Multimedia
Audio
Video
Photo

How to Defend Our RIGHTS to Privacy

Anonyme, Jeudi, Août 7, 2003 - 17:08

David Piney

The former Privacy Commissioner of Canada warns about the pending loss of freedom. I am waging a personal struggle to change this. I need your help...

I find it sad that Canadians seem inclined to resign their loyalty to status quo, whomever comes to power, instead of resolutely defending the Just Society model that has singularly provided our unsurpassed life quality. Thus the alarm bells that George Radwanski rang as the former Privacy Commissioner of Canada in his year-end report, warning Canadians in the strongest of terms about the pending loss of freedoms, was recklessly ignored by the public it seems to me. Yet the freedoms he warned about losing, largely defines the Just Society model, which provides leadership standards with sufficient benevolence to enable our measure of social harmony. The 32,000 shootings in Washington DC alone every year are a stark reminder of the real-life consequences of the alternative model that's now being presented. Their withholding of a mere 2% of GDP for emergency welfare assistance (especially for single males) and of the widespread crime that desperate people will turn to in their forced struggle to survive, is not a viable solution to anything but the creation of a militant, self serving populous.

The full depth of Radwanski's understanding as an insider to bureaucratic machinations remains unknown of course. But considering the kind of alarm bells he rang pertaining to his office as Privacy Commissioner, it behoves Canadians to at least read his eye opening report. http://www.privcom.gc.ca/information/ar/02_04_10_e.asp

Clearly he was wrestling with Canada Post about the routine opening and copying of Canadians' mail. He was also trying to restrain the RCMP's increasing propensity for unconstitutional Big Brother tactics, and he identified serious concerns with the compiling of dossiers on all law abiding citizens -not unlike the Stasi secret police, he says- including the proliferation of invasive hidden cameras, etc. But most importantly he was conducting a general effort to support the long-proven need for a system of checks and balances to prevent the inevitable rise of administrative raw expediency, upon which the Just Society is based.

The dramatic slide of civil rights in the US under the Patriot Act creates valid concerns that our largely integrated enforcement system will bring pressures for a similar ethos to be enacted here too. And the recent Canadian legislation permitting cops to break the law at their discretion is certainly not reassuring. My intensive personal study of Big Brother's use of the Judas Iscariot element of society to form its massive covert infrastructure validates concerns about the propensity for horror stories, especially because of the sheer absence of any individual accountability. Not to mention the fact that their procedural norm is based upon guile, deceit and raw expediency tactics, which only further undermines society's desperate need from its justice system for principled leadership. This shameful knee-jerk power grab by a bureaucracy made omnipotent by technology must be harnessed while we still can.

Thus, for the kinds of dire warnings that Radwanski publicly proclaimed about these crucial issues to simply go unanswered is just plain foolish of Canadians.

As the author of the autobiography and best seller "Trudeau", Radwanski deserves significant respect as a Just Society advocate. Not to mention his former position as editor-in-chief of the Toronto Star, which gives him the kind of credibility that should not have been ignored by the public when he spoke-out so profoundly in his year-end report as the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Yet without a peep from the public about the need for a full inquiry into these allegations, George Radwanski was accused a few months later of spending improprieties, and behaviour amounting to "a loss of trust", and thus he was simply dumped by the very government he was warning the public about. No questions asked.

As a remnant of one of the few Just Society watchdogs that's been given teeth to protect the public from government abuse, this outspoken Privacy Commissioner says that he was targeted for simply doing his job too well. Allegations against him are baseless and without evidence he says, and it seems to me that detractors are simply removing a devoted public defender on a pretense.

Personally, I seen his valiant efforts as a toe-to-toe struggle by the remnant mechanisms of the Just Society against the rise of the New World Order. But whatever the reason, the grotesque inequity of having his fitness for office determined solely and arbitrarily by the very bureaucracy that he was warning the public about can only undermine any vestige of credibility the government has in the public's eyes. And on that basis, and because Cretien seems to want to accomplish some kind of decency before his retirement, a full public inquiry into this crucial issue may well be granted if we can only justify it with sufficient public outcry.

Thus we appeal to Canadians for an effort in securing a public inquiry into this pivotal issue. Not only into the seemingly frivolous allegations (once you delve into it) of Radwanski's wrong-doing, but into the depth of the consequences defining the Big Brother ethos that he was trying to warn about.

Of course the mainstream media's supporting role in the Radwanski affair must also be addressed. The blatant and strict central-control policy of Israel Asper's Can West empire is quickly becoming an accepted mainstream example, and a cause of great concern. The unprecedented scope of this gigantic media conglomerate in Canada -which was accused of simply being "Israel Asper's personal pulpit" by Peter Worthington- never even bothered to present Radwanski's explanation of the allegations made against him (to my knowledge). Nor did the other media (that I could find). Thus Canada's historic notion of mainstream media's investigative reporting has nowadays devolved into little more than the blatant concerted promotion of the personal machinations of its elite ownership, whose interests are often seen clearly to run contrary to the public's.

Thus in hindsight, it seems that this whole crusade to remove Radwanski -that's been so effective at fashioning the public's opinion against him- was strategically commenced by opponents accusing him of some kind of ethereal personal improprieties, yet presented to the trusting public as factual evidence. And Radwanski's full and clear explanation of those events was simply excluded from media coverage. As was his emphatic denial of any wrong doing, which is proven he says, by the clear absence of any real evidence against him.

And after carefully reading the material I agree with Radwanski. They simply counted on Canadians not to scrutinize the reports that defined these ethereal circumstances. The comparison of the Information Commissioner's budget to the Privacy Commissioner's for example, to highlight excesses, instead of a comparison with the former Privacy Commissioner's budget as would be appropriate, is just one of many glaring grasp for straws that's apparent in their ouster of this outspoken defender of the Just Society's system of checks and balances.

Thus the whole issue played-out as an engineered and hopelessly one-sided debate, made possible by the full participation of the few media magnates who now personally control and shape Canadians' perception of breaking events. How convenient for them.

But a full public inquiry could make an exact determination of individual's attempt at fabricating evidence, and could thoroughly compile any and all circumstances of misleading or unbalanced reporting. The Just Society system that defines Canada's government with credibility is still enshrined in law here, along with the full support of the Canadian constitution. If brazen efforts to undermine our lawful system in favor of the US model of a New World Order were being pursued by insiders on the sly, then it's a millstone they cannot bear for long without a significant public showdown. At the very least a public inquiry can explore the depth of concerns that Radwanski was warning Canadians about, and thus perhaps offer a fleeting chance to rally appropriate resources in a worthy defence.

It's clearly too important of an issue to let them simply sweep it away, because this one could harbor easily detectable hard evidence.

If you can't afford the time to help in this campaign personally, I hope you can send some basic resources to help out. I've been going door-to-door and on walkabouts in downtown Victoria for weeks passing out fliers and getting petition signatures. But I need resources to continue. Send what you can, and I'll be able to keep at it. So far, I'm limited in reach only by the measure of resources I can employ.

Online transfer to David Piney, Royal Bank branch #08060-003, Account# 504-4227.

I'm not sure if investing in Canada's future is tax deductible or not, but I'll send you a receipt and a full accounting of all monies upon request.

God bless the cause.

David D. Piney

310-777 Royal Oak Dr.
Box 53513 Victoria BC
V8X 5K2, d.pi...@victoria.tc.ca.
250-479-0313.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

*****************************************

I believe these three URLs sufficiently outline the gist of what's going on, and identifies the grotesque impropriety here and thus the threat the public faces, as Radwanski says, with a government that's lost its moral compass about public privacy.

I hope you'll help? Even if Radwanski did do wrong, it shouldn't be the very bureaucracy that he was warning us about that stands in judgement. It should be the public which he was contracted to protect from government abuse that makes those inquiries.

Privacy Commissioner of Canada, George Radwanski's 2001-2002 Annual Report to Parliament;
http://www.privcom.gc.ca/information/ar/02_04_10_e.asp

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

***********************************************************
This is the Standing Committee's rationale for judgement against Radwanski. Go to appendix # six and read it first, because the report is largely about this letter that Radwanski wrote to Rosenberg, as compared to the so-called "fraudulent" version his secretary sent to Bryden in Appendix # four. When you read Radwanski's explanation of events contained in his resignation statement you'll realize how strained the government's premise is.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/InfoComDoc/37/2/OGGO/Studies/Reports/oggorp05/oggo...

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

************************************************************

The new Privacy Commissioner removed Radwanski's resignation statement from the government web site, but I found another copy online. George Radwanski clearly explains his version of events here.
http://www.newswire.ca/releases/June2003/23/c6543.html

****************************************************************************

I hope you'll call your MP and request a full public inquiry.

It's only together that we have a chance of preventing us, as individuals, from being made victims of a bureaucracy that's seeming to eliminate the inconvenience of having any kind of checks and balances to regulate their increasingly amazing omnipresent and omnipotent power over the public. .

david.
***



Dossier G20
  Nous vous offrons plusieurs reportages indépendants et témoignages...

Très beau dessin: des oiseaux s'unissent pour couper une cloture de métal, sur fonds bleauté de la ville de Toronto.
Liste des activités lors de ce
« contre-sommet » à Toronto

Vous pouvez aussi visiter ces médias alternatifs anglophones...

Centre des médias Alternatifs Toronto
2010.mediacoop.net


Media Co-op Toronto
http://toronto.mediacoop.ca


Toronto Community Mobilization
www.attacktheroots.net
(en Anglais)

CMAQ: Vie associative


Collectif à Québec: n'existe plus.

Impliquez-vous !

 

Ceci est un média alternatif de publication ouverte. Le collectif CMAQ, qui gère la validation des contributions sur le Indymedia-Québec, n'endosse aucunement les propos et ne juge pas de la véracité des informations. Ce sont les commentaires des Internautes, comme vous, qui servent à évaluer la qualité de l'information. Nous avons néanmoins une Politique éditoriale , qui essentiellement demande que les contributions portent sur une question d'émancipation et ne proviennent pas de médias commerciaux.

This is an alternative media using open publishing. The CMAQ collective, who validates the posts submitted on the Indymedia-Quebec, does not endorse in any way the opinions and statements and does not judge if the information is correct or true. The quality of the information is evaluated by the comments from Internet surfers, like yourself. We nonetheless have an Editorial Policy , which essentially requires that posts be related to questions of emancipation and does not come from a commercial media.