Humanity vs Corporatism (Update)

Another round in the battle between do-gooders and evil-doers?

Taser International's lawyers are challenging the findings of the Braidwood Commission in the BC Supreme Court.

Taser International says its bottom line is hurting and its reputation has been slurred in the wake of a provincial public inquiry report that concluded the weapon can cause death. ...

David Neave, a lawyer for the U.S. manufacturer, told Judge Robert Sewell on Monday that Taser is concerned about Braidwood’s conclusion that the weapon can cause death. “It’s a slur on Taser that its device can kill,” Neave said. “That’s a slur that ought to be removed.”

Sewell noted the commission had concluded the “harm this product could cause carries with it a low risk of death.” However, Neave said there is no medical or scientific evidence to support that the weapon has caused any deaths.

Sewell challenged Neave further and said use of the weapon, if carried out by anyone other than police officers, could be considered assault causing bodily harm. “This product is designed to cause harm,” the judge said.

Neave rejected that. “It’s designed to incapacitate,” he said. “Certainly there is a pain component associated.”

I believe that the terms that I've emphasized, if employed by anyone other than a lawyer working for Taser International, could be considered weasel words.

Taser International claims that Braidwood's conclusions "had caused concern with customers around the world and it was hurting potential sales". The price of stock shares seems to be affected also, as a result of the commissioner's plain language observations that were widely disseminated in news items.

I blogged about Braidwood last year. I mentioned, and linked to a letter sent to Sofia Cisowski from Dr Mike Webster, RCMP staff psychologist. There are points that he used that need repeating, in light of what happened in Toronto during the g-20.

As in all democratic societies, the police in Canada are given the authority to use force to ensure that the laws of the country are upheld and public safety and security are maintained. This, of course, carries the expectation that police persons and their organizations will be accountable to the public for any use of force . However, even though the community provides the police with the ability to employ legitimate force, several questions arise:

i. What is a reasonable use of force?
ii. Why and under what circumstances is one type of force chosen over another?; and, iii. What standards are in place to ensure that there is consistency in addressing use of force situations?

The police, in Canada, have attempted to address these questions by developing use of force models. No matter whether it is the RCMP's Incident Management Intervention Model (IMIM) or the more widely used National Use of Force Framework (NUFF), these are attempts to integrate force options (e.g. presence, communication…etc.) with a generic decision making model (e.g. assess-plan-act). There are some key principles underlying these models:

i. The primary responsibility of a police person is to preserve and protect life;
ii. The primary objective of any use of force is to ensure public safety;
iii. The safety of the police person is essential to public safety; and,
iv. The use of force model does not replace the law.

In May 2009 blogpost, I refered to a tipping point,

"the level at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable", as defined by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, refining the expression as a sociological term: "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point."

Dr Dawg also used that expression in this post.

There are reports, many documented by lawyers who attempted to communicate with their clients (activists pre-emptively apprehended and detained in cells during the g-20) that young people from the province of Québec were specifically targeted by police organizations.

That information must be presented in the course of the civilian-led public review into the behaviour of the riot police in order to identify the source of directives that dictated their actions - even though the head of the Toronto Police union has rightfully stated that it won't be a a full-fledged public inquiry that would be legally binding, as ordered by the province.


Photo source.

Update: As more information about the abusive policing methods on display at the g-20 emerge, some media are suggesting that "the RCMP were largely at the helm" of the security operations. This makes the information supplied by Dr David Webster relevant to these circumstances also.

Man oh Mann - Redux

OK, since some claimed that the Penn State report was biased, we now have the Independent Climate Change E-mail Review report. Yet again the scientists involved are congratulated for producing excellent science. One of the interesting things about this report is that it actually looks at some of the issues involved. For example, one of the main criticisms of climate researchers is that they have not released their code. However the report actually investigated whether this was a real problem. Their finding:

33. Finding: The computer code required to read and analyse the instrumental temperature data is straightforward to write based upon the published literature. It amounts a few hundred lines of executable code (i.e. ignoring spaces and comments). Such code could be written by any research unit which is competent to reproduce or test the CRUTEM analysis. For the trial analysis of the Review Team, the code was written in less than two days and produced results similar to other independent analyses. No information was required from CRU to do this.

The report is full of other goodies such as:

20. Finding: This simple analysis and the comparisons in figures 6.1 and 6.2 give rise to the following findings:

• Any independent researcher may freely obtain the primary station data. It is impossible for a third party to withhold access to the data.

• It is impossible for a third party to tamper improperly with the data unless they have also been able to corrupt the GHCN and NCAR sources. We do not consider this to be a credible possibility, and in any case this would be easily detectable by comparison to the original NMO records or other sources such as the Hadley Centre.

• The steps needed to create a global temperature series from the data are straightforward to implement.

• The required computer code is straightforward and easily written by a competent researcher.

• The shape of the temperature trends obtained in all cases is very similar: in other words following the same process with the same data obtained from different sources generates very similar results.

Of course the report is wrong because the authors are biased, or the day it was published on ended in a "y" or something.

Crises of Capitalism

David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane.

Don't Say Au Revoir, Just Say Hors D'Oeuvre

I haven't been as bloggy as late, and that's because I've been desperately trying to wrap up stuff and meet deadlines, getting ready for tomorrow, when I drop off the map for three weeks.

If I can - if the stars line up and technology obliges - I will try to forward some images from the quest to Stageleft. Otherwise - see you in a month!

And to assuage the aching sense of loss you are no doubt experiencing as you contemplate the prospect of four balbless weeks - here's the second Stageleft Famous Farewells Quiz.

G-20 policing: the tipping point?

It's far from what we want, but it could be the next-best thing: an independent review of police actions during the G-20 in Toronto.

Even those who might have thought at first that I and others were a little over the top on the subject of Toronto police culture and its potential for harm may have joined in our mounting dismay as more and more stories and videos of police brutality have emerged over the past few days. But for sheer horror, this account might have been the one that prompted the powers that be to mount at least the semblance of an investigation:

[I]n came a line of armoured police, into an area the city had promised would be safe for peaceful demonstrations during the summit. They closed right in on John and his daughter and the two others and ordered them to move. Pruyn tried getting up and he fell, and it was all too slow for the police.

As Sarah began pleading with them to give her father a little time and space to get up because he is an amputee, they began kicking and hitting him. One of the police officers used his knee to press Pruyn’s head down so hard on the ground, said Pruyn in an interview this July 4 with Niagara At Large, that his head was still hurting a week later.

Accusing him of resisting arrest, they pulled his walking sticks away from him, tied his hands behind his back and ripped off his prosthetic leg. Then they told him to get up and hop, and when he said he couldn’t, they dragged him across the pavement, tearing skin off his elbows , with his hands still tied behind his back. His glasses were knocked off as they continued to accuse him of resisting arrest and of being a “spitter,” something he said he did not do. They took him to a warehouse and locked him in a steel-mesh cage where his nightmare continued for another 27 hours.

What kind of an organizational culture allows this sort of thing to happen? What kind of a police chief presides over it? What kind of a Premier blows it off?

This inquiry may not amount to a hill of beans. The Toronto Police Services Board that announced it today refused to listen to public deputations at its meeting, even one from former Toronto Mayor John Sewell. But we'll be watching, anxiously and with what hope is left to us, to see who will be conducting the investigation and what his or her terms of reference will be. Could there be light at the end of this very dark tunnel?

UPDATE: (July 14) Commenter "Morning: rightly points out that other police forces were involved. The Toronto Star made a similar point earlier this week, casting some gloom over the notion of a TPS Board inquiry, no matter how independent.

Homeland Security damage control in the Gulf

July 2 : CNN : "The US Coast Guard announced new rules keeping photographers, reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms, out on the water or on beaches.Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and class D felony charges. The coast guard tried to make the exclusion zone 300 feet before scaling it down to 65 feet."

July 3 : MSNBC : A photographer taking pictures of a BP refinery in Texas was detained by a BP security official, local police and a man who said he was from the Department of Homeland Security.

July 4 : Bloomberg : The US government is expected to take over control of the central information website on the Gulf oil spill response that has been run jointly by various agencies and BP for the 2 1/2 months since the rig explosion.

The Department of Homeland Security wants a one-stop shop for information that is completely overseen by the government as it settles into the long-haul of dealing with the response to the disaster. The U.S. Coast Guard falls under Homeland Security's authority.

The deepwaterhorizonresponse.com site may still be maintained during the changeover, but ultimately it will be taken down altogether when the government moves the response information to its own website."

July 6 : Washington Post : "In the 77 days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day.

In a March report that was not questioned by federal officials, BP said it had the capacity to skim and remove 491,721 barrels of oil each day in the event of a major spill.

As of Monday, with about 2 million barrels released into the gulf, the skimming operations that were touted as key to preventing environmental disaster have averaged less than 900 barrels a day.

On Monday, the joint operations center for the federal government and BP reported that more than 671,428 barrels of an oil-water mixture have been captured and stored. About 90 percent of the mixture is water, so the true amount of oil skimmed is relatively small -- roughly 67,143 barrels of oil. Had the estimated amounts in the March response plan been accurate, 38 million barrels of oil could have been removed by now. "

Although the US House of Representatives voted 420 to 1 to give the presidential commission investigating the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico full subpoena power, the Republicans in the Senate have blocked it. There will be no real investigation.

The Coast Guard, under the auspices of Homeland Security, and Minerals Management Services, the federal body charged with (not doing any) oversight of oil drilling and now renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, will announce this week the creation of an expert panel to conduct a "preparedness review" for Deepwater Horizon.

G20 martial law - some questions

We have always known in Canada that there are laws lying in wait to trash the Charter of Rights hovering just beyond the sight lines of the courts. The Public Works Protection Act is just such a law, allowing, albeit for a limited time, otherwise illegal searches and seizures and arrests.

Here, constitutional lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo, lead commission council at the Walkerton and Maher Arar inquiries, goes through the act with Paul Jay of The Real News. Transcript here.

I have some further questions.

If I live within an arbitrarily designated "public works area", can Blackwater or a mall rent-a-cop or any other appointed "guard" legally enter my home and arrest me for attempting to deny them entry? Will they be armed?

If I don't consent to being ID'd and searched on my way to work, can I legally be prevented from going to work? I cannot prove this, as it is only anecdotal, but during the Vancouver Olympics, a contractor told me he lost an employee due to said employee being denied passage through Vancouver by the police for the duration of the Olympics for having written an anti-Olympics letter to the local paper that was never published.

If any of the protesters/shoppers/citizens arrested and detained in handcuffs for 24 hours and jammed in a 10 by 12 by 20 foot cage along with 40 other men are not formally charged and given their day in court, will there be no other opportunity to challenge these arbitrary Charter-free zones until the next time they are dusted off for a globalization bunfest?

And finally, why is Chief Bill Blair on the hot seat for having been given these extraordinary powers he didn't ask for when it was presumably the PMO that told the Ontario cabinet to ask for them?

Any responses from legal experts gratefully accepted.

In the meantime, while the Toronto's Police Services Board which holds Toronto Police to account sees no need for a public inquiry, support the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's petition to "repeal or amendment of the Public Works Protection Act to meet basic constitutional standards"

"There's no civil rights here in Ontario..."

"...How many times you gotta be told that?"

(@4:55)

[H/t DAMMIT JANET!]

UPDATE: Co-blogger Alison hears the comment as "no civil rights here in this area." Bad enough even so--the demonstrators were nowhere near the supposed 5-metre perimeter around the fence--but what do others hear @4:55?

Happy Pride Day, Toronto

And illegitimi non carborundum.

A proud Torontonian writes:

I don't know if you know what pride parades are like, but here in Toronto -apart from pride in and celebration of ourselves- everything and all gets protested: patriarchy; ableism; monogamy; racism; consumerism; eating meat; banning smoking; having to wear clothes (tried to ban that naked group of people some years back but police refused to enforce it) etc. There is room for groups standing up for the homeless, for disadvantaged youth, for the elderly. There even is room for promotion of the commercial activities of companies (banks, car dealers) who are proud to include us. Pride is diverse and is aimed at making all of us feel that we belong.

To me Pride is about showing ourselves and others who we are, what we are, how we want to be seen, how we want to relax and party and what we stand for. For a lot of people the fun is in watching gay men prance about (and good for them), but I think there should always be room for other facets of our lives, because I'm not just queer/bi and I want to show that too.

The mean streets: another account

From the Globe & Mail's Tabitha Southey:

An officer threatened to arrest me for standing on the street (I was with a journalist and a photographer who lives in the building that we were in front of), but after two days of the G20 in Toronto, I was almost as inured to that threat as I was to the random searches I saw going on, everywhere, blocks away from the designated high-security zone.

Earlier that day, well before the much-publicized destruction on Yonge Street, I'd been threatened with arrest for “obstructing” a search by trying to take a picture (at a respectful distance) of two young men being searched.

An officer there had tried to grab my cellphone. Other officers had crowded around. They boisterously mocked the psychiatric patients coming out of the mental-health hospital behind me.

When I eventually, after a heated exchange, asked the officer for a badge number, he walked toward me repeatedly, sticking his chest out so that, if I didn't step back quickly, I'd be hit. As he did this, he yelled, “You want my badge number? You want my badge number? You want my badge number?”

But her colleague Christie "I love a man in uniform" Blatchford drones on--as always, it seems, a walking example of the Ishmael Effect.

Civil liberties: abridged edition*

*"I know that some folks feel that their rights have been abridged, and there are avenues available to them and I would encourage them to pursue any remedies that are available to them through those avenues." --Dalton McGuinty

Having been pursued down avenues themselves, I wish them all good hunting. For those who want to help with the resuscitation of civil liberties in Ontario, please visit the Canadian Civil Liberties Association website and sign the petition.

This isn't properly ceremonial, by the way, but let me take this opportunity to announce that both Alison and Balbulican have agreed to stay on as co-bloggers after I get my thesis wrestled to the ground. I'm honoured to have their wit and wisdom here on an indeterminate basis. Please give them the hearty welcome they deserve.

This is what real journalism looks like

On June 26th Toronto Mayor David Miller exhorted Torontonians to put the previous day's G20 violence behind them and get out into the streets to enjoy their city. Theatre director Tommy Taylor took Miller's words to heart.

This is his story of his day. Arrested with his girlfriend for singing "Give Peace a Chance", held for more than 24 hours in handcuffs in a 10 by 12 by 20 foot cage along with 40 other men, wet and freezing cold, standing room only, no phone call, having to beg for a few sips of water, eventually passing out on the filthy floor.

One of the most compelling accounts on any subject I've read in some time, not least of all for his sympathy for the police forced into this position.

This is what real journalism looks like :

How I Got Arrested and Abused at the G20 in Toronto
by Tommy Taylor

via Boris and Back of the Book.

Sign the Canadian Civil Liberties Association Petiton for
~An independent inquiry into the actions of the police during the G20
~Amendment of the Public Works Protection Act to meet basic constitutional standards
~Reform to ensure that the Criminal Code provisions relating to “breach of the peace”, “unlawful assemblies” and “riots” are brought in line with constitutional standards

G20 : Letter of the Day

"What is the difference between being told that you do not have the right to public assembly and being told that if you do assemble you run the risk of being injured or arrested? In the first instance, your right has been taken away. In the second, if you stay at home, you have given up your right. The only way to protect your right, therefore, is to assemble after all.

The caution to stay away came officially from the American government, but no Canadian authority contradicted this. The high fences, newly purchased crowd control devices and the assembly of an army of 19,000 security officers served to reinforce this warning, which was essentially a threat.

The most frightening thing that could have happened would have been if the streets of Toronto had been empty last weekend. That is the only reason I went to Queen’s Park last Saturday afternoon. As Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

No one is looking for any sympathy, but the next time there is news coverage of demonstrators protesting against a stolen election and being beaten by riot police in some Third World country, let us give thanks for the rights we do have. They will continue to stand up for us as long as we stand up for them."

Patrick Heenan, Mississauga

as posted in the Toronto Star and tweeted by the Divine Ms Z.

Good letter, huh?

Meanwhile over at NaPo, Kelly McPoll-land is happy to report that after watching the same footage of the same guy smashing a window on the TV news dozens of times every night, 1,003 Canadians told an Angus Reid poll they were disgusted by what happened at the G20 demos :

Poll finds G20 protesters blew it big time

Respondents were asked about their feelings about the demonstrations that
took place in Toronto during the G20 summit.
Two-thirds of Canadians (69%) are disgusted, 59% are ashamed, 57% are angry, and 54% are sad. In Toronto, the proportion of respondents who reported negative feelings was higher (Disgust 81%, Anger 74%, Sadness 65%, Shame 61%)

Notable that even at NaPo, more than half the commenters below the article pretty much agree with the feelings expressed in that poll - although for entirely opposite reasons - and a number link to the Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20 facebook page -currently over 36,000 members - where the commenters have no difficulty at all articulating why they are disgusted, ashamed, angry, and sad.

Man oh Mann

Well, this should put the last nail in the coffin of the whole CRU Hack incident. If you recall two investigations in the UK and one by Penn State revealed that there was no indication of wrongdoing contained in the stolen e-mails. However the investigation by Penn State did decide that since the committee was comprised of mostly administrators, they were not equipped to judge whether Dr. Mann had violated best practices issues. From that initial report:

Decision 4: The Inquiry Committee determined that "given that information emerged in the form of the emails purloined from CRU in November 2009, which have raised questions in the public's mind about Dr. Mann's conduct of his research activity, given that this may be undermining confidence in his findings as a scientist, and given that it may be undermining public trust in science in general and climate science specifically, an Investigatory Committee of faculty peers from diverse fields should be constituted under RA-I 0 to further consider this allegation."

Well, the committee of peers has finished its work and while I expected Dr. Mann to be cleared this turned out to not be the case. While he was exonerated on most issues (and commended for his research) they did find criticism, specifically:

The Investigatory Committee considers Dr. Mann's actions in sharing unpublished manuscripts with third parties, without first having received express consent from the authors of such manuscripts, to be careless and inappropriate. While sharing an unpublished manuscript on the basis of the author's implied consent may be an acceptable practice in the judgment of some individuals, the Investigatory Committee believes the best practice in this regard is to obtain express consent from the author before sharing an unpublished manuscript with third parties.

So in fact the criticism with Dr. Mann is that he is too open with sharing information. I wonder how this will be spun!

Toronto dystopia

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever. --George Orwell.

[H/t Impolitical]

What really happened.

Rachel S. returned to Montréal, her actions respected and supported by her network of family, friends and fellow students. She reported what she experienced and observed in Toronto during the g20 events.

But first, a video that faithfully depicts the actions of Rachel and her peers, peaceful activists, volunteers and committed citizens who took to the streets of Toronto, numbering 25,000 and more.

These are the images that the 'mainstream' media chose not to broadcast.



And now Rachel in all her eloquence, powerfully written and spoken.

On Wednesday, while on the way to an environmental justice protest in Toronto, in the lead-up to the G20, I had my first taste of the paranoia and the enormous police presence that has taken over the city. My friend Asha and I were walking with a sign condemning Canadian mining companies, and a light stick we were intending to tape to the sign to hold it up.

We were a few blocks away from the bus station at Bay and Dundas, and still a ways from the beginning of the protest we were moving towards, when two police officers stepped out of an alley and approached us. I transcribed our conversation immediately after it took place; it is as close as possible to verbatim:
Female Officer: Can I talk to you?
Myself: I don’t think I want to talk. Attempts to keep walking.
Female Officer: We’re concerned about your stick.
Asha: It’s for the sign.
Female Officer: I’m not concerned with you, with peaceful protesters. We’re removing it for your safety and ours from other protesters. (Both the officer and Asha are holding the stick at this point, though neither are pulling at it.) We’re not concerned about your sign, you can use something else that can’t be construed as a weapon.
Asha: It’s not a weapon, we’re going to a tour.
(A male police officer who had been standing back approaches.)
Male Officer: I doubt that you’re going to a tour with that sign.
Asha: No, we are. It’s a toxic tour.
Female Officer: We appreciate that but we need to take this. We’ll just keep it for you, we can tell you where it is.
Myself: What can I use to hold up my sign that you won’t consider a weapon?
Female Officer: I don’t know, you’ll have to figure that out on your own.
(Asha and I decide to give up the stick. She lets it go.)
Asha: There goes another civil liberty.
(We leave.)

Happy Canada Day: open thread

In, say, 100 words or less, what do you like best about our country?

G-20: Who is this man?

Ignore the YouTube title: we don't know his identity or whether he is a police officer. But if you do know who he is, get in touch with A Creative Revolution.

Note the woman in the crowd shouting "This isn't helping us." No kidding.

Ideas as weapons

Astute reader Craig draws our attention to one of the "weapons" seized by the Toronto Police this past weekend: a copy of "Upping the Anti," a radical journal that "provides a space to reflect on the state of political organizing in Canada."

That's more like it, guys. My old copy of "The Little Red Book" could barely raise a welt. :)

UPDATE: Co-blogger Balbulican, in the comments, takes a closer look at Collage #6: "I read the staple gun as a deft hommage from the Toronto police to the RCMP. Nice Dziekanski-esque touch."

Sex, lies and videotape

A prediction: Chief Bill Blair's internal investigation will clear the Toronto Police of wrongdoing in the Amy Miller affair--indeed, of any wrongdoing at all. Remember, you read it here first.

But it's not solely up to him any more. The case will, however, be a test of the efficacy of the Office of the Ontario Independent Police Review Director.

I wish Miller, her journo colleagues and Director Gerry McNeilly good luck in penetrating the blue wall. It's the closest we're going to come, it seems, to a public inquiry.

An interesting video has emerged of what appears to be a police officer posing as a Black Bloc member (@0:45). Infiltrator? Agent provocateur?

On the public policy side, David Eaves has some pithy analysis this morning of what happens when police lie to the citizenry. Police Chief Bill Blair, as it turns out, not only lied about the 5-metre Charter-free zone, but also about the "weapons" put on display to justify police actions over the weekend. It seems that a fantasy knight is out a suit of chain mail and some dummy arrows.

But Blair shouldn't be alone in taking the fall, if fall there be. There's plenty of blame to go around.