Quotulatiousness

April 30, 2011

The Toronto Sun goes full gonzo on Jack Layton

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:52

In an earlier post, I was wondering if the mainstream media was going to give Jack Layton and the NDP the same kind of coverage that they had been devoting to the Liberal and Conservative campaigns. Instead of doing the same thing, one of Toronto’s newspapers decided to channel their British tabloid counterparts:

Jack Layton was found laying naked on a bed by Toronto Police at a suspected Chinatown bawdy house in 1996, a retired Toronto police officer told the Toronto Sun.

The stunning revelation about the current leader of the New Democratic Party comes days before the federal election at a time when his popularity is soaring.

When the policeman and his partner walked into a second-floor room at the Toronto massage parlour, they saw an attractive 5-foot-10 Asian woman who was in her mid-20s and the married, then-Metro councillor, lying on his back in bed.

Layton was cautioned by police and released without being charged.

So no crime was committed, no charges were laid, and it happened in 1996. Perfect time to pull it out at the very end of an election campaign.

“When police decide they need to make an arrest, he said, they find a way to make an arrest”

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:38

Not the finest day in Albertan justice:

Charges have been dropped against three Alberta men accused of shooting dead a pregnant wild horse and tossing its body down a hillside. For more than a year, the RCMP and the Crown were sure they had the right guys. They even charged the then-12-year-old son of Jason Nixon, one of the accused. But then, just as the trial began, the defence produced an important piece of exculpatory evidence: The horse hadn’t been shot.

The Mounties had assumed it had been. They were operating on a tip from a man named Dave Goertz. Mr. Goertz, as everyone involved in the case knew, was a crackhead and a meth addict. He reported the crime after a local group that defends Alberta’s wild horse population posted a $25,000 reward.

[. . .]

Apparently, the word of a drug addict was enough for the guardians of our justice system to arrest three innocent men and run them all the way to trial, costing them their jobs, a small fortune and untold grief.

[. . .]

The horse had been badly decomposed, apparently, by the time police found it, so determining whether it had been shot wasn’t possible. And yet, lacking critical evidence, the province proceeded with its prosecution for wilfully killing and careless use of a firearm. The three men faced a maximum of five years in prison.

This kind of thing, said defence lawyer Willie deWit, “is what happens in our system a lot of times.” When police decide they need to make an arrest, he said, they find a way to make an arrest. They ignore anything that might exculpate the accused, and seize on anything that feeds their assumptions of guilt.

April 27, 2011

Syrian update

Filed under: Liberty, Middle East — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:43

With attention focused on Libya, the Syrian situation is still highly volatile:

Bashir Assad clings to power by manipulating the fear within the many factions supporting him that they would have to flee the country, to avoid death or prison, if the current government fell. Then there is the threat that the security forces would use extreme violence to suppress the demonstrations. This, however, could enrage the general population and trigger a bloody civil war. The only thing everyone can agree on is a desire for peaceful resolution of the crises. But Assad and his cronies don’t want to give up power, and they may have to risk everything to find out how far most Syrians are willing to go to force big changes.

Five weeks of escalating violence have left over 200 dead, and over a thousand arrested (and hundreds later released). While nearly all the dead are protestors, more security forces personnel are getting killed. The government is using armed militias (from the groups that have always supported the Assad dictatorship) as well as the police and “special” (secret) police to try and control or terrorize the growing number of demonstrators. There are also said to be small numbers (hundreds) of “security specialists” from Iran. Some Hezbollah gunmen are believed involved as well, and Syrians are accusing these “foreigners” for many of the killings. While most of the leadership posts in the police and army are held by minorities (like the Alawite sect the Assads belong to), most of the troops are majority Sunni Arab. Thus Assad controls management, but has to be careful with the rank and file.

If enough civilians hit the streets, there won’t be enough security forces to confront them, and the entire structure of the Assad police state will start coming apart. Iran might try to stop it, with a massive transfer (by air) of security personnel, and many more from Hezbollah entering by land. Hezbollah loses a lot if it no longer has those land supply routes from Syria. Meanwhile, each Friday (the Moslem Sunday), the demonstrations get larger. The way things have been going, it won’t be many more Fridays before Assad and his crew are gone, or the country is getting blown apart by civil war. It’s unclear if democracy or a new dictatorship will replace the old government. There are many tribes and factions in Syria, and predicting how they will all shake out is not possible.

Update: Just so you don’t forget, at the same time the Syrian government is attempting to suppress the demonstrations, it is running (unopposed) for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

April 20, 2011

More on the use of “kettling” by the police

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:35

Patrick Hayes considers the “kettling” technique beloved of modern metropolitan police forces in the face of protest:

This is not in any way to defend kettling, which restricts basic freedoms of movement and protest. Being kettled is a deeply frustrating experience. You are penned into a small area with thousands of other protesters for hours on end, with no access to toilets or provisions and little to no knowledge of when the police will let you go. This repressive police technique should be abolished.

However, the emergence of kettling does not reflect a new era of police ‘barbarism’ or ‘gross police brutality’, as some have claimed. Rather, the logic behind kettling seems to be an attempt by the authorities to adapt to a new kind of aimless protesting.

[. . .]

The rise of kettling speaks to changes within the authorities too. This tactic reveals a new desire amongst the police to avoid engaging with protesters directly, to avoid beating and controlling them as they might have tried to do in the past. Instead, the police have developed mostly risk-averse, hands-off tactics for demos, of which kettling is a prime example.

Kettling is really a damage-limitation exercise. The hope is that in pinning protesters into one small area they will eventually become sedate or fall asleep after they have let off enough steam. In a bizarre turn of events, the police now even hand out glossy brochures explaining to protesters what kettling is all about and why the police do it. Kettling is analogous to parents sending children to the ‘naughty step’ to get them to calm down.

Indeed, in the absence of any clear collective ideas, protesters have in many ways become reliant on kettling as a focal point for their radicalism. Protests have turned into games of cat-and-mouse, as youths try to avoid being penned in by the police, using Twitter to organise flash mobs and effectively playing peek-a-boo with the police. The protesters achieve a semblance of collectivity through the experience of being trapped together in a kettle.

Logic, consistency not strong points for this would-be terror gang

Filed under: Britain, Middle East, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:30

A group of would-be terrorists were discovered before they could put their plans into action partly because of their disdain for “infidel” technology:

Recently, a British Moslem (Rajib Karim) was sentenced to 30 years for attempting to use his job at British Airways to help plan, coordinate and carry out terrorist attacks. One reason Karim was caught was the refusal of his terrorist cohorts in Yemen and Bangladesh to use modern cryptography for their communications. The reason was that the modern stuff was all invented by infidels (non-Moslems). Instead the group was forced to use ancient (over 2,000 year old) single letter substitution codes. The group’s implementation of this was accomplished using a spreadsheet. Unlike modern ciphers, like PGP and AES, the ancient substitution methods are easy to crack with modern decryption techniques.

A major shortcoming of Islamic radicalism is its disdain for modern, particularly non-Moslem (Western) technology. This often causes problems, like the one Karim (a computer specialist with British Airways) had with his less educated fellow terrorists in Yemen and Bangladesh. But what Karim encountered was another major problem for Islamic radicals, the fact that these groups tend to attract a disproportionate number of poorly educated recruits. The Islamic world, in general, is less educated and literate than the West, thus giving Islamic radical groups a poorly educated pool of potential recruits to begin with.

The disdain is highly selective, unless spreadsheets were also part of the Arabic cultural heritage.

April 14, 2011

British high court rules 2009 G20 “kettling” illegal

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:29

While I may disagree with the protesters and their messages, the police “kettling” technique has always disturbed me far more. Britain’s high court has now ruled that police broke the law while kettling G20 protesters in 2009:

In a landmark judgment on Thursday, high court judges found for protesters who had claimed police treated them unfairly. It also criticised the use of force by officers.

In the case, the court heard that officers used punches to the face, slaps and shields against demonstrators who police chiefs accept had nothing to do with violence. The judgment does not strike down the police tactic of kettling or mass detention, but it will be seen as a rebuff to the Met.

The judgment places limits on the use of kettling. It says: “The police may only take such preventive action as a last resort catering for situations about to descend into violence.”

March 17, 2011

Police and fire unions threaten to “boycott” businesses that support Wisconsin governor

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:00

You’ve got a nice office here, guv. Shame if anything were to happen to it, y’know?

Here is another reason public unions should not be allowed to collectively bargain with politicians running a local or state government. Union leadership — including those from law enforcement and firefighters — have sent letters out to local businesses demanding they publicly oppose the efforts of Wisconsin’s legislature and governor or face the consequences.

Not only are they suggesting they publicly oppose the fiscal-sanity measures in Wisconsin, they are flat out telling them they will publicly boycott businesses who do not proactively do so. From James Taranto’s opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

In the letter to Wisconsin businessmen, however, we see why so-called collective bargaining is particularly corrupting to the police. Although the letter explicitly threatens only an economic boycott, when it is written on behalf of the police — of those on whom all citizens depend to protect their safety — it invariably raises the prospect of another kind of boycott. Can a businessman who declines this heavy-handed “request” be confident that the police will do their job if he is the victim of a crime — particularly if the crime itself is in retaliation for his refusal to support “the dedicated public employees who serve our communities”?

LauraW clarifies the message here:

We’re the Police and Firefighters Unions.

If you don’t accede to our demand, we’ll put you on The Naughty List. And, um….boycott you. That’s our threat. We’ll boycott you. That’s all.

Right.

…did we forget to mention that we are cops and firefighters?
Just checking. Making sure you caught that.

H/T to Jon for the link.

March 8, 2011

Helicopter footage of 9/11 just released

Filed under: History, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:21

The Guardian explains:

Previously unseen footage of the 9/11 attacks, filmed from a police helicopter hovering above the burning World Trade Centre, has emerged almost a decade after the terrorist atrocity.

The New York Police Department air and sea rescue helicopter was dispatched to the scene of the attack to see whether any survivors could be rescued from the rooftops.

[. . .]

The video is part of a cache of information about the attack handed over by city agencies to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal agency that investigated the collapse.

It was released by NIST on 3 March under a Freedom of Information Act request, but it remains unclear who published the footage online.

March 1, 2011

CBC posts G20 mini-documentary

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:48

I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but Cory Doctorow says “This video makes me ashamed to be a Canadian”. You Should Have Stayed At Home:

It’s been eight months since the G20 and the iconic images are still with us — burning police cars, rampaging mobs, the massive security presence that according to the official story is all that stood between Canada’s largest city and chaos. But that’s not the whole story of Toronto’s G20. Astonishing new images caught on camera are now emerging and they expose a troubling new picture of what happened to hundreds of ordinary citizens caught in the huge police dragnet during those three highly-charged days last June.

Gillian Findlay presents a revealing new street-level perspective of what happened when thousands of police were deployed in downtown Toronto and instructed to do what was necessary to ensure the wall around the G20 Conference Centre was never breached. Exclusive eyewitness video obtained by the fifth estate brings to light startling images captured on cellphones and minicams by the innocent bystanders who found themselves on the wrong side of all that G20 “order.” In a rare television interview, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair explains why police took the actions they did.

I was critical of the G20 even before things went off the rails. It was a stupid idea to hold it in the middle of Canada’s biggest city, and the police reaction to provocation was worthy of any rag-tag third world dictatorship.

February 26, 2011

Arrested, beaten, tortured, and charged with treason . . . for watching viral videos

Filed under: Africa, Law, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:00

No matter how you say it, Zimbabwe is seriously screwed up:

Munyaradzi Gwisai, a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe’s law school, was showing internet videos about the tumult sweeping across North Africa to students and activists last Saturday, when state security agents burst into his office.

The agents seized laptop computers, DVD discs and a video projector before arresting 45 people, including Gwisai, who runs the Labor Law Center at the University of Zimbabwe. All 45 have been charged with treason — which can carry a sentence of life imprisonment or death — for, in essence, watching viral videos.

Gwisai and five others were brutally tortured during the next 72 hours, he testified Thursday at an initial hearing.

There were “assaults all over the detainees’ bodies, under their feet and buttocks through the use of broomsticks, metal rods, pieces of timber, open palms and some blunt objects,” The Zimbabwean newspaper reports, in an account of the court proceedings.

Under dictator Robert Mugabe, watching internet videos in Zimbabwe can be a capital offense, it would seem. The videos included BBC World News and Al-Jazeera clips, which Gwisai had downloaded from Kubatana, a web-based activist group in Zimbabwe.

February 18, 2011

The internet in China: hidden powers of persuasion

Filed under: China, Government, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:52

A look at how the internet in China has the power to (sometimes) punish corrupt officials and influence the government:

Corruption and viral marketing has provided the Chinese government with a powerful tool for controlling public opinion. It all began when Chinese companies realized that they could hurt competitors by planting damaging rumors on the Internet. This, even in China, is illegal. But the corruption in China being what it is, there was little risk of getting the police to hunt down and punish the perpetrators. This was partly because the marketing firms, hired by companies to burnish their image, or defame competitors, was careful to have other small outfits get on the Internet to actually do the work, and be careful to not be traceable. So the cops, when forced by companies to do something (often because the owner of the offended firm was well-connected politically), were stymied at first. But the police, declaring it a national security issue, eventually discovered how this was done. But this did not stop all these negative campaigns. To defend themselves, companies that were attacked by these Internet disinformation campaigns, fought back.

This use of negative tactics soon fell out of favor, as all those tarnished companies lost sales. So these Internet based opinion manipulation turned to praising your own products. About this time, the government discovered what was going on, and began to use these marketing companies, and their subcontractors, to change opinions towards government policies. There was a pressing need for this, because all this Internet opinion manipulation had started out, over the last decade, as a popular uprising against government corruption, mistreatment and media manipulation. This “online army” was not organized, except by outrage at government, or individual, wrongdoing. For example, many government officials, and their high-spirited offspring, injure or steal from ordinary citizens, and get away with it. These officials have enough political clout to make the police leave them alone. But once the online army gets onto these stories, everyone in the country knows, and is angry. There are over 400 million Internet users in China, a country of 1,400 million. When a lot of people on the Internet get angry enough, the story, and anger, explodes through the Chinese Internet community. China carefully monitors Chinese Internet use, and tries to block unwelcome information or discussions. But when the outrage on a particular item becomes too large, it’s better to just arrest and punish the guy whose misbehavior got the online army going in the first place.

Who knew that sockpuppeting would be such a valuable online tactic in China? It might not just be limited to China, however:

If the Chinese wanted to use this tool in other countries, they would require posters who are familiar with the language and culture of the target population. That’s difficult skill to acquire, especially for at least a few hundred posters required (to hit, regularly, hundreds of message boards, chat rooms and so on). Done right, you can shift opinions among millions of people in a few days. Done wrong, you fail. And if you’re operating in a foreign country, you might get found out. But the opportunity is there.

February 16, 2011

QotD: For dictators, storm troopers are not a luxury

Filed under: Government, Middle East, Military, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:11

A major reason for the inability of the recently deposed Egyptian dictatorship to suppress anti-government demonstrations was the lack of a large, loyal and reliable security force. Not having such a force handy was unthinkable for any security conscious dictator. For example, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein had his Republican Guard, a force that was filled with well paid, well armed men who were, above all, loyal to Saddam. All other successful dictatorships have similar forces. Russia had the KGB, which not only employed spies, but also several divisions of troops trained and equipped to deal with rebellions by the population, or the armed forces. Iran has a similar force, the Revolutionary Guard, that serves a similar role as the old KGB. During World War II, Adolf Hitler had the SS, Gestapo and his private army, the Waffen SS, all of which kept Germany fighting until the very end.

Former Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak got lazy and greedy by filling his “regime maintenance” forces with conscripts (as troops) and recent college graduates (as officers). Theses security forces, like the 325,000 paramilitary police in the Central Security Services (belonging to the Interior Ministry, nor the Defense Ministry), were more loyal to the people than to the small group of corrupt politicians running the country. Things had gotten so bad that the small secret police force had taken to hiring criminal gangs to harass or intimidate visible opponents of the government. These thugs fled if faced with serious opposition. And that’s what they got during February, 2011.

“Murphy’s Law: Storm Troopers Are Not A Luxury”, Strategy Page, 2011-02-16

February 14, 2011

The plod may not get around to protecting you, but you’ll be charged if the burglar is hurt while stealing your stuff

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

Ah, England. Land of green hills, picturesque village pubs, and absolutely daft law enforcement priorities:

A spate of thefts in several towns and villages in Kent and Surrey over the past few months led to many householders taking action to protect their property.

Some have been warned by police that using wire mesh to reinforce shed windows was ”dangerous’’ and could lead to criminals claiming compensation if they ”hurt themselves’’.

Thieves target sheds to steal lawnmowers, power drills, bicycles and a variety of DIY tools.

Thomas Cooper, of Tatsfield, Surrey, used wire mesh to protect three of his garden sheds after two break-ins over the past four years. He decided to take action after reports of a rise in garden raids in the area.

Mr Cooper said: “I reinforced my shed windows with wire mesh, but was told by the police I had to be very careful because thieves can actually sue you if they get hurt.

”It is ridiculous that the law protects them even though they are breaking it.”

It’s getting to the stage that I’m expecting to hear the police in some English town declare that locking your doors and windows will no longer be allowed because of the risks to burglars. That’s only a tiny bit more ridiculous than what they’re already saying.

H/T to Damian Penny for the link.

Update, 2 March: Eugene Volokh does a bit more digging on the original story:

Some readers expressed doubt about the accuracy of the news stories on which I relied, so I e-mailed the Surrey Police Department for more information. Here’s what I learned.

February 12, 2011

First Tunisia, then Egypt: is Algeria next?

Filed under: Africa, Government, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:41

The Algerian government is taking a more vigorous approach to protests, by sending in the riot police early:

Thousands of riot police have been deployed in the capital of Algeria to stop an anti-government demonstration from gathering the momentum of the protests that forced out the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak.

About 50 protesters managed to reach the square in Algiers where the protest was due to take place but they were surrounded by hundreds of police and some were arrested, the Reuters news agency reported.

Opposition groups have called for a march to demand democratic change and jobs, but it has been banned by government officials and most residents have so far stayed away.

“I am sorry to say the government has deployed a huge force to prevent a peaceful march. This is not good for Algeria’s image,” Mustafa Bouachichi, a leader of the League for Human Rights, said.

Protesters who managed to reach May 1 Square, where the march was due to begin at 11am (10am GMT) shouted “Bouteflika out!” — a reference to the Algerian president — before police arrested some of them.

February 3, 2011

Tools for protest marchers: anti-kettling app

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media, Middle East, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:20

Patrick Kingsley talks to the developers of “Sukey”, a new mobile phone app intended to help protesters avoid being kettled by police:

Cairo, it wasn’t. But at about a quarter to four last Saturday afternoon, on a crowded backstreet in central London, something happened outside the Egyptian embassy that deserves at least a footnote in the annals of protest history. A crowd of students weren’t kettled.

In the context of recent British protests, this was a near-miracle. At each of the previous four major student protests in London since the Millbank riot on 10 November, police have kettled — or, in their terminology, “contained” — thousands of protesters, preventing them from leaving an area for several hours, and often from accessing basic amenities such as food, water and toilets.

Police kettle protesters supposedly to quell violence, but protesters arguably only turn to violence out of frustration at being kettled. Most notoriously, police trapped hundreds of teenage schoolchildren inside a tight grid on Whitehall on 24 November — and only subsequently did a few of them smash up a police van abandoned in their midst.

Saturday’s non-kettle, then, was a victory in itself. But the real excitement wasn’t that it didn’t happen — but how it didn’t happen. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why police and protesters behave in a certain way at a certain time, but one explanation for the kettle’s failure to form lies with a new communications network, which launched that afternoon: Sukey.

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