Quotulatiousness

February 19, 2012

Toews didn’t even know what was in his own proposed legislation

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:36

In an interview with the CBC, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews reveals that he hasn’t actually read or understood his own bill:

In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio’s The House, Toews said his understanding of the bill is that police can only request information from the ISPs where they are conducting “a specific criminal investigation.”

But Section 17 of the ‘Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act’ outlines “exceptional circumstances” under which “any police officer” can ask an ISP to turn over personal client information.

“I’d certainly like to see an explanation of that,” Toews told host Evan Solomon after a week of public backlash against Bill C-30, which would require internet service providers to turn over client information without a warrant.

“This is the first time that I’m hearing this somehow extends ordinary police emergency powers [to telecommunications]. In my opinion, it doesn’t. And it shouldn’t.”

As was detailed in a recent post on the Canadian Privacy Law Blog, Bill C-30 is riddled with nasty little booby traps, including a provision that prevents your ISP from telling you that your information has been given to the police (or other “inspectors” as designated by the minister) even after the investigation is complete. For that matter, there doesn’t even have to be a criminal investigation underway: if someone is given the role of “inspector” under this bill, they have the right to demand this information under any circumstances at all.

An update to that blog post since last time I linked to it:

Update (18 February 2012): It is really worth noting that this gag order is not new. It has existed in PIPEDA for quite some time. What is new is extending it to cover “lawful access” requests.

People should be aware that — I am told — in the vast majority of cases, internet service providers will willingly hand over customer information without a warrant when the police tell them that it is connected with a child exploitation investigation (using something cynically called a “PIPEDA Request”, which I’ve blogged about before). If your internet service provider hands over your information voluntarily, that’s also subject to the gag order in Section 9 of PIPEDA.

February 15, 2012

Italy faces the end of “a job for life”

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Italy, Law — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:51

You could say that they’re not happy about the possibility:

It was just an off-the-cuff quip during a television interview this month. But when Prime Minister Mario Monti remarked that having a job for life in today’s economy was no longer feasible for young people — indeed, it was “monotonous” — he set off a barrage of protests, laying bare one of the sacrosanct tenets of Italian society that the euro zone crisis has placed at risk.

Reaction was fast, furious, bipartisan and intergenerational. “I think the prime minister has to be careful with the words he uses because people are a little angry,” Claudia Vori, a 31-year-old Rome native who has had 18 different jobs since graduating from high school in 1999, said of Mr. Monti’s “monotonous” moment.

[. . .]

In Italy in particular, every major political force after World War II subscribed to the idea of guaranteeing the work of the male breadwinner to preserve the traditional family structure, said Elisabetta Gualmini, a labor expert who teaches at the University of Bologna. This social doctrine was also blessed by the Roman Catholic Church, which still holds much sway in Italy.

“The problem is that this model is myopic” in a global marketplace, Professor Gualmini said. “But Italy has entrenched itself on this model, which became a strong ideology and so rooted in beliefs that it cannot be challenged.”

February 14, 2012

“The Harper crime policy is less than the sum of its parts”

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:39

It’s odd to find myself on the same side of a debate as Roy McMurtry, but he and his co-authors Edward Greenspan and Anthony Doob are much more right than the government in this:

The Harper crime policy is less than the sum of its parts because it does not add up to a crime policy that addresses, or even acknowledges, these basic facts. It squanders resources that could be used to reduce crime. Making it more difficult for people to get out from under the shadow of their much earlier offences (through a pardon or “record suspension”) makes it harder for millions of Canadians with criminal records to reintegrate into society. Adding mandatory minimum penalties will do nothing to deter offenders, who, the data demonstrate, do not expect to get caught.

But the Harper crime policy is more than the sum of its parts because it tells us that the government is committed to ignoring evidence about crime, and does not care about whether our criminal-justice system is just and humane.

The student who grows six marijuana plants in her rented apartment to share with friends will soon face a mandatory minimum sentence of nine months in prison. Meanwhile, assaults have no mandatory minimum sentences. The law says that trial judges are required to impose sentences proportional to their seriousness and the offender’s responsibility for the offence. Is someone who grows six marijuana plants much more dangerous than someone who grows five (for which there is no minimum sentence)? Or who commits an assault? The Harper Tories seemingly think so.

Update: Of course, Stephen Harper rhetorically cast the libertarians out of the Conservative party years ago. The current attempts to provide the police with powers even they have said they don’t need merely provide extra proof. Chris Selley summarizes a National Post editorial on the subject:

The National Post‘s editorialists do not understand how a government that considers the long-gun registry (and, we’d add, the mandatory long-form census) an unconscionable invasion of Canadians’ privacy and a waste of their money can possibly get behind legislation that would “give the government unprecedented access to Canadians’ online activities, by allowing police to collect the personal information of Internet users … without having to go through the cumbersome process of obtaining a warrant beforehand.” We share this frustration. But Public Safety Minister Vic Toews made it quite clear what he thinks of such complaints yesterday, when he said Canadians “can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” In other words: “Attention, libertarian wing of the Conservative Party of Canada. We think you are immoral, and no longer desire your votes.”

February 13, 2012

Ontario’s other alcohol sales monopoly

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:25

I guess it’s technically part of an oligopoly (?duopoly?), but along with the KGBO LCBO, the other entity that is legally allowed to sell beer is the mostly foreign-owned Beer Store:

… the experience highlights one of the many absurdities of a system where more than 80 per cent of beer sales are controlled by three multinationals — Labatt Brewing Co. Ltd. (owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA), Molson Coors Brewing Co. and Sleeman Breweries Ltd. (owned by Japan’s Sapporo Breweries Ltd.).

“The way the system is set up unfairly limits access to customers,” Mr. Beauchesne complained. “Molson, Labatt and Sleeman are completely in control of how beer stores look and feel, what products are promoted. They get to control the whole shopping experience and I get none of that control.”

The McGuinty government is pledging to review outdated liquor laws early in the legislative session that begins this week. MPP Grant Crack, parliamentary assistant to the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister, said the Beer Store’s monopoly will no doubt come up.

[. . .]

After 85 years, the Beer Store is an anachronism.

It’s often hard to reconcile the ad world of beer — the snow-capped mountains, parties and hockey — with the utilitarian factory-like outlets where most Ontarians actually buy the stuff.

There are noisy conveyor belts, bottle crushers and cases of beer stacked on metal shelves in dank warehouses. In many stores, patrons still make their selection by picking from a row of dusty empties on a shelf.

Behind the counter, harried clerks juggle bottle returns and running the cash register.

Forget about tastings, attention-grabbing displays of new offerings or expert advice to help you choose from hundreds of selections. At the 437 Beer Stores, it’s get in line, pay the clerk, get out.

February 12, 2012

Bryan Caplan on “the stranger”

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:36

An interesting post at Econlog:

What do you call a man you never met? A stranger.

What are you morally forbidden to do to a stranger? You may not murder him. You may not attack him. You may not enslave him. Neither may you rob him.

What are you morally required to do for a stranger? Not much. Even if he seems hungry and asks you for food, you’re probably within your rights to refuse. If you’ve ever been in a large city, you’ve refused to help the homeless on more than one occasion. And even if you think you broke your moral obligation to give, your moral obligation wasn’t strong enough to let the beggar justifiably mug you.

Notice: These common-sense ethics regarding strangers, ethics that almost everyone admits, are unequivocally libertarian. Yes, you have an obligation to leave strangers alone, but charity is optional.

Interpol system key in arrest of Hamza Kashgari

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:27

Abuse of a system designed to catch international criminals led to the arrest of Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari for “insulting the Prophet Muhammed” on Twitter:

Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia used the organisation’s red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Police in Kuala Lumpur said Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained at the airport “following a request made to us by Interpol” the international police cooperation agency, on behalf of the Saudi authorities.

Kashgari, a newspaper columnist, fled Saudi Arabia after posting a tweet on the prophet’s birthday that sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats. The posting, which was later deleted, read: “I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don’t understand about you … I will not pray for you.”

More than 13,000 people joined a Facebook page titled “The Saudi People Demand the Execution of Hamza Kashgari”.

Clerics in Saudi Arabia called for him to be charged with apostasy, a religious offence punishable by death. Reports suggest that the Malaysian authorities intend to return him to his native country.

February 11, 2012

“Courts are often the state’s battering rams, used for breaking down individual rights and freedoms”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:00

George Jonas explains why Canadians were more free before their rights and freedoms were codified in the Charter:

The Canada in which I landed in 1956 may not have had a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but it had rights and freedoms galore, making it the envy of the world. The Canada in which I make my home today has a Charter, but Canadians who say they had more rights and freedoms 50 years ago aren’t paranoid: They did.

There seems to be an inverse relationship between written instruments of freedom, such as a Charter, and freedom itself. It’s as if freedom were too fragile to be put into words: If you write down your rights and freedoms, you lose them. Minimally, governments will try to take away every freedom you haven’t remembered to include.

“Where does it say you have a right to breathe, sir? Surely it’s not a fundamental right. If it were, it would be in the Charter.”

The 19th century British constitutional scholar, A.V. Dicey, foresaw this. He cautioned against written constitutions for this very reason, among others.

Part of the reason for the inverse relationship between written rights and actual freedom is the court system:

When I came to Canada, a court of law was often a place where individuals went for protection against the state. These days, they’d be taking a chance. Courts are often the state’s battering rams, used for breaking down individual rights and freedoms. Climate trumps the law, obviously, considering the law isn’t the law until a judge says it is. There is global warming, as the world is warming to tyranny. A judicial climate change has turned Canada’s courts from frequent champions of individual liberty to near-permanent defenders of social policy.

A judicial expression used to call policy “an unruly horse.” If you’ve time for only one book to see how events unfold when policy starts driving the law, pick up Christie Blatchford’s account of the native land-claim standoff at Caledonia, Ont., called Helpless. It shows what happens when the justice system becomes a branch of social engineering.

February 9, 2012

Brazil tries to quash Twitter users over speed trap tweets

Filed under: Americas, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:44

Proving yet again that the main concern is revenue generation rather than safety, Brazil is trying to force Twitter to stop its users from sending out tweets that warn about speed traps:

The attorney general of Brazil has filed a lawsuit against Twitter in a bid to block accounts that warn drivers of police speed traps and roadblocks.

The government argues the tweets interfere with police efforts to fight drunk driving, reduce accidents and uncover evidence of crime, report CNN, PC Magazine, The Next Web and BBC News.

The suit, which seeks $290,000 for each day that Twitter or its microbloggers fail to comply, claims the warnings violate criminal and traffic laws.

Twitter recently announced that they now have the capability of restricting the distribution of tweets within countries (they used to block worldwide distribution by default).

H/T to Walter Olson for the link.

February 8, 2012

“[C]ourthouses were places where justice was done. Today, people … look at them as places where injustice will be done.”

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:43

Karen Selick on the more obvious signs of security in Canadian courtrooms:

I articled in Toronto in 1976-1977, when anyone could freely breeze in and out of the courthouses — including Osgoode Hall, where the Ontario Court of Appeal sits — without ever seeing a police officer, being searched or having to show ID.

So what has changed over the past 35 years to make our courthouses so fearful? The homicide rate has actually fallen significantly over that time, although violent crime in general has risen.

But private businesses still don’t find it necessary to take this level of precaution. I can walk into a Toronto shopping mall as freely today as I walked into Toronto courthouses 35 years ago. Is there something unique about courthouses that makes them more likely scenes of violence?

My hypothesis is that people were more willing to accept the notion 35 years ago that courthouses were places where justice was done. Today, people are more likely to look at them as places where injustice will be done.

Many more people are compelled to interact with “the law” these days, simply because there is so much more of it. Regulation over citizens’ lives has exploded, and much of what happens in court cannot be described as having anything to do with justice.

February 5, 2012

Individual responsibility and underage drinkers attempting to launch bottle rockets from their anuses

Filed under: Law, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:15

No, really:

8. [Defendant] was highly intoxicated on this date and time, and decided in his drunken stupor that it would be a good idea to shoot bottle rockets out of his anus on the [Alpha Tau Omega fraternity] deck, located on the back of the ATO house.

10. [Defendant] placed a bottle rocket in his anus [and] ignited the fuse, but instead of launching, the bottle rocket blew up in Defendant’s rectum, and this startled plaintiff and caused him to jump back, at which time he fell off of the ATO deck, and he became lodged between the deck and an air conditioner unit adjacent to the deck.

13. Per the applicable codes … the deck in question should have had a railing, which comported with said codes.

16. ATO owed plaintiff a duty to provide a safe deck, including a railing, and … a duty to supervise its guests and its own fraternity members, such as Defendant, and other under age persons, from consuming alcohol on its premises, which leads to stupid and dangerous activities, such as shooting bottle rockets out of one’s own anus.

H/T to Dave Owens for the link.

February 4, 2012

The true slippery slope in the Ian Thomson case

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:24

Rex Murphy gets to the bottom of the crown’s odd fixation on prosecuting Ian Thomson for successfully scaring off arsonists who attempted to burn his house down around him:

Mr. Thomson is alive, his house stands, but the Crown is still busy with him. Why is this man being punished for self-defence? Why are the Crown prosecutors making his already tormented life more miserable?

I can only suggest it is because in this, as in similar cases, our caring authorities are uncomfortable with the idea of a citizenry that retains some common sense and courage when it comes to self-protection or the protection of their property. Why, here in Toronto two years ago, a Chinese-Canadian merchant was himself charged with nothing less than “kidnapping” when he, with some help, captured a chronic shoplifter and thief. The “kidnapping” amounted to holding the wretch that was robbing him till the police arrived. They charged the storekeeper after making a deal with the thief. If this is not dread of a resourceful citizenry, then what is it?

Here’s another theory: Perhaps we have subscribed to the Thomas de Quincey school of criminology. De Quincy, as every schoolboy knows, was the great 19th-century author and essayist, the creator of the classic Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. He also penned two satirical, fearsomely prescient essays, beginning in 1827, on Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts. In the second of these, he outlined an interesting perspective on how dabbling in one form of crime can gradually, almost imperceptibly, lead to other, more horrific, desperate and truly despicable matters:

“For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination … Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.” Very wise words indeed.

February 2, 2012

In Arizona “any time two or more people work together to influence a vote … they instantly become a ‘political committee'”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:08

What’s all this about “free speech” if you are legally encumbered with ridiculous regulations even before you speak?

Dina Galassini does not seem to pose a threat to Arizona’s civic integrity. But the government of the desert community of Fountain Hills believes you cannot be too careful. And state law empowers local governments to be vigilant against the lurking danger that political speech might occur before the speakers notify the government and comply with all the speech rules.

Last October, Galassini became annoyed — like many Ron Paul supporters, she is easily annoyed by government — about the city’s plan to augment its spending with a $29.6 million bond issue, to be voted on by mail by Nov. 8. On Oct. 6, she sent emails to 23 friends and acquaintances, urging them to write letters to newspapers and join her in two demonstrations against the bond measure. On Oct. 12, before she could organize the demonstrations, she received a stern letter from the town clerk: “I would strongly encourage you to cease any campaign-related activities until the requirements of the law have been met.”

State law — this is the state of John McCain, apostle of political purification through the regulation of political speech — says that any time two or more people work together to influence a vote on a ballot measure, they instantly become a “political committee.” This transformation triggers various requirements — registering with the government, filing forms, establishing a bank account for the “committee” even if it has raised no money and does not intend to. This must be done before members of this fictitious “committee” may speak.

Is Sino-Forest a typical Chinese company?

Filed under: China, Economics, Government, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:52

Colby Cosh posted an initial article on the investigation into Sino-Forest’s business back in June:

Timber company Sino-Forest is locked in a fascinating battle for survival against Carson Block, a stock analyst with a mixed record of publicity attacks on Chinese-based enterprises. With professional analysts reluctant to say what they make of Block’s “strong sell” report on Sino-Forest, I’m in no position to endorse it as a piece of financial advice or investigative journalism. Considered strictly as entertainment, however, the report is remarkable.

Block has documented that Sino-Forest operates with extraordinary opacity for a company whose holdings are surely very widely distributed — particularly, one assumes, within Canada. Sino-Forest claims to be doing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of sales through mostly unidentified “authorized intermediaries” in China — traders who are apparently happy to let the company buy title to trees, hold them as they appreciate, take on the bulk of the costs and risks in the meantime, and then snap up revenues when the trees are eventually converted into wood products. Block, having poked around a bit in the literal Chinese backwoods, questions whether much if any of the reported underlying activity is happening.

[. . .]

Sino-Forest is refusing, despite intense pressure, to make a full disclosure of the identities of the “authorized intermediaries” who are making its money. The company claims that to do so would put it at a competitive disadvantage, which makes one wonder why its business model ought to depend so heavily on sheer obscurity. One possible answer is that Sino-Forest’s real, fundamental business is some sort of cryptic regulatory arbitrage; that seems like a game potentially worth playing with paper assets in places that have a strong rule of law, but it is surely a dangerous one in a nominally Communist country, where a nationalization could be arranged in the space of an afternoon. (Or where some regional Party functionary could simply be bribed to “lose” crucial paperwork.)

Today, he posted a follow-up report:

Could a curious investor look at actual maps of timber controlled by Sino-Forest agents, you ask? Well, you see, it’s not exactly kosher for foreigners to carry around maps of remote parts of China. You can borrow them from forestry officials if you really need to. Will the local forestry bureaus confirm Sino-Forest’s claims about plantations operated by its agents? Well, sometimes they’ll give you a certificate of sorts, for all the good it might do. “The confirmations are not title documents, in the Western sense of that term,” the committee report notes. (As I understand it, the Western meaning of “title document” is that it gives one an unquestioned, justiciable claim to ownership of something, whether the Party or the Army or the good Lord in heaven approve or not.)

[. . .]

The impression given is that you need influential “backers” to do business in China. The question for the Western investor, though it’s probably now moot, is whether the real role of these backers is to help exploit Chinese resources for the benefit of the Western shareholders or to help fleece Western shareholders for the benefit of Chinese suppliers and bureaucrats.

As Jon, my former virtual landlord puts it, this is a hobby horse I like to ride now and again.

February 1, 2012

Arson victim now being dragged through the courts for defending himself with firearms

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:26

Canadian prosecutors have a strong aversion to the idea that people should be allowed to protect themselves, especially if firearms are involved:

Just when was Ian Thomson guilty of unsafe storage of a firearm? Mr. Thomson is the Port Colborne, Ont., man currently standing trial in a Welland, Ont. courtroom after he and his home were attacked by firebombers in August, 2010. (That’s correct, in the topsy-turvy world of Canadian criminal justice, Mr. Thomson and his home were the ones attacked and yet he is the one on trial.)

Having dropped other more serious charges — such as dangerous use of a firearm — because they concluded there was no reasonable chance of winning a conviction, Crown prosecutors have nonetheless bullied ahead with unsafe storage charges against Mr. Thomson.

One can only speculate on the Crown’s motives, but many prosecutors are so opposed to private citizens owning guns and, especially, using guns to defend themselves, their loved ones or property, that it is easy to believe prosecutors are running Mr. Thomson through the ringer in an attempt to discourage other homeowners from following his lead. They have conceded they cannot get a conviction against the retired crane operator and former firearms instructor for shooting at the three men who were trying to burn down his house with him in it, but perhaps they are hopeful their decision to drag Mr. Thomson through months of emotionally draining and expensive court proceedings will cause other homeowners to conclude armed self-defence isn’t worth the hassle.

Update: An already strange case appears to be getting stranger, as the judge needed to adjourn the court to allow time for the lawyers to figure out just what the law actually says:

Canada’s laws on the storage and handling of guns and ammunition are so complicated that a veteran judge needed to adjourn court to allow two experienced lawyers more time for legal arguments and a search of case law to help parse and dissect them.

It was a dud of an ending after two days of trial in the case of Ian Thomson, a 54-year-old Port Colborne man who fired three shots from a legally owned gun to scare off three masked men who were firebombing his secluded farmhouse while one threatened: “Are you ready to die?”

And the crown displays a remarkable lack of firearms knowledge:

Mr. Mahler said Mr. Thomson was “less than forthcoming” and “secretive” when police arrived. He suggested Mr. Thomson even picked up the spent shell casings from his porch and hid them in his bedside table.

Seeming confused, Mr. Thomson said he didn’t understand.

“Didn’t they fall to the ground?” Mr. Mahler asked, apparently thinking shell casings from a .38-calibre revolver were ejected from the gun with each shot.

“No,” said Mr. Thomson as the crowd of gun advocates watching from the public gallery chuckled and guffawed at Mr. Mahler’s mistake.

Spent shells from a .38 remain in the gun’s cylinder until it is opened and they are removed. Mr. Thomson took the casings out at the same time he opened the gun to reload it, which was at the bedside table, where the casings were when police arrived, he said.

Of course, if he’d had enough time to collect expended brass — in the dark — before police arrived, it doesn’t support the idea that the police were going to be timely in arriving after he first called 911, does it?

January 31, 2012

Homeland Security Theatre: The case of the “Destroy America” Brit twits

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:09

Jim Harper sifts through the evidence in the “Destroy America” Twitter case:

The Department of Homeland Security has been vague as yet about what actually happened. It may have been some kind of “social media analysis” like this that turned up “suspicious” Tweets leading to the exclusion, though the betting is running toward a suspicious-activity tipline. (What “turned up” the Tweets doesn’t affect my analysis here.) The boastful young Britons Tweeted about going to “destroy America” on the trip — destroy alcoholic beverages in America was almost certainly the import of that line — and dig up the grave of Marilyn Monroe.

Profoundly stilted literalism took this to be threatening language. And a failure of even brief investigation prevented DHS officials from discovering the absurdity of that literalism. It would be impossible to “dig up” Marilyn Monroe’s body, which is in a crypt at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

[. . .]

Other facts could combine with Twitter commentary to create a suspicious circumstance on extremely rare occasions, but for proper suspicion to arise, the Tweet or Tweets and all other facts must be consistent with criminal planning and inconsistent with lawful behavior. No information so far available suggests that the DHS did anything other than take Tweets literally in the face of plausible explanations by their authors that they were using hyperbole and irony. This is simple investigative incompetence.

If indeed it is a “social media analysis” program that produced this incident, the U.S. government is paying money to cause U.S. government officials to waste their time on making the United States an unattractive place to visit. That’s a cost-trifecta in the face of essentially zero prospect for any security benefit.

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