Canadian Police State: Will Canada Follow U.S. "Patriot" Lead?

CAP - Connie Fogal - Anti Terrorism law in the USA has become more Totalitarian. Canada is reviewing our anti-terrorism legislation. Right wing power under the Conservative minority government puts Canadians at risk of similar totalitarianism.

www.canadianactionparty.ca

Canadian Police State:
Will Canada Follow U.S. "Patriot" Lead?

Connie Fogal

Canadian Action Party
January 25, 2006

The USA PAtriot Act had been renewed with a terrifying new term. A new permanent federal police force has been created to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.'" It has Gestapo like powers. Sec. 605 of USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 empowers these police to "make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony."

The new police are assigned a variety of jurisdictions, including "an event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national significance" (SENS). "A special event of national significance" is neither defined nor does it
require the presence of a "protected person" such as the president in order to trigger it. Thus, the administration, and perhaps the police themselves, can place the SENS designation on any event. Once a SENS designation is placed on an event, the new federal police are empowered to keep out and arrest people at their discretion.

This is very bad stuff. It impacts Canadians because under agreements entered under the Liberal regime post 9/11 including the Smart Border Plan and the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement Canada has agreed to restructure our police and legal systems to copy that of the USA. We have just been through an election in Canada in which the four
mainstream parties being the only ones with M.P.s in Parliament said nothing, nothing, nothing about any of this fundamental regime change process; nothing, nothing, nothing about the anti terrorism legislation under review in Canada. The Canadian Action Party has been unable to obtain copies of the proposed changes to the Canadian law which were under review before the writ was dropped and now will be back on resumption of Parliament in a few weeks.

No Canadian NGO's have been profiling this legislation. Indeed, the strongest NGO, the Council of Canadians, gave this issue no profile in their Election Report . Worse yet, they gave no profile to and continued their discrimination against the seven alternative parties some of whom, eg CAP (Canadian Action Party), take a strong active support position on all
the issues the COC does highlight,and more.

Voters were failed on all fronts.

Prime Minister -elect Harper is lauded by the USA who see him as more Bush friendly even than was Martin, and Martin already sold Canada out with his signature on the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement signed by Martin Bush and Fox in March of 2004. Harper has said he would reconsider a U.S. missile defense scheme rejected by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin. He also said he wanted to move beyond the Kyoto debate by establishing different environmental controls, spend more on the Canadian military, expand its peacekeeping missions and tighten security along the U.S. border to prevent terrorists and guns from crossing.

All this means is that Harper will be more open than Martin in his acts of anti-Canadianism and regime change. His language of double speak copies Bush. He even ends his speeches with "God Bless Canada"

If I am right that no concerned thinking Canadian will support the Gestapo legislation now intact in the USA, all of us, but especially those Canadians who voted for the Conservatives, the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloq Quebecois have no time to lose. We must all immediately contact our new MPs and demand cancellation of the anti-terrorist legislation in
Canada. Even the NDP need strong prodding . Some of their candidates were talking more law and order, more punishment. Like the NAFTA, the anti-terrorist legislation is so fundamentally flawed , is so liberty stripping that it must be revoked , not re-jigged. Similarly the Smart Border declaration and the Security and Prosperity Partnership
Agreement must be revoked. All the administrative changes in process by the bureaucracy arising out of those agreements must be halted.We are either sovereign or we are not. MPs need to prove they have not been neutered.

Please read the following article respecting the U.S.A law. It is definitely not safe to travel to the USA any more, or even to fly over their airspace. Arbitrary power is unleashed there. Americans are prisoners now in their own land. Canadians await the same fate unless we compel this minority government to stop it here.

Connie Fogal, Leader, Canadian Action Party


Unfathomed Dangers In Patriot Act Renewal
By Paul Craig Roberts
1-24-6

A provision in the "Patriot Act" creates a new federal police force with power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this cannot be true as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV.

Go to House Report 109-333 -USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 reads:

"There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the ’United States Secret Service Uniformed Division’."

This new federal police force is "subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security."

The new police are empowered to "make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony."

The new police are assigned a variety of jurisdictions, including "an event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national significance" (SENS).

"A special event of national significance" is neither defined nor does it require the presence of a "protected person" such as the president in order to trigger it. Thus, the administration, and perhaps the police themselves, can place the SENS designation on any event. Once a SENS designation is placed on an event, the new federal police are empowered to keep out and to arrest people at their discretion.

The language conveys enormous discretionary and arbitrary powers. What is "an offense against the United States"? What are "reasonable grounds"?

You can bet that the Alito/Roberts court will rule that it is whatever the executive branch says.

The obvious purpose of the act is to prevent demonstrations at Bush/ Cheney events. However, nothing in the language limits the police powers from being used only in this way. Like every law in the US, this law also will be expansively interpreted and abused. It has dire implications for freedom of association and First Amendment rights. We can take for granted that the new federal police will be used to suppress dissent and to break up opposition. The Brownshirts are now arming themselves with a Gestapo.

Many naive Americans will write to me to explain that this new provision in the reauthorization of the "Patriot Act" is necessary to protect the president and other high officials from terrorists or from harm at the hands of angry demonstrators: "No one else will have anything to fear." Some will accuse me of being an alarmist, and others will say that it is unpatriotic to doubt the law’s good intentions.

Americans will write such nonsense despite the fact that the president and foreign dignitaries are already provided superb protection by the Secret Service. The naive will not comprehend that the president cannot be endangered by demonstrators at SENS at which the president is not present. For many Americans, the light refuses to turn on.

In Nazi Germany did no one but Jews have anything to fear from the Gestapo?

By Stalin’s time Lenin and Trotsky had eliminated all members of the "oppressor class," but that did not stop Stalin from sending millions of "enemies of the people" to the Gulag.

It is extremely difficult to hold even local police forces accountable. Who is going to hold accountable a federal police protected by Homeland Security and the president?

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.


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Adieu Mon Canada: 1867-2006

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - It seems I'm forever writing obituaries. So, in the interests of economy and greater efficiencies, today I can cover the thirty-odd million residents of the Country Formerly Known as Canada (CFKAC) in a fell swoop. With the election yesterday of the unabashedly un-Canadian "reformer" Stephen Harper to the Prime Minister's office, Canadians turned their collective backs (if in a minority manner) on Confederation.

Adieu Mon Canada: 1867-2006
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
January 26, 2006

Harper has made no secret of his disdain for confederation. His confreres in Alberta's Calgary School have urged Quebec leave the country post-haste for years. He favours stronger "integration" with the United States, and the completion of a North-South political and economic union with the States, begun in earnest by previous Tory PM, Brian Mulroney, with the Free Trade Agreement (since morphed into the trilateral, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), precursor to the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA) at the expense of the traditional Canadian East-West alignment. That East-West arrangement guaranteed the continuity of the nation.

No More.

It really shouldn't come as a heavy blow to those Canadians pining for the flag; the Dear Old Girl has been sick for years. The ministrations of outgoing Liberal PM, Paul Martin did little to rehabilitate the country's decline. Martin shares Harper's diagnosis of Canada as a failed state, one better wrapped in the bosom of the U.S. for safekeeping. Only, Harper is more adamant than Martin. He's a man on a mission.

Harper's masters can be traced to the University of Calgary, chief among them, the Czar of the economics department, Tom Flanagan. Flanagan's ties go straight to the heart of Texas, so to speak, and his prescription for Canada is indistinguishable from the bitter pills prescribed by Reagan, Thatcher, Bush's I and II, and every tin pot cantor of the "marketplace" mantra found ruining the lives of citizens across the world.

Next: Culture War Comes to Canada

It's a pity Jack Layton and the NDP used their minority wad to bring down the Liberals when they did. One wonders will they be willing to stand against more odious legislation - assuming the NDP still believe what they purport to politically - or if they will even get the chance, given the increasing cosiness between Harper and Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois? Afterall, they share a vision of no Canada at all.

Will Jack and his party threaten to bring down the government, again over same-sex marriage, marijuana policy, immigration rights, or any of the plethora of carbon copy policies Harper plans to import from the United States?

And, what about the wars?

Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, CFKAC. You can check out the GR Blog here.


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What Are You Voting for Canada?

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 is the date marking the end of the confederation formally known as 'Canada.' Regardless of Monday's election results, Canada is, in 2006, heading for profound change. The four century dream, for some, of continental integration is near fruition, and neither of the front-running parties opposes that. So, what are You voting for, Canadian?

http://paulmartintime.ca/img/mixon2.jpg

What Are You Voting for Canada?
C. L. Cook

PEJ News
January 22, 2006

It's all formality. Assuming the machines are not rigged, a tall order in what passes for "democracy" today, Tuesday will see a Canadian government sworn in dedicated not to serving the best interests of the country and its citizens, but to fulfilling a two thirds finalization of the centuries old effort to consolidate the continent under Washington's control.

Yes, the United States has held de facto power over both Mexico and Canada for most of those nation's respective histories, but political sovereignty has, until Tuesday, been an arm's length arrangement affording an element of vexing unpredictability to America. But, this is now done. Whether PM Paul Martin, or Stephen Harpy, we are to be delivered into the "Washington Consensus."

Today, the news is of thousands of Canadian soldiers heading off to Afghanistan. Afghanistan, the once tag line of a joke, roughly translated as: "What do the voters care for Afghanistan?" Well, voter, what do you care about Afghanistan?

Or Haiti, for that matter?

Yes, the vyers will tell you We the people of Canada should be very concerned about democracy and freedom in the far-flung regions. We should be happy to send our children into the maw of war and insurrection for the good of all. But, what good is there to come of the enforcement of Amerika's burgeoning empire?

Democracy is a thing of the past.

It was a great idea, pity no-one tried it.

So, you're left to march down to the booths tomorrow, to mark your X and choose which Viceroy you'd serve. This is the first election, and I assiduously vote at all levels, where I've seriously thought of spoiling my ballot. When the major players all agree: "Canada is done," who does a Canadian elect?

The Canadian Action Party (CAP) voices all the things we should be concerned about, yet their presence is relatively miniscule. Certainly, a vote for them equals despoiling; but, what's left to do?

Today, the news reports: One of the Canadians damaged in the suicide bombing in Afghanistan the other day will not be returning as scheduled to Canada. They've sawed off the remnants of his leg, but there are further complications.

"Suicide Bombing"

Can anyone here really understand what it means for a person to throw their life into the death-fire and destruction of a suicide attack? Do you realize what it means to support a candidate willing to pitch our children into an environment where their presence is so despised someone else's child is willing to commit this kind of act?

Stephen Harpy and Paul think it worthwhile. Jack Lay-down doesn't want to talk ahout it.

According to a friend, when interviewing Mr. L., and asking about the New Democrat position on Canada's miring in Afghanistan, the estimable gladiator for justice simply referred him, an accredited journalist, to speak to someone else.

Great.

Transit Tubes

Transit tubes are the neoprene cases the remains of blown apart soldiers are shipped home in. "Body Bag" is considered a little passe in military-speak these days; too many connotations of past disasters, I expect. There are sure to be more of these dreadful harbingers shoring up in Canada. And, if the reports of the Conservative's desire to more ably serve U.S. designs is true, those tubes will be departing theatres of war in Iran and Syria soon too.

Are You O.K. With That?

Remember please, my fellow Canadian, we are allowing ourselves subsumed by a distinctly Fascist ideology. Austria-like, we are choosing tomorrow, for the greater part, which enabler of this dastardly program We will enable.

So, get out and have your voice heard.

Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, "Canada." You can check out the GR Blog here.

Gorilla Radio for Monday, January 23, 2006

It would be funny, if it weren’t so tragic. Around the globe, we see evidence of an ignorance, an ideological, systemic stupidity currently threatening the very survival of the planet. But, despite the obvious red alert messages, we largely continue along the road to our collective ruination. For those discouraged by news from Central Asia, I’m sad to add word of troubling developments emanating from another elsewhere.

www.pej.org

Gorilla Radio for
Monday, January 23rd, 2006
C. L. Cook

As Dave Lindorff asks, “What are you supposed to do when the world's most over-armed, belligerent and dangerous nation, which outspends all the rest of the world combined on arms, and which is the major arms supplier to the rest of the world, tells a little country like Venezuela that it is guilty of spending "too much" on its military?”

Author and journalist, Dave Lindorff in the first half on shoring up the empire’s southern flank.

And; something of an as yet undetermined nature in the second half… Mehdi Najari and a post mortem of the 2005-6 federal election campaign.

And, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all that’s good to do in and around Victoria in the coming week; but first, Dave Lindorff and a laughable oblivion.



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Warrior Princess: Hillary Clinton on the Ramparts

Hillary Clinton, War Goddess

by Justin Raimondo




http://www.peoples.ru/
family/wife/clinton/clinton_1.jpg


She wants permanent bases in Iraq – and threatens war with Iran

AntiWar.com
January 23, 2006

As the war in Iraq metastasizes into what General William E. Odom calls "the greatest strategic disaster in United States history," and the cost in lives and treasure continues to escalate, we are already being set up for Act II of the neocons' Middle East war scenario – with the Democrats taking up where the Republicans left off.

The Bush administration, for all its bellicose rhetoric, has shown little stomach for directly confronting Tehran, and this has prompted Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton to take on the Bushies for supposedly ignoring the alleged threat from Iran. Speaking at Princeton University on the occasion of the Wilson School's 75th anniversary celebration, Clinton aligned herself with such Republican hawks as Sen. John McCain and the editorial board of the Weekly Standard, calling for sanctions and implicitly threatening war:

"I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations. I don't believe you face threats like Iran or North Korea by outsourcing it to others and standing on the sidelines. But let's be clear about the threat we face now: A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond. The regime's pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should not – must not – permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support vigorously and publicly expressed by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations. And we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran – that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons."

Never mind that Iran is 10 years away from actually producing a usable nuclear weapon, according to the latest National Intelligence Estimate:

"Until recently, Iran was judged, according to February testimony by Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, to be within five years of the capability to make a nuclear weapon. Since 1995, U.S. officials have continually estimated Iran to be 'within five years' from reaching that same capability. So far, it has not.

"The new estimate extends the timeline, judging that Iran will be unlikely to produce a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient for an atomic weapon, before 'early to mid-next decade,' according to four sources familiar with that finding. The sources said the shift, based on a better understanding of Iran's technical limitations, puts the timeline closer to 2015 and in line with recently revised British and Israeli figures. The estimate is for acquisition of fissile material, but there is no firm view expressed on whether Iran would be ready by then with an implosion device, sources said."

This administration's increasingly hysterical statements on the alleged "crisis," supposedly sparked by Iran's resumption of its nuclear energy program, are – as in the case of Iraq – at variance with the judgment of the mainstream intelligence community. Once again, the Bamboozle Brigade – a bunch of freelancing "experts," shadowy exile groups, foreign lobbyists, and a bipartisan collection of pandering politicians – is mobilizing to gin up a war. These war propagandists, including Clinton, make only the most tenuous connection between American interests and the Iranians' alleged forced march to acquire nukes. Instead, they make the argument in favor of ratcheting up the conflict with Iran in terms of the necessity of protecting Israel. Clinton's speech is infused with this militant Israeli patriotism:

"The security and freedom of Israel must be decisive and remain at the core of any American approach to the Middle East. This has been a hallmark of American foreign policy for more than 50 years and we must not – dare not – waver from this commitment."

While Israel is an American ally, so are Saudi Arabia and Jordan. And don't forget the newly installed "democratic" and supposedly pro-American government of Iraq. Israel "at the core" of U.S. policy in the Middle East? I don't think so. Such an Israelicentric viewpoint, while not out of place in an Israeli politician, seems just a mite strange coming from an American – even if she is a senator from New York. It ought to go without saying that the foundations of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East – or anywhere else – have to be predicated on purely American interests, and that the "core" of that policy has to be our own economic well-being, which is inextricably linked to the stability of the region.

Do we really want to see the price of oil skyrocket to over $100 a barrel? Is it really in our interests – or the interests of the Europeans, for that matter – for Iranian oil assets to be tied to the Euro and other currencies, rather than the dollar? The economic consequences of either eventuality are potentially disastrous for the United States, and yet that is what the reckless Clintonian policy of confrontation with Iran would entail. Unfortunately, however, the grip of the Israeli lobby in the U.S. is so firmly locked around the necks of certain politicians that any rational discussion of what serves our interests – not Israel's – is next to impossible.

It is the task of Israel's amen corner in the U.S. to convince the American public, and especially to prevail upon their elected representatives, that Israel's interests and our own always coincide. The propaganda campaign launched to convince us that Iran's president is the next Saddam and Tehran is deserving of a little regime-change assumes this, and the Clinton speech is a prime example: "A nuclear Iran," she avers, "is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond" – an interesting order of priorities, to say the least. She doesn't bother making any explicit connection between the pursuit of American interests and this relentless campaign to demonize the Iranians: it is enough that Tehran poses a potential threat to Israel. For Clinton, that alone is reason enough to go to war.

There is a disturbing quality to Clinton's several reiterations of fealty to Israel: it isn't only the numbing repetition and the brazen pandering, it's also the matter-of-fact yet still hectoring tone, the assumption that only one position is possible:

"One cannot look at the Middle East today and not believe that there has been progress against great odds. Former sworn enemies of Israel are recognizing its existence, are even talking about ways of increasing trade, commerce, and diplomatic relations."

Surely there are more meaningful measures of progress in the Middle East than diplomatic and economic benefits accrued to Israel – such as, for example, the growing movement in favor of democracy in the Arab world. But oh no, that wouldn't do – unless, of course, any such development is explained in terms of how Israel will gain. A narrower, more sectarian view of the Middle East would be hard to imagine.

Another of the War Party's talking points on the Iran question is the argument that a conflict with Tehran is inevitable, a tack taken by the Clinton-Lieberman wing of the party in seeking to outflank the Republicans on the Right while placing the blame squarely on Bush's shoulders: "Part of the problem," says Clinton, is Iran's "involvement in and influence over Iraq." Yet she has never voiced regret for her vote in favor of the resolution authorizing the invasion that brought the pro-Iranian Shi'ite coalition government to power – far from it. For her to decry Iranian influence in "liberated" Iraq, on the one hand, and to continue voicing opposition to the John Murtha out-pretty-soon-if-not-now position, on the other, is typical of her mealy-mouthed, passive-aggressive style of warmongering. Yet her position is nonetheless clear. Instead of getting out, she wants to use Iraq as a base from which to threaten Iran:

"I do not believe that we should allow this to be an open-ended commitment without limits or end, nor do I believe that we can or should pull out of Iraq immediately. If last December's elections lead to a successful Iraqi government, that should allow us to start drawing down our troops during this year while leaving behind a smaller contingent in safe areas with greater intelligence and quick-strike capabilities. This will help us stabilize that new Iraqi government. It will send a message to Iran that they do not have a free hand in Iraq despite their considerable influence and personal and religious connections there. It will also send a message to Israel and our other allies, like Jordan, that we will continue to do what we can to provide the stability necessary to prevent the terrorists from getting any further foothold than they currently have."

A "quick strike" – against whom? And what could these "safe areas" be other than permanent military bases? Clinton is the first American politician to come out squarely in favor of building what amounts to launching pads for further aggression in the region. This is something even the Bush administration has been canny about, never acknowledging their clear plans to lay the groundwork for such bases. Not Hillary, however: she isn't the least bit shy about her vision of consolidating and projecting American power all the way to Tehran – and beyond.

She's intent on out-neoconning the neocons – a risky proposition, given the proclivities of her Democratic base, but one that she embraces, it seems, as a matter of high principle. If she's running for the Democratic presidential nomination, she should logically – in the name of opportunism – tilt left, i.e., toward the antiwar camp. Yet she is tilting rightward, or, at least, in a distinctly neoconnish direction: an indication that, in her own mind, she's already the nominee.

http://www.nickvautier.com/
new-zealand/images/movies/xena.jpg

Surely such arrogance deserves punishment.

Right now, the main political obstacle to the peace movement isn't George W. Bush and the Republicans: they are plummeting in the polls, in part due to voter dissatisfaction with the way the Iraq war is going, and will be lucky if they can retain control of both houses of Congress in the next election. The main danger isn't the GOP, it's the DLC – the Democratic Leadership Council, one of the main engines of the War Party's influence over the Democratic elite. It is the DLC that has so far prevented the anti-interventionist wing of the Democratic Party from asserting itself at the national level. As the Clintonites, the Kerryites, the Kos-folk, and the growing antiwar caucus draw battle lines in the struggle for the soul of the party, the scene is being set for a new manufactured "crisis" over yet another "rogue nation" supposedly building "weapons of mass destruction."

One of the first signs of this internecine fight is an effort by antiwar Democrats to challenge and oust Sen. Joseph Lieberman – the most visible and vocal Democratic supporter of the Iraq war, and a longtime advocate of going after Iran – in the upcoming party primary. One wonders, however, how these "Kossacks" will react to the increasing likelihood of Hillary as our commander in chief: although I would love to be proven wrong, my big fear is that, despite her Amazonian aggressiveness when it comes to foreign policy, these supposedly "antiwar" Democrats will find her Xena-like persona irresistible.