Canadians Would Be Indeed Foolish To Shrug Their Shoulders At This News

Given the invasive and likely unconstitutional provisions of Bill C-51, and the prime minster's general contempt for democracy and privacy issues, Canadians would be beyond naive to believe that the Harper regime would not use this against us:

Canada and its spying partners exploited weaknesses in one of the world's most popular mobile browsers and planned to hack into smartphones via links to Google and Samsung app stores, a top secret document obtained by CBC News shows.

You can read the full story here.

For What It's Worth

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield, January 1967

After reading this post by Alison at Creekside, and this one by Doctor Dawg, both dealing with Chuck Strahl and CSIS, and the latter's collaboration with Enbridge in spying on Canadians exercising their democratic rights, please enjoy the entire song:




As well, the CBC's Kady O'Malley weighs in here.

Is Our Freedom More Illusion Than Reality?

That is a question you may be prompted to ask yourself after reading this piece by Kevin Logan and watching the video below. Described therein are the measures and efforts designed to realize what I suspect is Mr. Harper's fondest dream: a compliant, unquestioning, 'disciplined' and very passive populace, not surprisingly the same goal of the corporate agenda.

But MacKay Is A Man of His Word, Isn't He?*

So I am sure there is nothing to get alarmed about with this revelation.

* Well, I suppose some would disagree.

More Enemies of the People Identified by Harperites

The Harper regime's security forces have identified new threats to the people: Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals:

In a series of documents from 2005 to 2009, the RCMP and CSIS assess “threats from terrorism and extremism” and report growing concerns about environmental and animal-rights groups, as well as militants from first nations.

Not everyone, however, sees this assessment in a proactive light:

“With a lot of the government’s rhetoric around Gateway and the government’s frequent use of ‘radicalism’ and ‘extremism’ to characterize opposition, these kinds of [counterterrorist] categories are used to justify a surveillance campaign,” said Jeff Monaghan, a Queen’s University sociologist who co-authored a paper on the threat assessment after receiving the documents under the Access to Information Act.

I suspect that unless you are one of those who supports the Harper initiatives, this news will not help you to sleep better at night.