Kim Jong Un Comes To Canada

Well, at least his spirit has. Kim, you may recall, despite the increasingly smiling face he presents to the world, is not a man to be crossed. Just ask those who are the first to stop clapping at one of his military cult rallies. Or ssk his uncle what happened when he fell out of his nephew's favour. (Spoiler Alert - you can't ask them. They are no longer with us.)

Kim's success as a dictator derives from fear, a fear that is cultivated and sustained by a massive surveillance apparatus. And here in Ontario, or Fordlandia, as I like to call it, it would appear that the Doug Ford government has learned some quick lessons from the North Korean dictator's playbook:

The Progressive Conservatives fear some disgruntled MPPs are set to cross the floor to join the Liberals, the Star has learned.

That’s a key reason why Premier Doug Ford is increasing the threshold for official party status in the legislature from eight MPPs to 12, a senior source says. A single defection would give the seven-member Liberal caucus official status.

Based on careful surveillance, Ford's fears seem to be well-founded.

“There are at least two we’re concerned about,” a senior Conservative insider said, speaking like others from the Liberals and PCs on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal machinations.

“We’ve been watching this closely,” the PC source said, declining to reveal which MPPs are suspected of plotting to defect except to say that two are from the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

“No less than seven members want to get out,” a third senior Conservative operative told the Star on Friday.

The fears are based on careful Kim-inspired practices:

Ford’s office closely monitors Tory members. Sources say they track who applauds in the legislature and watch for MPPs who do not quickly leap to their feet for ovations after the premier or ministers respond to opposition inquiries during question period.

“They keep tabs on everything,” said a fourth Tory .... Two party aides noted that speaking out in caucus meetings is also discouraged because they don’t want anyone to undermine team unity.

Another source of fear, as I noted the other day, is PC MPP Amanda Simard, who has grown increasingly vocal about her disenchantment over the reduction of French services in Ontario, touted as an austerity measure:
While the rookie MPP received permission from Ford’s office to publicly dissent on Facebook to help quell outrage among voters, she has not been seen at Queen’s Park since Wednesday.

On Friday a second Tory close to Ford said “we have not heard back from her.”

In my previous post, I suggested Simard will be facing a demotion as a lesson to others about speaking out. Surely it is the path that mentor Kim would follow, except were it in his hands, there would be no opportunity for rehabilitation.

Doug Ford - for the people, or at least those who give him unqualified, unconditional support.

Flying The Not-So-Friendly Skies

One of the major disappointments I have lived to experience is the fragility of democracy. That democratic traditions, customs and practices are so vulnerable to dismantlement, often with either the passive acquiescence or full-throated approval of 'the people' is something I never would have anticipated.

The latest example of this devolution is to be found in an investigation conducted by The Boston Globe:

Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior under a new domestic surveillance program that is drawing criticism from within the agency.

The previously undisclosed program, called “Quiet Skies,” specifically targets travelers who “are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base,” according to a Transportation Security Administration bulletin in March.

... some air marshals, in interviews and internal communications shared with the Globe, say the program has them tasked with shadowing travelers who appear to pose no real threat — a businesswoman who happened to have traveled through a Mideast hot spot, in one case; a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, in another; a fellow federal law enforcement officer, in a third.

The criteria for such surveillance are remarkably broad:

The teams document whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a “jump” in their Adam’s apple or a “cold penetrating stare,” among other behaviors, according to the records.

Additional criteria include whether passengers go to the bathroom, use their phone, eat, or talk to other passengers.

Will this Orwellian nightmare, now that it has been exposed, provoke outrage? I doubt it. As you will see in the following NBC report (advance to the 5:15 mark), the TSA assures the public that "ordinary Americans" are not being surveilled. I take it that is code for white citizens. Ergo, if you are an 'old-stock' American, step back and let the authorities protect you.



In The Second Coming, Yeats writes, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity."

Applying that to today's sad state of democracy, I'd say he got that right.

Responding To The Outrage

Yesterday, I posted about the outrageous treatment graduate student Lindsay Shepherd experienced at the hands of the Wilfrid Laurier University thought police. As usual, Toronto Star readers had much to say about this shameful episode, and in the interest of balance, I am reprinting not only those who condemn what Shepherd was subjected to, but also the lone letter of support defending the process, which you will see as the first response.

First, however, is Shepherd talking about the timehonoured principles of teaching she tried to practise, and the charge of 'transphobia' that was leveled against her:



Now here are but a few of the letters revealing what Star readers think:

I am an academic working as an independent researcher and full-time faculty at George Brown College. I have an MA and PhD from the University of Toronto. I am writing to express my disappointment and concern with your coverage of recent incidents involving Wilfrid Laurier University Prof. Nathan Rambukkana and teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd.

Under the guise of protecting free speech, you published content that bullied Prof. Rambukkana, as well as the university at large, into apologizing for an act of intervention that was neither unfair nor unwarranted. Instead of taking a stand against hate speech, you have given dangerous credence to the views of (University of Toronto Prof.) Jordan Peterson and his supporters, flying in the face of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As the leaked recording of their meeting shows, Prof. Rambukkana did not attack or endanger Shepherd’s right to hold an opinion. Rather, he challenged her decision to represent that opinion in class without a critical acknowledgment of its social impact.

As recognized by federal law and nearly all progressive social institutions, gender pronouns are a basic site of self-representation. Peterson’s brazen disdain for these protections is a violation of the human rights of students with non-normative identities.

When Shepherd was reported for showing the video, Prof. Rambukkana acted as he should have: by challenging her pedagogy and working to make his classroom safer.

Instead of highlighting this incident as a reasonable defence of human rights in the face of reactionary ideology, you have fuelled the fire of Peterson and his supporters. This sets an extremely destructive precedent at a time when white supremacist and patriarchal logics are gaining traction in mainstream political discourse. Publishing think-pieces and editorials that rationalize thinly veiled prejudice calls into question the mission of your publication and the intentions of your leadership.

I urge you to reconsider your position on this matter and demonstrate public support for Prof. Rambukkana and his brave stance against hate speech in the classroom.

Griffin Epstein, George Brown College, Toronto

The majority of letter writers did not share Griffen Epstein's view, however:

The so-called apology from Wilfrid Laurier officials to Lindsay Shepherd, most particularly the equivocal tone from Prof. Nathan Rambukkana, borders on satire. You can almost imagine the brass at the school winking while they created it. These folks aren’t sorry at all about the shameful way they treated Ms. Shepherd; they’re sorry about getting caught.

The timing of this episode makes it even worse, in my mind, as this is the month where we offer our thanks to the brave men and women who have served and died over the years to protect our freedoms.

Yet here we have the latest example of progressive bullies trying to shut down a fellow academic for daring to posit a view that differs from the zeitgeist. For those struggling to understand why U.S. President Donald Trump appeals to many people sick of the scourge of identity politics, this is a clear example.

Jeff Barker, Mississauga

Despite the extensive coverage given to the case of Wilfrid Laurier teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd, I have yet to see anyone say the obvious: that the university treated her in exactly the same manner as they wrongly accused her of treating her students.

She was told she had made people uncomfortable and had created a toxic environment, an environment in which she had the advantage of power and position.

Imagine that Shepherd really did make people in her class feel uncomfortable, and when they objected she took advantage of her position in a power relationship by berating them, invoking Hitler, and making them cry. The university rightfully would have sanctioned her, or perhaps removed her from her position.

This leaves one to wonder, apologies aside, just what sanctions are being administered to the two professors, as well as the school official whose sole function appears to be to make sure people are treated equitably, sensitively and fairly.

Len Bulmer, Aurora

I would hope that respect for transgender people — or for any individual — and respect for freedom of debate and confrontation of ideas are compatible.

But the actions of Wilfrid Laurier University show there is no respect for ideas, for debate or for discussion; that students are encouraged to spy on each other, on instructors and on professors; and that they are encouraged to report any thought that is deviant from the inculcated dogma. The spying remains anonymous, inviting all sorts of abuses.

The inquisitors who interrogated the young woman demonstrated they were incredibly obtuse ideologues without even a basic understanding of the nature of intellectual debate or intellectual freedom.

This little secret process was shameful in almost every respect and does not serve the interests of transgender people or anyone else.

The inquisitors and the university showed no awareness of the basic tenets of freedom. If we create a society consisting of an amalgam of snitches and victims, and a cult of eternal victimhood, then we create a society of puppets and slaves, easy victims for any demagogue who comes along, from the right or left.

Gilbert Reid, Toronto

It is perhaps obvious to observe, in closing, the irony of an institution of higher learning acting and thinking in such a retrograde and untutored manner. Scratch the surface of a person and what you see, at least in this case, is the rapid unwinding of our evolution.

A Modern Witch Hunt

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.
-The Trial, by Franz Kafka

Thus begins one of the most disturbing and compelling novels I have ever read. It centres around a man who, even those he is arrested, is never told what the charge is, nor is he incarcerated, although he does have to appear before strange tribunals throughout the novel. His punishment is meted out only at the end of the story.

A number of interpretations have been advanced over the years; one that has a certain currency is that the novel is a foretelling of the rise of the fascist state. If you get the chance, read it and form your own conclusions.

That we live in the age of surveillance should come as a surprise to no one. What some might find shocking, however, is that it has now infected academic institutions, supposed bastions of free thought, free expression and critical thinking.

You may have read about the profoundly disturbing 'trial' at Wilfred Laurier University of Lindsay Shepherd. If you haven't, here is a brief synopsis of her 'crime'.

Shepherd is a graduate student and teaching assistant. Her sin was to show a first-year communications class a video snippet from TV Ontario of two professors debating grammar.

Some transsexual people prefer that they be referred to with gender-neutral pronouns such as “they” or “ze” rather than “he” or “she.” That, in turn, has led some universities to adopt gender-neutral pronoun policies.

All of which is to say that when Shepherd ran her five-minute TVO clip featuring pronoun traditionalist Jordan Peterson debating another professor, she unleashed a storm.

Peterson’s views on pronouns are viewed by some as transphobic. So when Shepherd dared air the TVO segment featuring him, someone complained.

The teaching assistant was hauled before a three-person panel made up of her supervisor and boss, Nathan Rambukkana, another professor named Herbert Pimlott, and Adria Joel, Laurier’s acting manager of gendered violence prevention and support.

Fortunately Ms. Shepherd had the presence of mind to tape the 40-minute interrogation, which can be heard here. As well, you can read a transcript here.

It was, in fact, her recording of this kangaroo court that brought her situation to the nation's attention, something I'm sure the powers-that-be at WLU are apoplectic about, inasmuch as they tarnished the university's reputation, faced national censure, and had to apologize to Shepherd.

While The Toronto Star has lauded this apology as an opportunity for the renewal of academic freedom, the cynic in me says that the university's about-face is only because their hypocrisy was exposed, and other such incidents of free speech suppression may well occur far into the future.

Heather Mallick has an excellent piece in today's Star that, I think, does greater justice to the entire imbroglio:

The use of anonymity — in other words, cowardice — was one of the worst aspects of Wilfrid Laurier University’s ritual humiliation of a bright and thoughtful teaching assistant for the crime of WrongTeach.

So an unknown first-year student complained to Laurier about communications studies teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd, though to whom and in what manner we don’t know. Then her supervisor joined an “informal” panel, including the alarmingly titled Manager of Gendered Violence and Support, to tell her that that they’d been secretly informed of her creating a “toxic” environment.

And, like Kafka's Joseph K., she was not told anything about her accuser:

Shepherd was devastated to be told about the secret complaint. “How many? Who? How many? One?” she asked. “I have no concept of how many people complained, what their complaint was, you haven’t shown me the complaint.”

“I understand you’re upset but also confidentiality matters,” her supervisor said.

“The number of people is confidential?” Shepherd asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

It went on. Shepherd welled up again. “And I’m sorry I’m crying. I’m stressed out because this to me is wrong, so wrong.”

Who among us cannot empathize with her raging sense of injustice here?

Mallick, whose capacity for allusions from both popular culture and literature never fails to impress, aptly assesses the situation:

So Laurier is less a university than a corner on The Wire. A first-year with a scarf over his face shivs a young TA, another masked gang gathers to do the same at U of T and a posse beats down Shepherd who then produces a secret recording.

There was widespread anger, another of those civil brawls bred of an airy word, as Shakespeare so aptly put it, he’s good that way. But thanks to the posse, people grow leery of speaking too freely, of leaving the house for fear of being filmed and possibly publicly humiliated, of trusting others.

Wilfrid Laurier University has behaved with egregious dishonour and cowardice.

I hope they wear their disgrace for a long, long time.

Do You Know You May Be Under Surveillance?

Last month I wrote a post on the increasing appetite of police departments to use mass surveillance techniques that make their job easier but represent yet another threat to the privacy rights of citizens. That post revolved primarily around a device called a Stingray, which indiscriminately surveils any cellphone within its multi-kilometre range, and it appears that authorities' appetite for snooping is growing insatiable.

A report, commissioned by the Telecom Transparency Project and the Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic and released to The Globe and Mail, explores the use of what are known as ISMI catchers.

An “IMSI,” which stands for “international mobile subscriber identity,” is a unique serial number now affixed to every smartphone’s chip set. It is one of several digital identifiers that police build modern investigations around if they can tie a specific number to a specific suspect.

A major problem is that our government does not seem eager to make such technology part of a consultation with Canadians on security issues. Last week, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced

he is soliciting the public’s views on the powers of police and spy agencies.

Mr. Goodale’s department posted a backgrounder stating that police are frustrated by criminals’ anonymous use of computers and phones.

Unfortunately that background, which provides context for the consultation, makes no mention of exploring the use of IMSI devices.

[M]ention of the technological equalizers that allow police to bypass corporate gatekeepers have been left out of the government’s consultation exercise. For some pro-privacy advocates, this is the conversation Canadians should be having.

“IMSI catchers pose a particularly insidious threat to real-world anonymity,” write Mr. Parsons and Mr. Israel, who are part of digital-research labs at the Universities of Toronto and Ottawa respectively. Their paper, which is titled “Gone Opaque,” points out that corporations that manufacture IMSI catchers often swear police to non-disclosure agreements.

They suggest the scope of IMSI catchers is currently limited only by the imaginations of government agents who use them. “They can be deployed to geolocate and identify individuals in private homes, to see who visits a medical clinic or a religious meeting, or to identify travelling companions,” the research paper says. “They can be deployed permanently at border crossings, airports or bus depots, or distributed at various points of a city so that movement becomes effectively impossible without a record of it being created.”

Like one of the commentators on this article, many will blithely suggest that if we have nothing to hide, why worry?

Can anyone provide the name of a law-abiding person, or non-terrorist sympathising individual in Canada who has been harmed by the use of IMSI devices?

If we are to be kept safe from both domestic and international terrorists and cyber-criminals, the government needs adequate tools.

Such a stance betrays a naivete that I find intellectually insulting, so narrowly focused as it is on a particular tree that it fails to see the forest.

Unless we are willing to give carte blanche to our government and the security forces that up to now were supposed to operate within confined and constitutional limits, unless we are willing to give absolute trust to those that have so much power over us, I suggest that all of us should be very, very concerned about our rights and freedoms which, as other countries will readily attest, are never truly secure unless citizens are very, very vigilant and engaged.

As one commentator on the article said,

You realize, right, that the aim of "terror" is to attack free societies to make them give up their freedoms. Democracy is not for sissies.

A Work In Progress

The website SHD (Shit Harper Did) is currently completing a documentary looking into Canada's surveillance programs. Now in post-production, it is seeking donors to help complete the process. If you would like to contribute, you can click here.

Following is a trailer of their work:

It Could Happen To You

Although the narration is at times melodramatic, the message of this video is clear: trusting government to respect your privacy is a naive notion.


H/t Occupy Canada and Operation Maple

More On The Dangers of Bill C-51

Well, leave it to The Star's redoubtable readers to remind us of the peril implicit in Bill C-51, Stephen Harper's anti-terrorist bill designed to make us all 'safer' and in a constant state of paranoia. Here is but a small sampling of their sentiments:

I called the Prime Minister’s office to ask why Stephen Harper is so intent on stripping away Canadians’ civil liberties, our rights to privacy, our right not to be arbitrarily detained without charge or trial, and so on, and on, and on. I got a recording. It said:

“Thank you for calling the Prime Minister of Canada. Freedom, the rule of law, and your civil liberties are important to us. Please stay on the line, in your home under house arrest, and your call will be answered by the first available CSIS agent, who will remain anonymous and will not tell you why you are under house arrest. Your estimated wait time is five years. Thank you for calling the Prime Minister of Canada. Freedom, the rule of law, and your civil liberties are important to us.”

Stuart Rogers, Toronto

Harper’s new powers to CSIS, CRA are the start of police state powers. The new powers allow CSIS to examine any group called “terrorist” – terrorist defined broadly as any criminal act that is ideology, or religious based.

CRA also is allowed to pass on information to law enforcement and CSIS without warrant if it is suspected terrorist activity. Harper has called environmental and social justice groups economic terrorists.

CRA is investigating unions, social justice and environmental groups for possible tax violations, which could be considered criminal; given their “ideological” stance in this possible criminal activity it defines them as terrorist. This allows free range to CSIS spy to their heart’s content, which is sadly lacking in oversight.

How long before it becomes used to suppress political enemies, and when you choose to exercise your rights to speak out, will you be the next terrorist?

Joe Healy, Toronto

....With the complete lack of oversight, the almost total abandonment of our Charter Rights and Freedoms and the further erosion of our civil liberties with C-51, I’m led to wonder whose influence the Canadian government is under? The bill itself is classic Harper but what other influences are at work here?

With past U.S. influence on Canadian national policies, examples include the case of Steven de Jaray by the Canadian Border Security Agency, the Maher Arar case and many others, I’m left to wonder when this bill passes, and it will with Harper’s majority and Trudeau’s Liberals in tow, will the oversight of our new “Patriot Act” really be coming from the American State department or the U.S. Homeland Security department?

Janice Meighan, Toronto

Bill C-51, brought to you by Stephen Harper, libertarian, who believes that the long-form census was too invasive. Hmm?

William Thachuk, Toronto