The Battles

Please forward this to anyone you know who is an RCMP or police officer, or who works in security forces. Thanks!

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It is not difficult to put forward a likely reason why some young Canadians are going to Syria to join the “terrorists”.

In 2010 I was contacted through social media by a young sister of Omar Khadr’s who had read a posting of mine. She was desperate, using facebook to raise awareness, getting help to bring her brother home.

My posting contained reports from the pre-trial hearing in 2010 of the depraved and highly illegal torture of 15-year-old Omar Khadr at offshore American prisons. (If my son had been treated the same I would hate the perpetrators.)

So figure it out. Lots of young Canadians KNOW what happened to Omar Khadr at the hands of we ourselves – – “Westerners”.  It was truly gross, unimaginable that humans can do these things to any living creature, let alone a 15-year-old boy.

I don’t know the number of young people who are “in the know”;  a large number  joined the support groups for Omar Khadr.   People became well-informed through the sharing of information.   There is lots in the public domain about the failure of the Canadian Government to get Khadr out of Guatanamo, a known place of torture – – all of the Western nations except Canada,  arranged for their citizens to be removed.   We joined the evil-doers.

Injustice is not forgotten.

I can see young people, altruistic and idealistic, going off to help fight “the demons” (depraved Westerners).

. . . Something else, let’s see how much media coverage this gets: it is now known that the leader of ISIS was imprisoned by the Americans in 2004 and later released.  See 2015-02-19 One year in US custody as ‘civilian detainee’: Declassified files shed light on mysterious ISIS leader

Who knows what he was subjected to? He was not in Bagram or Abu Ghraib.   Even IF (best case scenario) he did not receive the torture inflicted on others, he would have known about the torture being done to his countrymen.

If you, a young man, had done to your manhood what was done to prisoners, my understanding of human behaviour leads me to believe that you would be so full of hatred, you would be out for revenge, big time.   What goes around comes around.

As Pogo said, “I have seen the enemy and he is us.” Sad but true.

Kids going off to Syria are as likely to be idealists as they are to be “terrorists”.

The leader of ISIS was held in American prisons for a year, in 2004.  Maybe there wasn’t torture at the particular prisons in which he was held, who knows?   He certainly would have known about what was being done to his fellow countrymen in American prisons like Bagram and Abu Ghraib.   That knowledge would make a terrorist out of anyone, if you weren’t one before.

RECOMMEND:  click on the link, there are visuals.   The text only is copied below for back-up purposes.

http://rt.com/news/233583-isis-leader-baghdadi-files/

The leader of ISIS jihadist group and self-proclaimed “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, spent nearly a year in US custody in Iraq in 2004 as a “civilian detainee,” declassified military documents have revealed.

The files were obtained by Business Insider through a Freedom of Information Act request, revealing new details about the mysterious jihadist leader. The Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL ) chief was identified by his birth name, Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Al Badry, in the detainee information records, viewed by the website.

The documents helped determine the time, spent by Baghdadi in US custody, more precisely as there had previously been conflicting reports on the issue.

According to the records, his “capture date” was February 4, 2004, with the detention taking place in Fallujah in central Iraq. Baghdadi was then held in several prison facilities in the country, including Camp Bucca and Camp Adder, with the date of his “release in place” being December 8, the same year.

The papers list him as a “civilian detainee,” meaning that he was not considered a member of any militant group at that time, but was still held for security reasons.

The declassified records identified Baghdadi’s “civilian occupation” as “administrative work (secretary).”

The book called “ISIS: Inside The Army of Terror” by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan claims that Baghdadi was arrested together with Nessayif Numan Nessayif, who was the real target of the US military.

The date of his birth was redacted in the files received by Business Insider, but the website said that the current IS leader was listed as having been 43 years old in 2014. The paper also included details on Baghdadi’s family, revealing that he was married and next of kin was an uncle. However, the names of his family members were also redacted.

The Islamic State has declared a caliphate, with Baghdadi as its ruler, after capturing large parts of Iraqi and Syrian territory last summer. The jihadist group is notorious for its brutality, ethnic cleansings of minorities and executions of Western hostages.

A US-led coalition has been conducting regular airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria since August 2014, with several unconfirmed reports stating that Baghdadi might have been injured in one of the raids.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/elizabeth-may/2015/02/harpers-anti-terror-law-will-turn-canada-police-state

By Elizabeth May    | February 24, 2015

I remember the events of October 22. While I was in lock-down on Parliament Hill, I remember who hid in a closet and who ran toward gun fire. The guy in the closet is now planning to concentrate the powers of the state in his own hands while converting the Canadian spy agency into a secret police with virtually unlimited powers. And, at the same time, he has decided to demote the security team that performed its role heroically, the House of Commons Security, led by former Sargeant at Arms Kevin Vickers , and put the RCMP in charge of Parliament Hill. Of the two moves, clearly creating a secret police is the most dangerous, but upending the Constitutional principle that the government reports to Parliament is no small matter (and, as a Member of Parliament, I would prefer security to be in the hands of the people who paid attention that day and not the RCMP who somehow missed an armed man running past their multiple idling vehicles.)

Here is what Stephen Harper wants Canadians to think:

We are at war. We face a massive terrorist threat. We must be very, very afraid and we must not question any law brought in allegedly to fight terrorism. Anyone who raises finicky, lily-livered concerns about civil liberties is a fellow-traveller of ISIS.

Here’s the truth:

“This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate”

Acts of terrorism are a threat. They are criminal acts of horrific cruelty and sadism. Luring of disenfranchised, disenchanted, alienated Canadians into their barbaric crusade must be addressed, but the new law, C-51, is not primarily an anti-terrorism law. And legal experts are already pointing out it “undermines more promising avenues of addressing terrorism.” (Bill C-51 backgrounder, Professors Kent Roach and Craig Forcese)

In terms of Canada’s future, the climate crisis is a much larger threat.

We must not be afraid. We must be smart. It’s really hard to think when paralyzed by fear. Any thinking person will stand up and oppose C-51 with every ounce of their strength.

Harper claims to believe Canada is a freedom-loving country. If he’s right, he miscalculated in hoping we could be scared out of our wits.

We already have anti-terror laws. Terrorism, treason, sedition, espionage, proliferating of nuclear and biological weapons and other offences repeated in C-51 are already illegal. The police already have expanded powers in relation to terrorism. RCMP have powers to disrupt terrorist plots. That’s how they broke the Toronto 18, the VIA rail plot and ISIS sympathizers in Ottawa before they could move their plots into action. Full marks to the RCMP for these proactive successes. Those suspected of terrorism already have a second set of Kafa-esque laws to allow their detention through security certificates. Oversight of the operations of CSIS was reduced in the 2012 omnibus bill C38. Put simply, Canada has already significantly intruded on Charter rights to give the RCMP, CSIS and Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) broader powers and less over-sight. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now know that CSEC has been gathering millions of internet communications every day from Canadians — even though CSEC’s mandate was supposed to apply only to foreign activities. Under project “Levitation,” CSEC collects as many as 15 million records of uploads and downloads every day.

No one from the security establishment has made a case for requiring expanded powers.

C-51, the so-called Anti-Terrorism Act, creates new powers for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS. CSIS was created to keep the RCMP policing functions separate from intelligence work after the fiasco of burning down the barn in an FLQ sting operation. This bill gives CSIS the power to do anything. (Okay, not anything. It specifically says CSIS cannot directly kill or harm people or “violate the sexual integrity of an individual,” but otherwise, CSIS will have a vague set of sweeping powers).

CSIS will be able to conduct any operation it thinks is in the interests of protecting the security of Canada. The definition of “undermining the security of Canada” is more a list of suggestions than a definition, using the word “including” before listing nine types of threats. Using “including” as the heading for its list leaves open the possibility that CSIS may think something else should have been on that list.

Most listed activities are already illegal, such as treason , espionage, causing serious harm, etc. To this is added “interference with critical infrastructure,” raising legitimate concerns that the bill is targeted at First Nations and environmental groups opposing pipelines. There is a caveat in the Act: “For greater certainty, it does not include lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression.”

I have now twice asked the public safety and justice ministers in Question Period to clarify if the act will apply to non-lawful, non-violent civil disobedience, such as blockading along a pipeline route. Neither Stephen Blaney nor Peter MacKay would provide that assurance.

This act could apply to Rosa Parks sitting in the “Whites Only” section of the bus. It could apply to anyone who talked with her about it ahead of time. It could apply to journalists who wrote she should be commended for breaking the law.

The vaguest of those things that undermine the security of Canada reads as follows:

“Interference with the capability of the Government of Canada in relation to intelligence, defence, border operations, public safety, the administration of justice, diplomatic or consular relations or the economic or financial stability of Canada.”

That list of vague activities has the same status as terrorism in launching CSIS operatives into a murky world with powers to “take measures, within or outside Canada, to reduce the threat.”

So, Saudi Arabia pumping out enough oil to cause the dropping price? Global currency speculators? Judges’ decisions the PM doesn’t like? Calling this section vague is an understatement. And CSIS only needs to go before a judge for a warrant in cases where it decided for itself that its actions will violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Then it goes to a judge for a secret warrant process. The warrant can allow break and enter to take anything and to install anything.

Here’s what I could do with this section as Prime Minister. Climate change is surely a threat to public safety and the economic stability of Canada. So let’s launch CSIS at messing with the heads of all those in the fossil fuel business. Install malware. Implicate them in bogus child porno charges. Break and enter and see if they have been hiding the patents for photovoltaic, electric vehicles, better batteries. A secret police at the PM’s beck and call. Of course, if I ever were Prime Minister, one of the first things I would do is to repeal this act.

It’s not enough to call for better citizen oversight as one opposition party urges. And it is certainly an act of egregious cowardice for the other opposition party to support this bill.

It is trite to say that when we surrender our freedoms, the terrorists win. Even to level that charge at this bill is to fall into the Harper trap of making this bill about terrorism. It’s not. It’s about creating a secret police. It’s the death of freedom.

At the bottom of this article on the Huffington Post website are

“12 Things Harper Doesn’t Want You to Know”.  

I recommend you read them, along with the article, of course! 

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/02/03/edward-snowden-ucc-canada-surveillance_n_6601812.html 

Back-up copy of “Edward Snowden Warns Canadians…”:   

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden addressed students at a Toronto private school via video link on Monday to warn about the perils of being complacent as the government makes sweeping changes to Canada’s anti-terrorism laws.

“I would say we should always be extraordinarily cautious when we see governments trying to set up a new secret police within their own countries,” Snowden said in a livestream feed from Russia. He made reference to Bill C-51, legislation tabled by the Conservative government days earlier.

More than 900 students attended the talk titled, “Privacy vs. Security: A Discussion of Personal Privacy in the Digital Age” hosted at Upper Canada College. Nearly 1,400 watched the live broadcast online.

Snowden urged the audience to be adept at lining up facts versus rhetoric with emergency legislations born from times of “fear and panic.” He added though Canada is not unique in its anti-terrorism laws and surveillance programs, it’s important to be critical toward political arguments championing their necessity.

“Once we let these power get rolling it’s very difficult to stop that pull through,” Snowden said. “So I would say that we need to use extraordinary scrutiny in every society, in every country, in every state to make sure that the laws we live under are the ones we truly want and truly need.”

Journalist Glenn Greenwald was also on hand for the keynote via conference call.

Using ‘fearmongering’ as vehicle for legislation

Despite the sharp uptick in terrorism rhetoric after two Canadian soldiers were killed within days of each other last year by “radicalized” attackers, the former Guardian journalist says a Canadian’s real-world chance of being killed in a terrorist attack is “infinitesimal.”

“If you are a Canadian citizen, you have a greater chance of dying by being struck by lightning; or by going to a restaurant and eating a meal that will give you an intestinal disease; or by slipping in your bathtub, hitting your head on the ceramic tile than you do dying in a terrorist attack,” said Greenwald.

He criticized what he sees as the Conservative government’s tactic of using fear to untether the weight of public scrutiny to push the anti-terrorism measures into law. “Your government continuously hypes the threat and tells you that unless you give it more and more power it will be incapable of saving you from this threat,” he said.

“And this fearmongering is a very dangerous, yet very effective form of persuading people to submit to things you otherwise wouldn’t submit to.”

New anti-terrorism measures ‘more about politics’

On Friday, the Harper government tabled its much-anticipated anti-terrorism legislation designed to give Canadian security and intelligence services more powers and more flex from the RCMP.

If passed into law, changes would see the standard of evidence needed to obtain warrants lowered. Police would also be given authority to extend the amount of time they can detain someone without charge if that person is suspected to be involved in terrorist activity.

“Jihadist terrorism is not a future possibility, it is a present reality,” Harper said at the announcement. “It seeks to harm us here in Canada, in our cities and in our neighbourhoods through horrific acts.”

The measures are intended to curb nine interpretations of “activities that undermine the security of Canada” — including a broadly-worded clause criminalizing any “interference with the capability of the government of Canada in relation to intelligence, defence, border operations, public safety, the administration of justice, diplomatic or consular relations, or the economic or financial stability of Canada.”

But the omnibus legislation isn’t bringing peace of mind to one prominent Ottawa-based human rights and civil liberties lawyer.

Paul Champ told The Hill Times the election-year timing of the bill utilizes it as a “political wedge issue of sorts” that has already tempered NDP and Liberals reaction to be “in kind” than “taking a principled stand on civil liberties.”

“I think it’s clear both from the manner of the prime minister’s announcement, and unfortunately the response of the opposition parties, that this bill is far more about politics than public safety,” Champ said.

Reporters were supplied information about the anti-terror bill in a controlled media briefing a day before the legislation was announced by the prime minister at a Toronto-area community centre.

Harper was joined by Justice Minister Peter MaKay, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, and associate National Defence Minister Julian Fantino at the Jan. 30 event.

“They’ve been creeping over that line from surveillance to operational for some time,” Champ said. “Now we see it confirmed in legislation.”

With files from The Canadian Press

Read a copy of Bill C-51 here:

Bill C-51: Tories’ Anti-Terrorism Bill