP” in Irwin Cotler’s Montreal riding. “Reprehensible” push polling was done by Campaign Research for the Conservatives in that riding, in an effort to position Zajdel for a Conservative MP seat next election.

PRISM: Tap It

Posted on by John Klein

Some really excellent criticism of wide swaths of the MSM, from… Gawker???

Let’s be honest: Edward Snowden (pictured), the man who made a calculated decision to risk everything he has in order to reveal the NSA’s secret spying program, did something heroic. You don’t have to believe Edward Snowden himself is a grand hero, or a larger-than-life figure. But if you are a journalist— someone who works constantly to shed light on the workings of the government, with the belief that news is good for the public— you have to acknowledge that Edward Snowden did something quite admirable. If you are astute and rational enough to understand that a massive government domestic spying operation is newsworthy, then you must also understand that the person who exposed it at great personal risk has done something brave and worthwhile. Without Snowden’s act, the public’s knowledge of what is being done to them in their own name would be much poorer.

Wallin Says Sorry, But Doesn’t Step Aside

Posted on by John Klein

Maintaining her power over Canada, doesn’t seem like the best way to apologize for ‘accidentally’ cheating Canadians out of tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“I’m very sorry obviously that I’ve caused all of this grief for family and my friends and for my fellow parliamentarians, and I think taxpayers have a right to know,” she told Mansbridge.

Auditors are currently going over Wallin’s travel expense claims going back to January 2009, when she was first appointed to the Senate. It has been reported that Wallin has claimed about $350,000 in travel expenses since September 2010.

Wallin said she made mistakes on her claims for flights.

“I sign the documents, so I take responsibility,” the former journalist and diplomat said. “I take full responsibility for this. I should have gone over it with a fine-tooth comb as anybody should and make sure, but I just didn’t.”

“I was doing what I thought my job was — to not sit in Ottawa in an office, not sit in the Senate chamber always, but to be out there,” she said .

I think it’s clear that Wallin is not “resident in the Province for which (s)he (was) appointed”. Someone spending upwards of $400/day on travel and other expenses would be described as “nomadic”, not “resident” for one thing.

Logically, simply owning property somewhere does not make you a resident of that location. If Wallin can own property in both Saskatchewan and Ontario, what gives her Saskatchewan property the quality attributed to it as “residence”.

About the only thing Wallin has said on the matter is that she has “been fully cooperating with the auditor”, is ensuring every document is provided and “can’t really comment until this process is concluded.”

It is an explanation Wallin wouldn’t have found unacceptable as a journalist demanding answers on behalf of the public. Perhaps she should be reminded that standards haven’t changed.
–
Read more: http://www.leaderpost.com/entertainment/MANDRYK+Wallin+skip+expenses/8428525/story.html

Wallin at UofR
Pamela Wallin
“In recognition of her outstanding contributions to journalism and community and public service.”

–

Wallin recently quit the Porter board. Someone explained to me (but I haven’t been able to confirm) this is because her residence to sit on that board was listed as Toronto, ON, not Wadena, SK.

JUXTAPOSE: Liberal Senator jailed for phony travel expenses.

Former Liberal senator Raymond Lavigne has been sent to jail for breach of trust and defrauding the Senate of more than $10,000 in phoney travel expense claims.

ConCalls: Elections Canada Keeping Secret Files Illegally

Posted on by John Klein

Sixth Estate pointed this out long ago, but CBC is starting to realize the pattern where Elections Canada is breaking the law, and denying the public (and media) access to candidates’ election files.

Eve Adams’ files are not right. Elections Canada must explain.

Penashue records removed from election spending file
Letters from party lawyer to Elections Canada taken out of file
By Laura Payton, CBC News
Posted: Jan 7, 2013 5:05 AM ET

Records missing from Conservative MP’s campaign file
Law is clear about allowing public access, lawyer says
By Laura Payton

==

Dean Del Mastro meanwhile is growing impatient as an election fraud suspect and would prefer (a conviction) vindication sooner than later.

Hard to get vindication when there’s an image of a suspicious $21,000 cheque floating around in cyberspace.

That would be the Conservatives, Del Mastro’s own party.

==

ADDED: Glover and Bezan should beat it too.

Turkey Arrests CBC Journalist Sasa Petricic

Posted on by John Klein

Saša Petricic has been arrested in the midst of covering the Occupy Gezi protest in Istanbul. This is an outrage which the Turkish government will not be able to defend themselves from.

Short hours before his arrest, this was the scene:

UPDATE:

UPDATE II:

UPDATE:
They were released many hours later:

PRISM: Greenwald on CNBC

Posted on by John Klein

Encrypt your shit:

The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia. This development has not been properly recognized outside of national security circles. It has been hidden by secrecy, complexity and scale. The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization.
[...]
In the new space of the internet what would be the mediator of coercive force?
[...]
It is easier to encrypt information than it is to decrypt it.
[...]
Cryptography is the ultimate form of non-violent direct action.
[...]
No amount of coercive force will ever solve a math problem.

“Leadership” “Stealing”

Posted on by John Klein

Conservatives have created a new idea. It’s Leadership Stealing. You can Steal, like a Leader.

“How can the Liberals actually, with a straight face, pretend to stand up for the middle class, when Liberal senators are stealing money from taxpayers?” – CPC Minister Moore

“Conservatives praise Duffy’s ‘leadership’ in Senate expense scandal”

PRISM: NSA Watching the Innocent

Posted on by John Klein

Technology and civil liberty experts knew PRISM was a very real possibility. I knew, and wrote about it last August. The National Security Agency (NSA) (star bad guy org. in the Will Smith movie Enemy of the State) has been collecting domestic Americans’ phone and Internet records since at least 2007. This activity is a clear violation of the American Constitution, and was overseen by Bush II, Obama, Al Franken, and other high level leaders who’ve betrayed the trust of Americans and broken the law.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who also serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Bloomberg that the “[the] idea that a 29-year-old individual with so little experience” had access to the material Snowden did is “absolutely shocking.”

What’s shocking is Senator Collins, who is ignorant as sin. Seven years younger, and a year from a computer science degree, I had similar security clearance to Snowden (in Canada). Of course, I never saw the sort of gross violations of law observed by Snowden, and Canada at that time had an effective Commissioner designed to protect Canadians from secretive surveillance programs that ended up collecting intel from out-of-bounds citizens.

So what can you and I do? Give up Facebook and Skype? Don’t use a Verizon phone at either end of a conversation? Vote Republican? Vote Democrat? Vote Liberal? None of those options will protect you or enhance your life, so what can we do? The party system in the US, and Canada, is not protecting citizens from overbearing governments. The US surveillance state convinced supposed good-guys like Obama and Franken that the illegal spy scheme they inherited wasn’t worth exposing or even shutting down.

We first of all have to defend the people who leak evidence of crimes to responsible media like Glenn Greenwald who helped break this story into the international press.

People like Bradley Manning, and Ed Snowden are people who’ve done heroic things to uphold the highest laws of their country, while people more powerful than them try to use lesser laws to punish their actions.
Continue reading →

WikiLeaks: Snowden to Greenwald to Guardian

Posted on by John Klein

The Verizon phone taps, to Yahoo, Google, Skype, and more all owned by the US Government. These were things suspected by many (thanks to WikiLeaks), and now confirmed by the intentional whistle-blowing leak from the NSA. The man who told on his criminally misbehaving government? A 29 year old who didn’t want to live in such a fake society that says it’s all about protection of civil liberty, while violating that trust as a fact of daily business.

Remember there were illegal attacks on WikiLeaks’ infrastructure, with the top suspect being the US State Department.

BONUS:

Note that you should be following everyone on Twitter listed here, if you aren’t already (and use Twitter). (At least with Twitter, you understand already that your postings are all public broadcasts and thus subject to monitoring.)