Sandra Finley

2016-03-08 Canada Revenue offered amnesty to wealthy KPMG clients in offshore tax ‘sham’, CBC. IMPORTANT VIDEO.

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Occupy Movement  No Responses »
Apr 042016
 

Federal authorities demanded secrecy in no-penalty, no-prosecution deal to high net worth Canadians . . .

 

IMPORTANT  go to this CBC  URL:   http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-revenue-kpmg-secret-amnesty-1.3479594

and listen to the mini-doc near the top.   The story of two women the CRA went after is told,  in sharp contrast to the “no-penalty, no-prosecution” confidential deals offered to the very wealthy.

 All you need to do is to share the story with your friends.  Lots of them.  If you mail in an Income Tax Return,  enclose a note to the CRA.  “Taxation isn’t only for middle and low income citizens.  It’s for the wealthy, too. ”  Or, whatever you would like to say.

It would be nice if some CRA employees knew (from the bottom of this posting):  For confidential tips on this story please email investigations@cbc.ca or contact Harvey Cashore at 416-526-4704, or visit CBC Secure Drop to send documents.

BACKGROUND, see:  2016-04-04 The Panama Papers: world reacts to huge offshore tax files leak, The Guardian. (With links to more)

 

By Harvey Cashore, Dave Seglins, Frederic Zalac, Kimberly Ivany, CBC News

The Canada Revenue Agency offered amnesty to multi-millionaire clients caught using what’s been called an offshore tax “sham” on the Isle of Man — a reprieve that was supposed to remain secret and out of the public eye until it was uncovered by a CBC News/Radio-Canada investigation.

CRA tax amnesty

Canada Revenue officials demanded, and offered, secrecy in a no-penalty, no-prosecution deal to high net worth clients of accounting giant KPMG involved in a dodgy offshore tax scheme. (CBC)

The amnesty allows for “high net worth” clients of the accounting giant KPMG to be free from any future civil or criminal prosecution — as well as any penalties or fines — for their involvement in the controversial scheme.

The clients simply had to agree to pay their back taxes and modest interest on these offshore investments, which they had failed to report on their income tax returns.

Documents show that the scheme had attracted at least $130 million.

CBC/Radio-Canada obtained a copy of the confidential nine-page offer, signed on May 1, 2015 by CRA’s manager of offshore compliance, Stephanie Henderson.

It promised KPMG clients that the CRA would not impose any penalties for taxes dodged in a scheme that lasted more than a decade.

The offer was made despite CRA uncovering the KPMG scheme, which had at least 26 wealthy clients each investing a minimum of $5 million using shell companies on the Isle of Man.

Before offering the deal, the tax agency had already assessed huge penalties against a handful of the earliest clients, alleging the scheme was “grossly negligent” and had “intended to deceive” the minister of revenue.

CRA would not discuss any details of the leaked document with CBC News, let alone say how many of the high net worth KPMG clients decided to accept the offer.

But a letter filed in court in September 2015 by a KPMG lawyer stated that 15 clients had “self-identified” to the federal tax authorities. Why they might have come forward remained a mystery until CBC News obtained a copy of the secret agreement.

Ted Gallivan

Ted Gallivan, CRA’s assistant commissioner of compliance, says this case is still ongoing. But he said he had not seen the agency’s amnesty offer to KPMG clients, in particular its confidentiality clause, until CBC showed it to him. (CBC)

A spokesman for Canada Revenue told CBC News that the CRA frequently resolves tax disputes through settlements.

“CRA practice also recognizes that the earliest possible resolution of disputes is in the public interest, as lengthy litigation is costly to all parties and the outcome of complex, tax-related litigation processes may be difficult to predict,” media relations officer Philippe Brideau said in a statement.

  • For confidential tips on this story please email investigations@cbc.ca or contact Harvey Cashore at 416-526-4704

Secret offer ‘outrageous’

CBC showed the secret CRA amnesty offer to a number of tax lawyers.

Toronto tax lawyer Duane Milot, who represents middle-income Canadians in disputes with the CRA, says his clients are routinely dragged through the courts for years by Canada Revenue.

“It’s outrageous,” he told CBC News after reading the leaked document. “The CRA appears to be saying to Canadians, ‘If you’re rich and wealthy, you get a second chance, but if you’re not, you’re stuck.'”

Jonathan Garbutt, a veteran Bay Street tax lawyer says the CRA may be looking to avoid a long, costly court battle with KPMG’s multi-millionaire investors as it lacks resources for these kinds of fights.

Jonathan Garbutt

Bay Street lawyer Jonathan Garbutt says CRA is probably looking to avoid a long, costly battle in this case, given that these are very wealthy investors. (CBC)

“These are much bigger names. These people have money. They can fight, they can afford to hire the best legal defence money can buy,” Garbutt said.

“There’s a lot more money at stake in these bigger cases, and it’s going to cost them more to be able to fight them. So CRA will gladly say thank you very much for the money, and move on to the lower-hanging fruit,” Garbutt said.

Confidentiality clause

Whatever the reason behind the offer, it’s clear the CRA didn’t want anyone else to find out about the amnesty deal.

The leaked document includes the clause CONFIDENTIALITY in capital letters in paragraph 18.

“The taxpayer agrees to ensure the confidentiality of the offer and will not inform any person of the conditions of the offer,” the letter states.

“This doesn’t pass the smell test,” Milot said. “This is exactly the type of government behaviour that erodes the public’s confidence in the system, these type of secret deals. Everybody should be treated equally.”

Duane Milot

Toronto tax lawyer Duane Milot says the Canada Revenue Agency routinely drags his less wealthy clients through the courts for years when there is a dispute, and that there shouldn’t be a double standard. (CBC)

The document is silent on whether KPMG itself will avoid civil or criminal penalties for setting up and selling the Isle of Man arrangement to at least 26 clients.

But experts consulted by CBC News raised concerns that the large accounting firm, with close ties to the federal government, could also be off the hook.

In an on camera interview last Friday, Ted Gallivan, the CRA’s assistant commissioner of compliance, said it would be inappropriate for him to say whether KPMG also was offered amnesty over the offshore scheme.

“The CRA is still actively pursuing this matter, and so I really can’t comment about what decisions we may or may not have made,” he said.

CRA ‘priority’

Gallivan has previously said that going after companies that promote tax avoidance is a priority for the Canada Revenue Agency.

“Right now, we are keeping a close watch on those promoting aggressive programs and taking advantage of them,” he told a parliamentary committee in December 2014.

Five months after these public remarks, however, the CRA’s offshore compliance division sent the secret settlement offer to KPMG.

Gallivan, who became assistant commissioner only seven weeks ago, said he was unaware of the details of the agency’s settlement offer to KPMG. He said he did not know about the CRA-imposed gag order.

“You’ve provided me with written text from a taxpayer specific file, text that I have never read before, and it would be utterly irresponsible of me to comment on something that I’ve never read before out of context,” he told CBC News/Radio-Canada after being shown a copy of his own department’s document.

Media placeholder

CRA’s Ted Gallivan on ‘confidential’ deal1:32

Gallivan says the CRA has a good track record recovering money from offshore tax avoidance schemes, pointing to its voluntary disclosures program, which allows taxpayers to avoid potential criminal or civil penalties in exchange for paying back taxes and interest.

However, tax experts have told CBC News that the KPMG clients should not have been eligible for the voluntary disclosure program because it was the CRA who encouraged them to come forward — and only after it already had those wealthy Canadians on its radar.

Tax experts say the program was designed for taxpayers who, on their own initiative, approach the CRA to pay back taxes.

Otherwise, they say, everyone under investigation would use the program as soon as the CRA starts in on them for evading or avoiding taxes.

KPMG took cut of taxes dodged

The KPMG scheme, which the accounting firm began marketing to wealthy Canadians as far back as 1999, had clients worth more than $5 million use shell companies set up by the accounting firm in the Isle of Man, famous for its corporate secrecy and very low taxes.

KPMG’s internal memos, now part of the court record, show that the scheme was promoted within the firm to all of its Canadian tax practitioners, and that the accounting firm would collect 15 per cent of the taxes dodged.

CRA auditors in Victoria first caught wind of the scheme at least four years ago after conducting an audit of a Victoria-based family.

Auditor Russ Lyon then obtained a judge’s order in early 2013 to force KPMG to hand over the names of the clients involved as well as documents related to the scheme, which authorities alleged was “intended to deceive” the taxman.

KPMG refused to hand over the documents and instead fought the CRA in court, appealing the judge’s order.

KPMG blurb

KPMG Canada is a member firm of KPMG International, which has 155,000 employees working in 155 countries around the world, according to the KPMG Canada website. (KPMG website)

CBC News reported last September that the case against KPMG had been stalled for more than two years as talks went on outside the courtroom.

The secret agreement, leaked to CBC producer Harvey Cashore in a brown envelope, reveals that the amnesty offer was made to these high net worth Canadians even before the CRA knew who they actually were.

The May 1, 2015 offer letter was sent to KPMG and was then passed on to its clients, 15 of whom appeared to accept the offer.

There are believed to be six more high net worth clients whose identities continued to remain a mystery.

The agency says it is now proceeding with the court case to obtain the remaining names.

“I really don’t want to say anything that could jeopardize or hamper our ability to pursue it. I’ll just emphasize that our work is far from done and we intend to pursue this as far as possible,” the CRA Gallivan said.

For confidential tips on this story please email investigations@cbc.ca or contact Harvey Cashore at 416-526-4704, or visit CBC Secure Drop to send documents to the attention of Harvey Cashore.

with files from Katie Pedersen

 

2016-04-02 NAFTA Chapter 11: Tribunal rules against Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens in lawsuit over Ontario wind farms

 Energy, Trade Deals, PPPs, Integration Canada-U.S.  No Responses »
Apr 022016
 
Follow-up on    2015-10-16 Texas Oil Tycoon T. Boone Pickens’ $700-Million NAFTA Lawsuit Against Ontario Nears End, NY Times & Huffington Post

By John Miner, The London Free Press

(Postmedia Network file photo)

(Postmedia Network file photo)

In what sources say was a split decision, the tribunal confirmed Canada complied with its obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The decision left a spokesperson for Ontario Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli boasting that Ontario is a global leader in clean energy development. He said Ontario will continue to work with the federal government as it considers the tribunal’s decision and next steps.

T. Boone Pickens had sued under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, claiming damages of $653 million plus interest after his company, Mesa Power Group LLC, lost out in its bid to build four massive wind farms north of London.

Mesa said it would have spent $1.2 billion in Ontario.

The tribunal, in the decision released Friday, decided Pickens’ company should pay for all of the arbitration costs. It also awarded the Canadian government $2.9 million for legal costs.

Chiarelli’s offiice released a statement welcoming the tribunal’s decision.

“We have attracted new and innovative Ontario-based companies to produce renewable energy in the province, creating 42,000 jobs with more than 30 solar and wind manufacturers operating in Ontario,” the statement said.

In a statement also welcoming the decision, the federal government noted it had worked closely with Ontario throughout the proceedings.

“The Government of Canada welcomed this open and collaborative approach,” the federal statement said.

Mesa, in a statement, said it was disappointed by the tribunal’s decision “not to hold the Government of Ontario accountable for conducting an unfair competition for the awarding of renewable energy contracts under the province’s feed-in tariff (FIT) program in 2011.”

“While we respect the tribunal and its process, we do think they got this one wrong,” said Cole Robertson of Mesa Power.

“We are reviewing the decision, and the dissenting opinion, and will be evaluating our options.”

Mesa said that despite the decision, it looks forward to doing business in Canada.

“Mesa believes that Canada-US energy co-operation continues to be important for both economies,” it said.

In their tribunal submission, lawyers for Pickens alleged his company had been treated unfairly.

“The Mesa story is a story of a secret process, secret deals, arbitrary rules and selective enforcement of those rules in the service of political expediency, rather than public integrity and transparency that the ratepayers of Ontario deserve and that those proponents who would come here should expect,” Mesa lawyer Barry Appleton said in his closing submission to the panel’s three arbitrators at a hearing in Toronto in October 2014.

The lawsuit was launched in 2011 under NAFTA.

It alleged that other wind farm companies, Florida-based NextEra Energy and Korean-based industrial giant Samsung, were given illegal, preferential treatment and inside information that doomed Mesa’s projects.

“It was a cesspool. It was shameful. I feel very badly after seeing what went on here for my fellow Ontarians and the ratepayers of Ontario. They are having to bear the burden of the shameful behaviour,” Appleton said in a transcript from the hearing.

In its response, the Canadian government dismissed the claims, telling the tribunal Mesa failed to win contracts because of sloppy work.

“The claimant’s questions and its allegations this morning have been loaded with innuendo about corruption, about political cronyism, about, in their slide (show), bags of money being paid for favours. Those are serious allegations against government in Canada. They should not be made lightly, and there is no evidence to support them,” Canada’s lead lawyer, Shane Spelliscy, said at the Toronto hearings.

Spelliscy said Mesa’s failures were self-inflicted.

“This is a case which is, as the expression goes, about sour grapes. It is a case about an investor who took a business risk and is unwilling to accept that risk did not pay off,” he said.

2016-04-05 LeadNow leads the way on ACTION re Panama Papers (Facebook, Twitter)

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Occupy Movement  No Responses »
Apr 012016
 

ACTION on OFFSHORE BANKING? – –   LEADNOW

    2016-04-04   The Panama Papers: world reacts to huge offshore tax files leak, The Guardian. (With links to more))

Dear Sandra,

We have a chance to turn public outrage about the Panama Papers into lasting changes that make sure the super-wealthy pay their fair share. Share the campaigning calling for a comprehensive review of tax loopholes.

 

Yesterday, a global group of investigative journalists released the Panama Papers. It’s a truly unprecedented release of data that exposes the shocking use of offshore tax havens, implicating more than 72 current and former heads of state in corruption and money laundering. The leak also names the Royal Bank of Canada and hundreds of Canadians who have money tucked away in offshore tax havens.[1]

Tax havens and other forms of tax evasion cost Canada billions of dollars every year in lost revenue – billions that could be invested in protecting and strengthening our hospitals, schools, child care, and afforable housing.

Earlier this month, when the KPMG “sham” tax scheme broke, thousands of you called on the government to close tax loopholes and stop tax dodging in the March 22 budget. The budget included nearly half a billion dollars to crack down on tax evasion – congrats! – but there’s more work to do to close tax loopholes.

Right now, because people are paying attention to the Panama Papers, we have a chance to turn public outrage into lasting changes that make sure the super wealthy pay their fair share. We’ve updated the campaign to ask the Parliamentary Finance committee to call KPMG officials to testify, and to carry through with a comprehensive review of tax loopholes. Share on Twitter

Share on Facebook This is the moment to act. At a time when our new government is boldly running a deficit to keep campaign promises and make key investments, the billions we lose to wealthy tax dodgers could go a long way towards improving our fiscal strength while paying for infrastructure and social services.  Thanks for all you do, Amara, on behalf of the Leadnow.ca team

[1] How offshore banking is costing Canada billions of dollars a year: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/04/04/how-offshore-tax-havens-are-costing-canada-billions-of-dollars-a-year.html

Please support the Leadnow.ca community! We’re funded by people like you, and our small, dedicated team and growing community make sure your donation goes a long way. Every dollar helps. You can donate online at http://www.leadnow.ca/en/donate

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2016-03-24 Chris Hedges, short interview. “We bomb them, they bomb us”, The Real News.

 Bill C-51 Anti-Terrorism, Secret Police, Chris Hedges, Peace or Violence  No Responses »
Apr 012016
 

David posted a comment on my posting: There are two sides to the story. Why do we hear only one?

Not only do I concur, Sandra, so does Christopher Hedges…

Hey!  I am in good company!

Many thanks to David for directing us to the following:

Short interview of Chris Hedges by the Real News

thttp://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&Itemid=74&jumival=15970

Chris Hedges, ​Pulitzer prize winning journalist, discusses the Brussels Attacks.

Bio

Chris Hedges, whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. He has written nine books, including “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “I Don’t Believe in Atheists” (2008) and the best-selling “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2008). His book “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.

Transcript

JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I’m Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.

On Tuesday, March 22, a couple of explosions rocked Brussels Airport, killing 11 people. Another blast struck near the European Union headquarters an hour later, leaving approximately 20 people dead in the Belgian capital. The Islamic State has taken responsibility for the attack, and two of the suicide bombers have now been identified as Belgian nationals.Here to discuss with us the recent attacks in Brussels is our guest, Chris Hedges. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and a regular columnist at Truthdig. He’s also the former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times. Thanks so much for being with us, Chris.

CHRIS HEDGES: Thank you.

DESVARIEUX: So, Chris, this news certainly is dominating headlines right now. And many people are asking themselves, why Brussels?

HEDGES: Well, I think for many of the same reasons we saw the attacks in Paris. You have a large immigrant community that comes out of North Africa, in particular. They tend to be segregated within the society. There’s a heavy degree of racism. High unemployment. There is a struggle for identity, because, for instance, they may have been born in Tunisia or wherever, come to Belgium or France at a young age, but because of the endemic European racism don’t fit in, are not treated as equals. And yet when they go back, you know, they’re looked upon as being French or Belgian.

DESVARIEUX: When you say they’re not treated as equals, can you give us an example?

HEDGES: Well, especially in French society, they’re segregated into [banleus], these horrific Stalinist-type housing projects on the outside of French cities, Leon, Paris, and other places. And unemployment is very high. The majority of the prison population in France is of North African descent.And they are easy prey because of the way European society has treated them. They’re easy prey for these Islamists. Many of them have been adrift. I mean, you actually, most of them don’t come out of religious households. They’re involved in petty crime, and for what I had read of the two suicide bombers at the airport in Belgium, they had a history of petty crime. And then they have this kind of conversion experience where their rage is sanctified. And the rage is legitimate. I mean, they have every reason to be angry at the way they’ve been treated. And that translates into these kinds of attacks. That’s the first thing.The second thing is we have to acknowledge that for the last 13 years in Iraq, 15 years in Afghanistan, we have been bombing these people night and day. We have created millions of refugees, over a million dead in Iraq. And they don’t have an air force. So if you’re bombing Raqqa, as we are continuously, which of course, you know, these 500,000-pound fragmentation bombs are hardly surgical weapons. They can take out, you know, several houses on a city block. So the collateral damage, as we call it, is quite high. So the only way that ISIS can strike back is, essentially, through these kinds of attacks.

DESVARIEUX: And in the aftermath of these kind of attacks, you have folks like Hillary Clinton. She’s come out saying that we need more surveillance. And Ted Cruz, and other nominees. So do you think this type of, sort of knee-jerk responses that we need surveillance, what’s your counter for that?

HEDGES: Well, they’re dealing with the symptom, not the cause. The cause is the U.S. military occupation of the Middle East, and the brutality, and I would even call it state terror, let’s include the terror of drones, has inflicted on huge swathes of the population. And this is a very potent recruiting tool in the hands of groups like ISIS. And the reason that they have expanded to the extent that they have. So violence, our violence, is what created these groups. We go all the way back to the war against the Soviet Union and our empowering of ISIS. You know, we have created these groups.And what you’re, what these political figures are in essence calling for is a tactic, you know, which has contributed tremendously to this kind of terrorism, i.e. violence, as the way we’re going to defeat these groups. It’s just a complete misreading of what’s happening on the ground in the Middle East and how complicit we are in essentially fueling these kind of attacks.

DESVARIEUX: Even surveillance. Drones aside–.HEDGES: Well, look. I mean, you have–part of the reason that this took place in Belgium, although we had, of course, a very large attack in France. But remember, that attack was planned. And I covered al-Qaeda after 9/11. I was based in Paris. And the French, who have a much more sophisticated internal security system than the Belgians, even then, there was an attempt to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris. And they broke the plot, but the fertilizer that was being packed inside the truck, it was a car bomb, was in a garage in Belgium.So that’s been a long tradition, because the Belgians are just not as organized in terms of surveillance. And so these groups can operate more freely in Belgium so that they’ll often, you know, going back to many years, they will often plan their attacks, if they’re carrying them out in France, they will plan them and logistically prepare the ground in Belgium.

DESVARIEUX: But couldn’t that be an argument that, that’s why you need more surveillance. You need surveillance [to be] more organized.

HEDGES: Sure, you need surveillance. On the other hand, it isn’t going to stop the attacks. I mean, what is it that’s causing the attacks? And you know, the French have a pretty good surveillance system, and yet they suffered horrific attacks in Paris. And you know, some are going to slip through.The difference between al-Qaeda, and it’s a big difference, and ISIS, is that al-Qaeda had very few foreign fighters, I mean, from outside the Middle East. It was largely a clan-based organization. It didn’t control territory the way ISIS controls Sirte and areas of Libya, parts of Syria and Iraq. And so this, you know, the control of territory has seen an infusion of 20,000-30,000 foreign fighters, 4,000-5,000 of whom carry European passports. And as we continue to, in essence, attempt to break ISIS through aerial bombardment and drones, those kind of things, we’re not attacking them on the ground, that, number one, gives an incentive to ISIS to strike back. But because they have so many people who can integrate back into Europe, it gives them the mechanism to strike back. And that’s what we’re seeing.

DESVARIEUX: And a lot of folks will say, where do you draw the line between surveillance and civil liberties, and what’s–.

HEDGES: Well, you know, we–even when I lived in France it was a police state. Yes, it becomes an excuse to strip us of, you know, what little kind of liberty we have left. We’re all, whether we’re Belgian or French or American or British, all under state surveillance that dwarfs anything ever dreamt of by the Stazi state in East Germany. And these kinds of terrorist attacks, you know, empower the state to take–you know, there’s not much more left that they can take. But to take what’s left, denial of habeus corpus, denial of due process.So yes, it plays to the extreme. Their extreme, our extreme.DESVARIEUX: Okay, Chris Hedges joining us in studio in Baltimore. Thank you so much for being with us.And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.

End

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

 

2016-04-04 How reporters pulled off the Panama Papers, the biggest leak in Whistleblower history. Wired Magazine.

 Daniel Ellsberg, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Occupy Movement  No Responses »
Apr 012016
 

NOTE:  Details, related postings, comments – –  see  2016-04-04 The Panama Papers: world reacts to huge offshore tax files leak, The Guardian

http://www.wired.com/2016/04/reporters-pulled-off-panama-papers-biggest-leak-whistleblower-history/

 

When Daniel Ellsberg photocopied and leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, those 7,000 pages of top secret Vietnam War documents represented what was then the biggest whistleblower leak in history—a couple dozen megabytes if it were contained in a modern text file. Almost four decades later, WikiLeaks in 2010 published Cablegate, a world-shaking, 1.73 gigabyte collection of classified State Department communications that was almost a hundred times bigger.

If there’s some Moore’s Law of Leaks, however, it seems to be exponential. Just five years have passed since WikiLeaks’ Cablegate coup, and now the world is grappling with a whistleblower megaleak on a scale never seen before: 2.6 terabytes, well over a thousandfold larger.

On Sunday, more than a hundred media outlets around the world, coordinated by the Washington, DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, released stories on the Panama Papers, a gargantuan collection of leaked documents exposing a widespread system of global tax evasion. The leak includes more than 4.8 million emails, 3 million database files, and 2.1 million PDFs from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that, according to analysis of the leaked documents, appears to specialize in creating shell companies that its clients have used to hide their assets.

“This is pretty much every document from this firm over a 40-year period,” ICIJ director Gerard Ryle told WIRED in a phone call, arguing that at “about 2,000 times larger than the WikiLeaks state department cables,” it’s indeed the biggest leak in history.

The source warned that his or her ‘life is in danger,’ was only willing to communicate via encrypted channels, and refused to meet in person.

Neither the ICIJ nor any of the reporters it’s worked with have made the leaked data public. But the scandal resulting from their reporting has already touched celebrities, athletes, business executives and world leaders. The documents trace $2 billion of hidden money tied to Vladimir Putin through accounts held in the names of family members and his celebrated musician friend Sergei Roldugin. Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson is facing demands from the previous Icelandic prime minister that he resign after the Mossack Fonseca documents showed that Gunnlaugsson may have failed to disclose ownership of a stake in certain Icelandic banks under the government’s rules for officials. And the leaks drag FIFA officials back into the news, showing that even an ethics lawyer for the world soccer body had financial ties to another FIFA official already accused of corruption.

But beyond those revelations—and there will likely be more as the reporting around the Panama Papers continues—the leak represents an unprecedented story in itself: How an anonymous whistleblower was able to spirit out and surreptitiously send journalists a gargantuan collection of files, which were then analyzed by more than 400 reporters in secret over more than a year before a coordinated effort to go public.

How You Coordinate History’s Biggest Leak

The Panama Papers leak began, according to ICIJ director Ryle, in late 2014, when an unknown source reached out to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, which had reported previously on a smaller leak of Mossack Fonseca files to German government regulators. A Suddeutsche Zeitung reporter named Bastian Obermayer says that the source contacted him via encrypted chat, offering some sort of data intended “to make these crimes public.” But the source warned that his or her “life is in danger,” was only willing to communicate via encrypted channels, and refused to meet in person.

“How much data are we talking about?” Obermayer asked.

“More than you have ever seen,” the source responded, according to Obermayer.

Obermayer tells WIRED he communicated with his source over a series of encrypted channels that they frequently changed, each time deleting all history from their prior exchange. He alludes to crypto apps like Signal and Threema, as well as PGP-encrypted email but declines to say specifically which methods they used. Each time the reporter and source re-established a connection, they would use a known question and answer to reauthenticate each other. “I’d say ‘is it sunny?’ You’d say ‘the moon is raining’ or whatever nonsense, and then both of us can verify it’s still the other person on the device,” Obermayer says.

After seeing a portion of the documents, Suddeutsche Zeitung contacted the ICIJ, which had helped to coordinate previous tax haven megaleaks including a 2013 analysis of leaked offshore tax haven data and another leak-enabled investigation last year that focused on assets protected by the Swiss bank HSBC. ICIJ staff flew to Munich to coordinate with Suddeutsche Zeitung reporters.

Meanwhile, the shipments of leaked data continued piecemeal. “Over time we got more and more until we had all 11.5 million documents,” Ryle says. Obermayer declined to explain how their leaker sent Suddeutsche Zeitung hundreds of gigabytes or even terabytes of information at a time. That’s far too much to send over email, of course, though that quantity of data could easily be sent anonymously in the form of shipped encrypted hard drives. “I learned a lot about making the safe transfer of big files,” Obermayer says elliptically.

We’re not WikiLeaks. We’re trying to show that journalism can be done responsibly. ICIJ Director Gerard Ryle

The ICIJ’s developers then built a two-factor-authentication-protected search engine for the leaked documents, the URL for which they shared via encrypted email with scores of news outlets including the BBC, The Guardian, Fusion, and dozens of foreign-language media outlets. The site even featured a real-time chat system, so that reporters could exchange tips and find translation for documents in languages they couldn’t read. “If you wanted to look into the Brazilian documents, you could find a Brazilian reporter,” says Ryle. “You could see who was awake and working and communicate openly. We encouraged everyone to tell everyone what they were doing.” The different media outlets eventually held their own in-person meetings, too, in Washington, Munich, London, Johannesburg and Lillehammer, Ryle says.1

Remarkably, despite all that broad access and openness, the full leaked database has yet to leak to the public—perhaps in part because it’s so large and unwieldy. Obermayer admits that rumors of the massive leak spread, but says that the data itself remained contained. “Last fall I was really nervous, thinking ‘a lot of people know,’” he says. “Word leaked out at places. But it never got further.”

Ryle says that the media organizations have no plans to release the full dataset, WikiLeaks-style, which he argues would expose the sensitive information of innocent private individuals along with the public figures on which the group’s reporting has focused. “We’re not WikiLeaks. We’re trying to show that journalism can be done responsibly,” Ryle says. He says he advised the reporters from all the participating media outlets to “go crazy, but tell us what’s in the public interest for your country.”

Weeks before contacting the subjects of the investigation, including Mossack Fonseca, Obermayer took one final precaution: he destroyed the phone and the hard drive of the laptop he’d used for his conversations with the source. “This may have seemed a little overachieving,” he notes, “But better safe than sorry.”

He notes that even now, he doesn’t know who the source actually is. “I don’t know the name of the person or the identity of the person,” Obermayer says. “But I would say I know the person. For certain periods I talked to [this person] more than to my wife.”

A New Era of Megaleaks

 

The leaks are bound to cause ripples around the world—not least of all for Mossack Fonseca itself. The firm didn’t respond to a request for comment from WIRED, but it wrote to the Guardian that “many of the circumstances you cite are not and have never been clients of Mossack Fonseca” and that “we have always complied with international protocols … to assure as is reasonably possible, that the companies we incorporate are not being used for tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist finance or other illicit purposes.” Another letter posted to WikiLeaks’ Twitter feed, meanwhile, purports to show how the firm has responded to its own clients:

“Oops” #PanamaPapers

— WikiLeaks (‎@wikileaks) 7:40 PM – 3 Apr 2016

Mossack Fonseca and its customers won’t be the last to face an embarrassing or even incriminating megaleak. Encryption and anonymity tools like Tor have only become more widespread and easy to use, making it safer in some ways than ever before for sources to reach out to journalists across the globe. Data is more easily transferred—and with tools like Onionshare, more easily securely transferred—than ever before. And actual Moore’s Law continues to fit more data on smaller and smaller slices of hardware every year, any of which could be ferreted out of a corporation or government agency by a motivated insider and put in an envelope to a trusted journalist.

The new era of megaleaks is already underway: The Panama Papers represent the fourth tax haven leak coordinated by the ICIJ since just 2013. The Intercept, the investigative journalism outlet co-founded by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill, has also shown how encryption tools can be combined with investigative journalism to yield leaks like last year’s Drone Papers and a collection of 70 million prison phone call records. Dozens of media outlets, including the Intercept, now host anonymous upload systems that use cryptographic protections to shield whistleblowers. All of that—unfortunately for companies and governments trying to keep hold of their dirty data, but fortunate for public interest—means that the widening pipeline of leaks isn’t likely to dry up any time soon.

1Correction 4/4/2016 11:40am: An earlier version of the story mistakenly stated that Vice News was given access to the Panama Papers.

 

When the government boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right, is of no consequence. (anon.)

2016-03-28 FBI drops its case against Apple after getting into that iPhone

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Technology  No Responses »
Mar 312016
 

 Since the FBI vs Apple court case in California,  FBI in other jurisdictions, criminal investigations, have aired the need for access to iPhones.   For those stories, please use an internet search.

 FBI drops its case against Apple after getting into that iPhone

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/fbi-drops-case-apple-finding-way-iphone/

by Kim Zetter

After more than a month of a heated standoff between the Justice Department and Apple over access to an iPhone belonging to one of the alleged San Bernardino shooters, the government announced today that an alternative method for breaking into the phone has worked.

In a motion filed with the court Monday afternoon, the Justice Department has asked a California court to vacate its previous order commanding Apple to create a software tool to help authorities break into the phone.

“The government has asked a United States Magistrate Judge in Riverside, California to vacate her order compelling Apple to assist the FBI in unlocking the iPhone,” United States Attorney Eileen M. Decker said in a statement. “Our decision to conclude the litigation was based solely on the fact that, with the recent assistance of a third party, we are now able to unlock that iPhone without compromising any information on the phone…. Although this step in the investigation is now complete, we will continue to explore every lead, and seek any appropriate legal process, to ensure our investigation collects all of the evidence related to this terrorist attack.”

Last week, a day before a scheduled court hearing to discuss the case, the Justice Department pulled a surprise move and asked the court to delay the hearing after learning of a possible method it could use to get into the phone without Apple’s help. The government had insisted repeatedly to Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym that it could not get into the phone without Apple’s help, so the sudden turnaround surprised reporters and others who had gathered in Riverside, California for the hearing.

Since that announcement, the security community has speculated about what possible method the feds could be using. Last week, FBI Director James Comey told reporters at a news conference that a method called NAND mirroring, that some in the security community insisted was the best option the FBI had for getting into the phone, did not in fact work. Comey didn’t elaborate.

The government’s announcement today leaves that question unanswered. Apple told reporters last week that if the feds did find a way into the phone, it would seek discovery to learn the method that was used in order to confirm that the feds did indeed get into the device and didn’t just claim it did to save face and withdraw from the case. But Apple may never be able to get an answer to that question if the government classified the method.

Also left unanswered is whether the phone actually contained any data useful to the government’s investigation that it had not already obtained through the iCloud backups of the phone.

Apple did not yet respond to a call for comment. We’ll update this story when they do.

Last month a federal court ordered Apple to create a software tool that would bypass security mechanisms in Apple’s software so that the government could perform what’s known as a bruteforce password attack to guess the password on the phone.

Starting with versions of its operating system released in 2014 and later, Apple uses two factors to secure and decrypt data on the phone–the password the user chooses and a unique 256-bit AES secret key that’s embedded in the phone when it’s manufactured. The user’s password gets “tangled” with the secret key to create a passcode key that both secures and unlocks data on the device. When the user enters the correct password, the phone performs a calculation that combines these two codes, and if the result is the correct passcode, the device and data are unlocked.

To prevent someone from brute-forcing the password, the device has a user-enabled function that limits the number of guesses someone can try before the passcode key gets erased. Although the data remains on the device, it cannot be decrypted and therefore becomes permanently inaccessible. This happens after 10 failed guesses if a user has enabled the iPhone’s auto-erase feature

In addition to the auto-erase function, there’s another protection against brute force attacks: time delays. Each time a password is entered on the phone, it takes about 80 milliseconds for the system to process that password and determine if it’s correct. This helps prevent someone from quickly entering a new password to try again, because they can only guess a password every 80 milliseconds. Instead of being able to try hundreds or thousands of password guesses per second, the feds would only be able to try eight or nine per second.

The FBI wanted Apple to create a version of its software that eliminated these two protections.

2016-03-17 How Political Elites Have Failed To Ensure Social Justice Across Generations, Joseph Stiglitz

 Change, Economy / Political Economy, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  2 Responses »
Mar 262016
 

 

https://www.socialeurope.eu/2016/03/how-political-elites-have-failed-to-ensure-social-justice-across-generations/

Social Europe

by Joseph Stiglitz on 17 March 2016 @JosephEStiglitz

Joseph Stiglitz

Joseph Stiglitz (CC Raimond Spekking)

Something interesting has emerged in voting patterns on both sides of the Atlantic: Young people are voting in ways that are markedly different from their elders. A great divide appears to have opened up, based not so much on income, education, or gender as on the voters’ generation.

There are good reasons for this divide. The lives of both old and young, as they are now lived, are different. Their pasts are different, and so are their prospects.

The Cold War, for example, was over even before some were born and while others were still children. Words like socialism do not convey the meaning they once did. If socialism means creating a society where shared concerns are not given short shrift – where people care about other people and the environment in which they live – so be it. Yes, there may have been failed experiments under that rubric a quarter- or half-century ago; but today’s experiments bear no resemblance to those of the past. So the failure of those past experiments says nothing about the new ones.

Older upper-middle-class Americans and Europeans have had a good life. When they entered the labor force, well-compensated jobs were waiting for them. The question they asked was what they wanted to do, not how long they would have to live with their parents before they got a job that enabled them to move out.

That generation expected to have job security, to marry young, to buy a house – perhaps a summer house, too – and finally retire with reasonable security. Overall, they expected to be better off than their parents.

While today’s older generation encountered bumps along the way, for the most part, their expectations were met. They may have made more on capital gains on their homes than from working. They almost surely found that strange, but they willingly accepted the gift of our speculative markets, and often gave themselves credit for buying in the right place at the right time.

Today, the expectations of young people, wherever they are in the income distribution, are the opposite. They face job insecurity throughout their lives. On average, many college graduates will search for months before they find a job – often only after having taken one or two unpaid internships. And they count themselves lucky, because they know that their poorer counterparts, some of whom did better in school, cannot afford to spend a year or two without income, and do not have the connections to get an internship in the first place.

Today’s young university graduates are burdened with debt – the poorer they are, the more they owe. So they do not ask what job they would like; they simply ask what job will enable them to pay their college loans, which often will burden them for 20 years or more. Likewise, buying a home is a distant dream.

These struggles mean that young people are not thinking much about retirement. If they did, they would only be frightened by how much they will need to accumulate to live a decent life (beyond bare social security), given the likely persistence of rock-bottom interest rates.

In short, today’s young people view the world through the lens of intergenerational fairness. The children of the upper middle class may do well in the end, because they will inherit wealth from their parents. While they may not like this kind of dependence, they dislike even more the alternative: a “fresh start” in which the cards are stacked against their attainment of anything approaching what was once viewed as a basic middle-class lifestyle.

These inequities cannot easily be explained away. It isn’t as if these young people didn’t work hard: these hardships affect those who spent long hours studying, excelled in school, and did everything “right”. The sense of social injustice – that the economic game is rigged – is enhanced as they see the  bankers who brought on the financial crisis, the cause of the economy’s  continuing malaise , walk away with mega-bonuses, with almost no one being held accountable for their wrongdoing. Massive fraud was committed, but somehow, no one actually perpetrated it. Political elites promised that “reforms” would bring unprecedented prosperity. And they did, but only for the top 1%. Everyone else, including the young, got unprecedented insecurity.

These three realities – social injustice on an unprecedented scale, massive inequities, and a loss of trust in elites – define our political moment, and rightly so.

More of the same is not an answer. That is why the center-left and center-right parties in Europe are losing. America is in a strange position: while the Republican presidential candidates  compete on demagoguery, with ill-thought-through proposals that would make matters worse, both of the Democratic candidates are proposing changes which – if they could only get them through Congress – would make a real difference.

Were the reforms put forward by Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders adopted, the financial system’s ability to prey on those already leading a precarious life would be curbed. And both have proposals for deep reforms that would change how America finances higher education.

But more needs to be done to make home ownership possible not just for those with parents who can give them a down payment, and to make retirement security possible, given the vagaries of the stock market and the near-zero-interest world we have entered. Most important, the young will not find a smooth path into the job market unless the economy is performing much better. The  “official” unemployment rate in the United States, at 4.9%, masks much higher levels of disguised unemployment, which, at the very least, are holding down wages.

But we won’t be able to fix the problem if we don’t recognize it. Our young do. They perceive the absence of intergenerational justice, and they are right to be angry.

© Project Syndicate

About Joseph Stiglitz

Joseph Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University and a Nobel laureate in Economics.

 

 

2016-03-22 There are two sides to the story. Why do we hear only one? (Terrorists & Context: CIA – examples Mossadegh, Lumumba, Arbenz, Guevera, Allende)

 Bill C-51 Anti-Terrorism, Secret Police, Peace or Violence  15 Responses »
Mar 222016
 

Hello Michelle (CBC Radio The Almanac),

 

You asked:  what is the context for the bombings in Brussels?

 

The Context is an accumulation of   “last month”s   and   “last year”s   that extends back in time.

Context has been created by  people of the Middle East AND by Westerners.

 

Human beings do not like it when their children are killed.  They do not like it when their homes, water supplies, schools, hospitals, museums and other infrastructure are destroyed.  They do not like it when their democratically-elected leaders are overthrown or murdered – – their heroes, the ones who dared to defend against exploitation by foreigners, the Leaders who insist that their people shall not live in poverty while their resource riches go into the pockets of the already-rich elites.

 

Destruction of one group of people by another becomes the stories that are passed from one generation to the next.   The inter-generational transference amongst the “victors” is a story that arouses some emotion.   Sympathy, yes.  But not outrage.

 

It is very different for the aggrieved.  The one thing that matters is that their sons were killed, their daughters were raped and their homes destroyed.   The cause is not the crux.  (Nelson Mandela’s great contribution was in understanding that “truth and reconciliation” are essential if the hatred and killing are to stop.)

 

Failure to recognize the ways in which WE have contributed to the Context of the bombings in Brussels, that there are two sides to the coin, ensures that solutions to the violence will be elusive.

 

Westerners stereotype people from the Middle East;  it may be assumed that people from the Middle East stereotype Westerners.   It is the way human brains work.

 

“Westerners”, in particular in the last half-century Americans, have a long and terrible history in countries whose resources are coveted.   Oil in the Middle East.  If a head-of-state refuses to be bought off, to cooperate with what the Americans want, the promise of wealth to others is used to overthrow the head-of-state.  Democratically-elected, good leaders are replaced by dictators.  Wealth is controlled by a minority;  poverty is the rule for the population.   . . .   But there are consequences of the exploitation, eventually.

 

Americans travelling abroad used to put Canadian flags on their jackets or backpacks.   They knew they, Americans, were generally disliked abroad.  Most were at a loss to understand how that could be.

 

You could point to recent history, the bombing of Iraq in 2003, an illegal war that left Iraq in shambles, many killed and many who became refugees.  The bombings of Libya.  Or, the dropping of bombs from drones on Middle Eastern countries, with many civilian deaths, the “collateral damage”.   Watch videos of interviews of the people who live in zones of drone attacks.   They are terrorized.   Who inflicts the terror on them?  . . .  Westerners.   But if it’s us,  we don’t use the word “terrorist”.

Many innocent people were rounded up and taken to American prisons (Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo . . . ) where they were tortured.   If you think that isn’t the highest form of being terrorized, I ask you what is?   The family and friends of those terrorized by torture certainly hear the stories of what happened at the hands of   . . .  the Westerners.    But if it’s us doing the deed,  we don’t use the word “terrorist”.

All that does NOT explain why the hatred or dislike of Americans (“Westerners”) was there way back in the 1960s and 1970s when I was with a school group,  youth-hostelling in Europe.   I was puzzled by the dislike of Americans, and thankful to be Canadian.   Now I understand:   I, like the American kids, had been effectively propagandized in the fortress of North America so I didn’t know what many foreigners knew/know.

The CONTEXT for the bombings in Brussels includes what many of us have never been told, the story of THEIR side of the coin, one that extends back in time.

A few examples:

  • 1951   Mohammad Mossadegh was the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran.  He wanted to control his country’s oil resources to benefit the people of Iran, not only the foreign corporations.  It is no secret that Washington dispatched the CIA to engineer the overthrow of Mossadegh.

 

  • 1961.  Patrice Lumumba was a Congolese independence leader and the first democratically-elected prime minister of the Congo.   I became acquainted with his story through “The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver (Oprah’s reading list).  There are large, American-owned copper mines in the Congo.   Short story:  Lumumba was executed.  He was the hero of his people, one who wanted his people to benefit from the resource revenues going to foreign corporations.  The foreigners exploited the Congolese workers, their land and resources.    From Wikipedia:  Declassified documents revealed that the CIA had plotted to assassinate Lumumba. These documents indicate that the Congolese leaders who killed Lumumba, including Mobutu Sese Seko and Joseph Kasa-Vubu, received money and weapons directly from the CIA.[45][59]

 

  • The (American) United Fruit Company owned vast tracts of land in various Central American countries (think pineapple).  They also “owned” people in high places in the U.S.  Efforts by local leaders in Central America to raise their people out of poverty by taking back what was theirs, meant they became a target of American wrath.

Reformer Jacobo Arbenz, was elected president of Guatemala in the early fifties.  The United Fruit Co mounted a campaign in the U.S., character assassination of Arbenz, painted him as part of a Russian communist plot.  In 1954 the CIA orchestrated a coup.  American pilots bombed the capital city.  Arbenz was gone, replaced by a right-wing dictator.

 

  • Che Guevera was a huge threat.   The CIA was involved in his death in Bolivia, 1967

 

  • 1973, the CIA overthrew Chile’s democratically-elected president, Salvador Allende.   Pinochet was the replacement.

 

The list goes on.  Those are but a few examples from a few of the aggrieved countries.

 

Eventually such deeds came back to haunt.   You reap what you sow,  you don’t escape.   The idea that you are superior or impervious are proven wrong.   Unfortunately for “us”,  stereotyping puts us all in the same basket with the perpetrators.   But then, maybe we played a role by being ignorant or silent or too busy to see?

 

That’s the Context.   The role of  “Westerners” in the creation of the Context exists and needs to be recognized.  Truth, not propaganda, is required to deal effectively with  “Terrorism”.

We Westerners have terrorized them.   Give me a break.  Why do we NOT expect to eventually be terrorized by them?

Justin Trudeau was right to stop Canadian bombing of people.   Bombing is a sure-fired way to heighten the hate.   And does nothing to address the Context that has fertilized the Brussels bombings.

 

/Sandra Finley

CLOSELY RELATED:    2016-07-08 Rulers cannot rule unless we agree to let them rule.  There are simply too many of us.   Democracy overtaken by Corporatocracy = coup d’état. Citizens fight to regain democracy = Revolution (insurgency) . Corporatocracy fights to hold on = counter insurgency.

2016-03-18 Does Lockheed Martin Corp have a role in the 2016 Census?

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  18 Responses »
Mar 212016
 

Matthew asked whether Lockheed Martin has a role in the 2016 Census.

Short answer:   Yes  – the clincher:  Canada has obligations because of its partnerships with other nations on censuses, and Lockheed Martin is part of that collaboration.   Lockheed Martin’s role is in “steerage”.

Search on words “Lockheed Martin” on StatsCan website.

There are expense claims that help document collaboration on censuses.  Several countries are involved.   That I knew from information given by StatsCan witness Anil Arora,  at my trial (2008).

The additional piece of evidence to be inferred from the expense claims (2009, 2010) is that Lockheed Martin is definitely a part of the collaboration  (probably always has been).

The evidence by StatsCan witness Anil Arora at my trial was that the countries are striving for compatibility,  i.e. the data bases on citizens in various countries, through their census operations, will be compatible.   In the words of Canada-U.S. agreement on “Defence”,  the goal is “inter-operability” (compatibility is required if you want inter-operability).   Loss of sovereignty (the Lockheed Martin – NSA link) is merely collateral damage I suppose.

I would call the collaborative censuses among specified nations a component of international surveillance, under the “steerage” of Lockheed Martin (using the wording of the Travel Expense Claims).

The Important Considerations:

  1.  Collaboration among specified nations on censuses, with Lockheed Martin steerage

    It is VERY IMPORTANT to know about Five Eyes.   2014-09-26  Journalists and whistleblowers will go to jail under new national security laws,  Australia,  The Guardian. (Includes info on Five Eyes (FVEY)    (Australia is one of the collaborating countries.)

    With or without that background,  take a look at the APPENDED Travel Expenses by the Assistant Chief Statistician (Canada).

    Lockheed Martin is a participant in the Collaborations among countries on censuses (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the “Five Eyes” at least).

    What do you make of its role in the census meetings – – “Lockheed Martin Senior Management Steering Committee“?

    ONE of the Travel Claims from Canada’s Asst Chief Statistician, for example, reads:

. . .   Participate at the 2010 Meeting of the International Census Forum and Lockheed Martin Senior Management Steering Committee Meeting

2.    What actions arise out of the information?

 If you find the idea of surveillance repugnant  (American Corporate Empire with means and values infiltrated into Canada),  you will find ways to contribute to the resistance.   Never underestimate the value of simply “spreading the word” so more people are empowered – – they know what’s going  on and can decide how to respond to the Census in May and on-going StatsCan surveys.

We have been in contact in the past with  some U.K.ers who were fighting Lockheed Martin’s involvement in their censuses.   And contributed to debate on the American side when their Census Bureau contracted 100,000 workers to go building-to-building in the U.S. to enter GPS coordinates on census records.

It is important to see this for what it is – – success turns on resistance in more than just Canada.  You come to understand the need to contact people you know and organizations in the 5 Eyes countries.

Even if only half of us communicate with some of our contacts,  it will make a difference.

 

The Red Herring Considerations:

1.  What has StatsCan announced to the Canadian public?

 As far as I am aware, StatsCan has NOT made a statement to the public to say that Lockheed Martin’s involvement with StatsCan has ended.

Audrey Tobias, Janet Churnin, and Eve Stegenga were three who refused to cooperate with the 2011 census because of out-sourcing to Lockheed Martin Corp.  They were prosecuted.  Audrey’s trial was in October 2013, Toronto, followed by Janet’s.   Eve’s trial was in July 2014, Powell River BC.

At Audrey’s trial the StatsCan witness, under oath testified that “Lockheed Martin was out”  – – StatsCan had listened to the continuing outrage of Canadians and taken corrective action.   Lockheed Martin was no longer involved at StatsCan.

Given the significance of the issue:

  • 2011 Census non-compliance rate of 11%,  a more than five-fold increase over the 2006 Census.  The numbers for 2011 were provided under oath by the StatsCan witness (Yves Beland, then head of Census Operations) at the Tobias trial.    The non-compliance rate for 2006 was 2%, according to StatsCan reports to the media, at the time. )
  • the prosecutions:   so even though StatsCan testified that “Lockheed Martin is out”,  and the reason for the non-compliance was Lockheed Martin, they prosecuted regardless.  Bad enough their arrogance – – Audrey Tobias was 89-years-old and Janet Churnin was 79 years old.   Eve Stegenga is a self-employed yoga instructor who could ill afford the time and lost revenue required for research, preparation, numerous court appearances, and a pile of stress.   (Years later the decision still puzzles me.  It is as though insiders in StatsCan and the Justice Dept, in a position where they had to select people for prosecution, deliberately chose people who had the potention to ultimately embarrass StatsCan, drawing more attention to what was going on.   Or maybe they simply underestimated the power of women, even elderly ones.)

IF a decision had been made to end Lockheed Martin’s participation at StatsCan, surely it was StatsCan’s duty to report that to the Canadian public.

I double-checked the StatsCan website – – maybe there was an announcement I missed?  A search on “Lockheed” shows “0 results”.   But if you search “All” records, there are “4 results” two of which (appended) are Expense claims from Peter Morrison related to meetings with Lockheed Martin in 2010 and 2009 about the Census.

Given that a search on the StatsCan website yields only the Travel Expenses Claims,  and other searches,  I say with some confidence that StatsCan has not made a statement to the public.  (I should be able to find a Press Release, for example.)   (See below – – StatsCan CREDIBILITY GAP)

HOWEVER

2.    One “BUT”, leads to another “BUT”

The transcript for the Audrey Tobias trial contains a statement that Lockheed is out.

If true, it would represent a huge victory for Canadians against the Military-Industrial complex.

BUT,  as evidenced by the expense claims of Peter Morrison (scroll down)  StatsCan is enmeshed in collaborative censuses (U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Canada  AND Lockheed Martin).  You have to be realistic in assessing the evidence given by Yves Beland (StatsCan) at the Tobias Trial.

THE TOBIAS TRANSCRIPT, LOCKHEED MARTIN IS “OUT”

See    2014-07-17 Transcript, Tobias trial establishes Lockheed Martin is OUT

The testimony of the StatsCan witness Yves Beland, Director of Census Operations Division, tells

a.    StatsCan was getting resistance to Lockheed Martin’s involvement from the beginning (2004) during the development period.

b.    StatsCan reacted by “scaling back” substantially on the Lockheed contract for the 2006 Census.

c.    StatsCan cut again, down to $20 million contract for Lockheed for the 2011 Census.

d.    Resistance continued   and so

e.    Lockheed will be completely out of it by the next census (2016).

The only source I know for “Lockheed Martin is “out””  is this transcript of the Tobias trial which ONLY A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE have seen.

So, from the transcript of the testimony by Yves Beland, StatsCan had made a decision before the Tobias trial (Oct 2013)   IN SPITE OF WHICH   StatsCan and the Justice Dept proceeded with the prosecutions of Audrey Tobias, Janet Churnin and Eve Stegenga all of whom were on trial because they objected to Lockheed’s involvement in the 2011 Census.

The administration of Justice is brought into disrepute.

3.   StatsCan’s record on truthfulness

       You have to address the StatsCan CREDIBILITY GAP in arriving at any conclusions about

Lockheed Martin’s current (2016) involvement in the  StatsCan Data Base on Canadians.

        You also have to be very careful about word-smithing by StatsCan, as noted in the posting about Lockheed Martin is “out”.

StatsCan CREDIBILITY GAP

•   Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald did a good job of explaining that under the auspices of the NSA, backdoor entry to data bases is established if American “security” forces cannot obtain legal front door access.  Lockheed Martin is a contractor to the NSA. Both entities are surveillance specialists; both see themselves as being outside the rule of law.  The data base at StatsCan will contain the on-going collection of data through censuses AND surveys. Your name is on your file (established during the cross-examination of the StatsCan witness at my trial).  All in all, EVEN IF Lockheed Martin is “out”, a backdoor entry to the data base will be in place.

[The interest of the Americans in obtaining access to information on ALL Canadians is known through mainstream media report, Ottawa Citizen 2008.    The means?   Well, we have the “President of the Americas for Lockheed Martin” quoted in Maclean’s Magazine Sept 2006.  Lockheed’s position at StatsCan was in place by then.  Ron Covais was speaking in general when he said, The Ministers have told us, Tell us what you want, we’ll see that you get it.  This was how things were to work because as he said, they (corporates) knew they couldn’t get what they wanted through normal democratic channels; they would get it this way, working through the bureaucracy and agencies of Government.  I won’t repeat here how Lockheed Martin works,  nor what collaboration with them means.]

•   StatsCan claims that the Statistics Act gives them authority to take away citizens’ Charter Right to Privacy of Personal Information.  Most people know that Rights provided under Constitutional Law cannot be taken away by a regular act of Parliament.  Under Constitutional Law, in order for the Government to take away a Charter Right it has to meet the criteria set out in the Oakes Test.  As far as I know,  StatsCan / the Justice Dept has not applied to the Courts to see if they can meet the criteria, so the Charter Right stands. StatsCan’s assertions to citizens that the Statistics Act gives them authority to take away Charter Rights is bogus.

•   StatsCan proceeded with prosecution of 3 women AFTER the claimed decision (Lockheed Martin is “out”) was made – why would they do that if Lockheed Martin was indeed “out”?  The reason for dissent by all 3 women was Lockheed Martin’s involvement.

•   StatsCan continues to tell citizens “it is the Law”, you have to fill in (for example) the National Household Survey (formerly known as the long-form Census) when the Statistics Act says that participation in surveys is NOT mandatory (the sanctions for census non-compliance do not apply).   StatsCan uses a serious lie to intimidate and coerce citizens into providing information protected by the Charter Right.

•   According to the actual numbers provided by Yves Beland, StatsCan Director of Census Operations, at the Audrey Tobias trial, the non-compliance rate for the 2011 Census is 11%, not the 2% figure they supply to the media.   (StatsCan insists that 13 million out of 14.6 million is 98% compliance. It is 89% compliance. Do the math.)

= = = = =  = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

So there we are, Matthew.  Is Lockheed Martin part of the 2016 Census?   I would say yes.  StatsCan has never made a statement to the public to say that the StatsCan contracts with Lockheed Martin have ended.   StatsCan’s credibility provides no basis for believing what they say.  So you have to figure it out.

To me, the CLINCHER is this:  Lockheed Martin is a component of the 5 Eyes partnership which commits Canada to collaboration and conformity with other nations in Census operations.

If people do not understand that this is about surveillance, they need to  read  (related to Bill C-51)   2014-09-26  Journalists and whistleblowers will go to jail under new national security laws, Australia, The Guardian. (Includes info on Five Eyes (FVEY)

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APPENDED

EXCERPTS

 (In case the links to the Expense Claims on the StatsCan website become invalid,  screen captures of four of the Claims are pasted onto one word document, see bottom of this posting.)

From  http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/about/expense/petermorrison/2010

Morrison, Peter, Assistant Chief Statistician

Travel expenses – 2010

Date Purpose Cost
January 28, 2010 ARCHIVED – Lockheed Martin Steering Committee Meeting $909.88
September 22, 2010 ARCHIVED – Corporate Business Architecture presentation to Regional Offices $1,523.32
October 11, 2010 ARCHIVED – Participate at the 2010 Meeting of the International Census Forum and Lockheed Martin Senior Management Steering Committee Meeting $2,062.94
October 21, 2010 ARCHIVED – Corporate Business Architecture presentation to Central Regional Office and visit to Regional Census Centre $1,128.14

 

From  http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/about/expense/petermorrison/2009

Morrison, Peter, Assistant Chief Statistician

Travel expenses – 2009

Date Purpose Cost
June 17, 2009 ARCHIVED – To visit the Regional Offices in Vancouver and Edmonton $1,478.68
June 22, 2009 ARCHIVED – To attend the Steering Committee Meeting with Lockheed Martin and visit the United States Data Processing Centre (DPC) site $1,262.61
August 10, 2009 ARCHIVED – EX interviews $684.78
September 7, 2009 ARCHIVED – International Census Forum 2009 $4,369.27

 

SCREEN CAPTURES:

StatsCan Expenses Claims Lockheed Martin 2009-2010

 

 

2016-03-20 By rejecting $1bn for a pipeline, a First Nation has put Trudeau’s climate plan on trial [The Guardian]

 Climate, Culture and Ethics, Energy, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  2 Responses »
Mar 212016
 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2016/mar/20/by-rejecting-1-billion-for-a-pipeline-a-first-nation-has-put-justin-trudeaus-climate-plan-on-trial

 

By rejecting $1bn for a pipeline, a First Nation has put Trudeau’s climate plan on trial

Canada´s Lax Kw´alaams show us how we can be saved: by loving the natural world and local living economies more than mere money and profit

 Indigenous leaders gather on Lelu island where the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation has set up camp to protest the construction of the Petronas LNG terminal.

Indigenous leaders gather on Lelu island where the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation has set up camp to protest the construction of the Petronas LNG terminal.

Photograph: SkeenaWatershed Coalition

Last modified on Monday 21 March 2016 03.05 GMT

 

Everything has a price. Everyone can be bought. We assume this principle is endemic to modern life – and that accepting it is most obvious to the impoverished. Except all over the world, people are defying it for a greater cause. That courage may be even more contagious.

 

It has been in full supply in north-west Canada, where an oil giant is aiming to construct one of country´s biggest fossil fuel developments: a pipeline to ship liquified natural gas (LNG) out of British Colombia. To export it overseas via tankers, Malaysian-owned Petronas must first win approval for a multi-billion dollar terminal on the coast.

 

That happens to be at the mouth of Canada´s second-largest salmon river, on the traditional territory of the Lax Kw´alaams First Nation. One of the world´s longest un-dammed rivers, the Skeena abounds in the fish relied on by surrounding wildlife – and by First Nations and an entire regional economy.

 

Last year, following our modern principle, Petronas offered the First Nation an offer they imagined couldn´t be refused: in exchange for their support, a whopping $1.15 billion in cash.

But put to a vote, the Lax Kw´alaams resoundingly said “no” – every single community member.

 

When Petronas made the offer, Lax Kw´alaams hereditary chief Yahaan says he believed the community – poor and with few employment prospects – might vote yes.

 

“Opportunities like that don´t come to your door every day,” he says. “But I give my people credit for taking that bold step. They showed their love and their passion for the land and water. No amount of money can compare to the richness of the river and what it gives us.”

 

They knew something even a billion dollars couldn´t persuade them to ignore: that you couldn´t pick a worse place to transform into an industrial landscape. The proposed site for the LNG plant is smack in the middle of a unique estuary, a coastal Mecca for fish: where every year hundreds of millions of young salmon, having travelled down the river after birth, feed and nurture as part of their journey to adulthood.

 

When the British Columbia government gave Petronas a green-light anyway – ignoring the unanimous `no´ vote and the legal duty to consult all impacted First Nations – Yahaan and community members sprung into action. In the summer of 2015 they set up camp on Lelu island, right in the path of Petronas at the mouth of the river. Monitoring the area on boats, they peacefully turned away workers from sensitive sites. Advertisement

 

The camp, still up today, is a defence not just of wild salmon and aboriginal rights. Like many such outposts manned by Indigenous peoples across Canada, it is a defence of an entire worldview. On one side stands a government – wedded to an extractivist mentality – that is bent on carving up the province with tens of thousands of fracking wells. It promises an extravagant illusion of 100,000 jobs, which in truth amount to just a few thousand that will vanish as this resource boom, like all others, goes bust. And as Indigenous peoples´ rights have become more powerful, the government and its corporate partners have responded the way they know how: hiking the sums by which to buy them off.

 

On the other side, the salmon protectors, feeding tens of thousands and supporting a commercial and recreational economy crucial to British Columbians. Promoting an abundance of life instead of threatening to extinguish it. Taking care with the land so that it can take care of people. Getting by on what the earth can continually restore rather than depleting forever what lies beneath.

 

This is an Indigenous outlook, but one ever more people share. It is in sync with the knowledge that our energy sources must work not against natural cycles but with them – harnessing the power of the sun, water and wind. This can provide jobs in far greater numbers than fossil fuels. And this is the kind of economy we need more of: regenerating naturally, creating enduring local benefits, existing in balance with the natural world. It is, in other words, everything a dirty energy economy is not.

 

The most dangerous imbalance of all that would be generated by this industrial project, Yahaan says, has only deepened the community´s opposition: its contribution to climate change. Far from clean, emissions from an LNG industry would shatter the provincial government´s emission targets. The Petronas plant and its associated fracking alone could become the country´s largest carbon polluter. Advertisement

 

All this means that the courageous resistance of this First Nation has put Prime Minister Justin Trudeau´s climate plan on trial. The new Liberal government – which will have final say on the project – has raised enormous expectations. And raised those of First Nations: as Trudeau has said repeatedly, “governments grant permits, but only communities grant permission.” But as he has mouthed these words, he has pledged to build pipelines and fulfill ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper´s dream of getting fossil fuels to overseas markets.

Trudeau can build LNG up, or bring down emissions: he cannot do both. Will it be on the shores of this beautiful, irreplaceable corner of the world that Trudeau´s contradiction flounders?

 

The signs so far are mixed. The federal government has said they´ll give the same tax breaks to the LNG industry that Harper was prepared to. On Friday they approved a smaller but controversial LNG project in southern British Columbia. And yet the federal government is clearly feeling the heat of opposition: after tens of thousands of public comments criticizing the Petronas project, a decision that was to come down March 22 has been delayed for three months.

 

The British Columbia government´s response to date has been worse. “I´m not sure what science the forces of no bring together up there except that it´s not really about the science,”

Premier Christy Clark declared. “It´s not really about the fish. It´s just about trying to say no.

It´s about fear of change. It´s about a fear of the future.”

 

It must have been a complete fluke for the “forces of no” that the results of a study assessing the project were published in Science, one of the world´s premier academic journals.  Its conclusion? The LNG plant could lead to the collapse of BC´s wild salmon run.

 

It must be another coincidence that the government´s own scientific studies showed, already 40 years ago, that any development in this region could “completely destroy” the river´s complex ecosystem.

 

And still yet another coincidence that the government´s current studies continue to point out the problems with an LNG industry:  its emissions, in a worse case scenario, “would be comparable to those from Alberta´s oilsands.”

 

The provincial government´s denigration has a different purpose: laying the grounds to marginalize and criminalize its Indigenous opposition.  Yahaan says the RCMP who escorted Petronas workers regularly threatened community members patrolling in boats. “They said they were watching us from land, air, and water. A police sergeant told me, `we could have ripped anyone out of those boats, but we didn´t want to make it seem like we were protecting the corporations.´”

 

In the face of this, support for the Lax Kw´alaams has only been growing.  In January, several neighbouring Indigenous nations, locals non-native groups and opposition politicians signed onto the Lelu Declaration, a powerful call from the First Nation to protect the area from industrial development and hold it in trust for generations to come.

 

Their stance is a challenge not just to Trudeau.  It is a challenge to all those who choose to side with the extractive economy that offers security in the short-run but guarantees peril in the long-term.  Last year, I sat in a meeting where activists from around the country debated how to propel us to the next economy.  After a labour unionist pleaded for caution when it came to risking the jobs of the oil industry, an Indigenous leader named Arthur Manuel stood up. “Look at the example of Lax Kw´alaams,” he said. “We, the poorest communities in Canada, turn down money all the time.”  If this First Nation can find the courage to risk another way, what excuse do the rest of us have?

 

These Indigenous “forces of no,” derided by Christy Clark, ignored by Justin Trudeau, have taken to calling themselves by another name: the Forces of Know.  They hold a few things certain, but one could not be more fundamental. It is that their approach, anchored in ancient knowledge and arched toward a habitable future, is how the world can be saved: by loving the natural world and living economies more than mere money and profit.

 

To follow Martin on twitter: @Martin_Lukacs

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