Juricana

ULTRAS

2020-01-04T16:17:00.001-08:00

The so-called cancel culture is a repeat phenomena in human history. It has manifested itself many times before in different forms. It is not ideological in the true sense of being a comprehensive vision of a current or future society a la liberalism, conservatism, socialism, communism, fascism or other such political ism’s.

It is instead an extreme moralism centred on a narrow range of required mores. Examples of past extreme moralisms include those of the Crusaders, the Puritans, the Calvinists, the Red Guards and many others. The cancel culture folks have a lot in common with witch burners and in current times the young men and women of Isis.

They are not Marxists. Karl would be very bewildered by the cancel culture people and would have struggled mightily to have fitted them into his essentially classical economic perspective. That is partly because their high moralism is in fact an extreme version of liberalism. It is notions of diversity or inclusion carried to uncontestable absurdities. I like to call them ultra liberals or Ultras.

Like all extreme moralists the Ultras are constantly on the search for transgressors. The transgressors are the THEM; they are the wicked people. Of course like with the Red Guards the ranks of THEM keep getting larger and larger. A person who is one of US today suddenly finds himself an outsider no matter what his or her ideological pedigree. Liberals accordingly are in much greater danger from the Ultras than Conservatives who are “bad” ab initio.

The law prevents the Ultras from burning wicked people at the stake. They have a contemporary version of witch burning which is shaming on social media.

Their victims also often react in the way that past victims of extreme moralism have reacted. Even if it is not a matter of pleading for their lives to avoid being burnt at the stake or forced to crawl across field of sharp stones on all fours, it is a matter having their careers destroyed and being cast out of comfortable positions in the universities or the entertainment industries. Accordingly in order to avoid being thusly destroyed victims try desperately to acknowledge their wrongness, to repent, to plead for another chance ... This often becomes very cringe worthy which is the saddest part of extreme moralissm because it just strengthens the bulliers. The only proper response is that of brave people like Meghan Murphy who stand up and talk back to the Ultras.

MARXISM & IDENTITY POLITICS

2018-11-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

Conservative ideologists often describe identity politics and its poster concept “privilege theory” as cultural Marxism. But is privilege theory a child of Marxism. Probably not.

The focus of privilege theory is the individual. Mark Fisher, the Marxist oriented author of Capitalist Realism stated that “Anyone encountering or reading material on privilege theory will be struck by the overwhelming focus on the individual—the many confessionals of the “privileged” describing how they came to terms with their privileges or the exhorting of others to check theirs.” There is also a highly religious element - the so-called privileged are expected to confess their privilege in the same way that the religious are expected to confess their sins but just like the religious can never be completely absolved of their sin the so-called privileged can never be absolved of the (white) colour of their skin. As Mark Fisher says respecting the identarians “The more guilt the better. People must feel bad: it is a sign that they understand the gravity of things. It’s OK to be class-privileged if you feel guilty about privilege and make others in a subordinate class position to you feel guilty too. You do some good works for the poor, too, right?”

Mark Fisher further comments “Privilege theory also expresses a form of elitism—we are all seen to be inescapably bound to innate bias and oppressive ideas except the theorists themselves who have been able to reach a degree of enlightened self-awareness. Those who see us all as prisoners of our unearned advantages can only ever expect to persuade a minority to acknowledge their privileges. In this way, despite superficially appearing to be rooted in material reality, privilege theory actually collapses into idealism—seeing ideas as the crucial factor. That is why for privilege theory the key focus is education and awareness.”

In many respects identity politics which produces the notion of white male privilege is philosophically closer to fascism than liberalism or socialism. Paxton, an author of several books, including " The Anatomy of Fascism" (Vintage, 2005), said fascism is based more on feelings than philosophical ideas. In his 1988 essay "The Five Stages of Fascism," published in 1998 in the Journal of Modern History, he defined seven feelings that act as "mobilizing passions" for fascist regimes. They are: 1. The primacy of the group. Supporting the group feels more important than maintaining either individual or universal rights. 2. Believing that one's group is a victim. This justifies any behavior against the group's enemies. 3. The belief that individualism and liberalism enable dangerous decadence and have a negative effect on the group. 4. A strong sense of community or brotherhood. This brotherhood's "unity and purity are forged by common conviction, if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary." 5. Individual self-esteem is tied up in the grandeur of the group. Paxton called this an "enhanced sense of identity and belonging." 6. Extreme support of a "natural" leader, who is always male. This results in one man taking on the role of national savior and 7. "The beauty of violence and of will, when they are devoted to the group's success in a Darwinian struggle," Paxton wrote. The idea of a naturally superior group or, especially in Hitler's case, biological racism, fits into a fascist interpretation of Darwinism.

Identity politics shares items 1 to 5 to varying degrees. So it is not surprising that identity politics shares with fascism a deep loathing for the Enlightenment.

INTERSECTIONALITY

2018-10-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

Intersectionality is a identarian notion. In her writings on intersectionality and black feminism Patricia Hill Collins describes a “matrix of domination”. Her theory of power is based on notions of individual privilege and interpersonal domination arguing that “each one of us derives varying amounts of penalty and privilege from the multiple systems of oppression that frame our lives. Intersectionality says that while it is true that a white corporate executive is in a position of ascendency over a white labourer, a white labourer is in a position of ascendency over a black labourer or in other words the white labourer exploits the black labourer.

So what does this mean when applied to the real world. Nothing because it does not describe the real world. It is nonsense. To put it in traditional Marxist terms a white male worker derives no surplus value from a black worker. A white guy working periodically in the declining coal industry of Appalachia derives no benefit from a black guy working in a warehouse in Philadelphia. Similarly what benefit does a white guy working as a pizza deliveryman in Scranton, Pennsylvania derive from a black woman on welfare in Philadelphia? None. Everyone poor and rich derive some benefit from low wages in the fast food industry in the sense that their fast food costs are lower but it does not matter whether the low paid worker is black, white, woman or man. In fact for the white guy working as a pizza delivery it would be better if the minimum wage was increased - both for himself and the fast food worker - even if that meant higher food costs.

When faced with these class realities the identarian falls back on a psychological analysis. The white guy gains satisfaction from the fact that there is someone in poorer circumstances than him. The identarians, however, can not provide even anecdotal evidence to support this proposition.

Poor whites in the rural south-east of the U.S. may have derived a feeling of social superiority over blacks who lived in a nearby neighborhood but it is improbable that this carries over to a contemporary urban environment. For one thing poor white folks and poor black folks in the U.S. live in different parts of the cities. They do not interact all that much - there is no basis to believe that they have a kind of schadenfrude relationship. An impoverished white person has his or her own day to day struggles which are not helped or hindered by the struggles of another individual whatever the skin colour of another poor person. Even if a white person and black person work and live in proximity in an urban setting it is highly unlikely that they would have a structured sense of each other's wealth and income situation.

At its heart intersectionality is a textbook theory that has never been grounded in scientific observations of society.

A NOTE ON WHITE MALE PRIVILEGE

2018-10-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

The next series of posts look at the concept of privilege and how it is used today. Who are the privileged and how did they gain or how do they keep that privilege.

Privilege is most often attached to so-called white folks as white privilege and almost in all those cases attached to the word male for white male privilege. This creates a favourite catch phrase of some people who purport to be left-wing.

Is there such a thing as white male privilege? The formulation on a typical blog advancing the notion describes white male privilege as social, economic, and political advantages or rights that are made available to men solely on the basis of their sex.

Is white male privilege a systemic characteristic? Are our institutions organized in order to privilege white males or more broadly all white folk.

The notion of white male privilege is of course associated with people who advance identity politics. According to the identity politics theorists so called people of colour are universally not privileged; white people particularly white males are universally privileged. How are they privileged? According to Peggy McIntosh, whites in Western societies enjoy advantages that non-whites do not experience, as "an invisible package of unearned assets". She says that white privilege denotes both obvious and less obvious passive advantages that white people may not recognize they have, which distinguishes it from overt bias or prejudice. These include cultural affirmations of one's own worth; presumed greater social status; and freedom to move, buy, work, play, and speak freely. The effects can be seen in professional, educational, and personal contexts. The concept of white privilege also implies the right to assume the universality of one's own experiences, marking others as different or exceptional while perceiving oneself as normal.”

Needless to say most white males - particularly blue collar white males - would ask about these supposed cultural affirmations of their self-worth. Where are they? Do they get respect? Are they favourably portrayed in the media? Do they get advantages in custody and access battles. Do they have the benefit of income security?

Most white guys would answer no to all of these questions. They certainly do not have any special freedom to move, work or play? They are constantly buffeted by economic streams which force them to move around for work. Typically they do not have much time for play unless unemployed and then they do not have the money to engage in play.

Academic identarian Frances Kendall says that white men have greater access to power and resources than men and supports that claim by saying “that, while white men constitute about 43% of the work force, they hold 95% of senior management positions in American industry”.

This comment starkly outlines the fallacy of the notion of white male privilege. Senior management positions are held by less than one per cent of white males - a plumber is not in the competition for a senior management position. Neither is a roofer or a truck driver or a construction labourer. Senior management positions are held by the elite. They are held by people who were born into the elite, who went to the right schools, the right universities, belong to the right clubs. They are not open to white men generally. They are open to a tiny portion of the white male population. A white CEO earning ten million per year does not benefit or otherwise bestow privilege on a janitor earning $40,000.00 per year. It is absurd to suggest otherwise but that is exactly the proposition that Frances Kendall advances.

RED GUARDISM

2018-03-10T20:22:00.005-08:00

The original Red Guards were Chinese students who were active between 1966 and 1968. They were the invention of the Cultural Revolution Group of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. In August, 1968 the CRG directed the Red Guards to attack the Four Olds - old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. The Red Guards spent the rest of the year destroying old books and art, vandalizing temples, shrines, and other heritage sites, ransacking museums and otherwise assaulting treasures of Chinese history.

The Red Guards were not content with destroying their country’s history. Soon they were attacking “bourgeois elements” and “capitalist roaders”. University professors were a particular target. They were ousted from their teaching positions and instead given menial tasks such as sweeping courtyards, building walls and cleaning toilets.

The Red Guards were the original post-constructionists. All “knowledge” was said to be a social construct of the bourgeoisie. Exams were merely a forced recitation of this bourgeois knowledge. Professors and school administrators were forced to make numerous public self-criticisms about "transgressions" against the only sanctioned orthodoxy. They were told that "A complete confession is the only road to survival. Anything less will lead to death!" In actual fact frequently assaults on particular professors was simply a cover for a students or another professor’s old grievance.

A current version of Red Guards are found on North American and English campuses except now they go under labels like Social Justice Warriors. Privileged white males substitute for bourgeoisie elements and capitalist roaders. Negative labels are attached to the conduct of persons who are perceived to be ideological opponents; they are accused of cultural appropriation or micro-aggresions or masculine toxicity or a host of other evils.

The mentality of the SJW’s is much the same as China’s Red Guards. There are ever convenient victims - the universally identified victims are so-called racialized groups but there are others - in particular various minority sexual orientations.

The new Red Guards want to silence dissent and eliminate free speech, every bit as much as their predecessors. They are intolerant of speakers at campuses who might espouse a different perspective. Like Mao's Red Guards, some American college students and their supporters are shouting down anyone who dares to disagree with them. Like the Red Guards some of them believe that shouting has become insufficient and some "muscle" is needed.

These modern Red Guards use a “demand” that the college campus be an inclusive and safe place, in order to make unwelcome any viewpoint that does not fit within their orthodoxy. College professors and administrators across Canada and the U.S. have routinely caved to these students demands. Those individuals, who are the subject of attacks, often end up giving craven apologies but this is often still not sufficient to keep their jobs.

The targets of the SJW’s often as not are people who would historically be considered liberals or who self identify as liberals. Variation, even mild variation, from officially accepted dogma is not permitted. This angry intolerance is very similar to the mentality of China’s Red Guards. Thus there is the sad case of Erika Christakis at Yale university. She was relentlessly attacked by the Red Guard mob (and ultimately resigned her teaching position) merely because she questioned a “Intercultural Affairs Council” email that called on students to be sensitive about the cultural implications of their Halloween costumes. She suggested that students should be able to dress in any costumes they liked, offensive or not. She wrote. "Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious ... a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?"

There is a distinct anti-science element in the actions and thinking of the SJW’s and their academic allies. Like their Puritan counterparts they are fundamentally against enlightenment notions such as humanism and rationalism. In this respect they again parallel the Red Guards who labelled science as bourgeois and imperialistic. According to Jane Flax, a self-proclaimed defender of postmodern feminism, postmodern discourses are deconstructive in that "they seek to distance us from and make us sceptical about beliefs concerning truth, knowledge, power, the self, and language that are often taken for granted within and serve as legitimation for contemporary Western culture." Postmodern feminism challenges the idea that reason is a universal and transcendental entity found in nature and that reason in the form of the scientific method can provide an objective and universal foundation for knowledge about the natural and the human world. Postmodern feminism rejects the fundamental principle of the enlightenment; namely, that knowledge should strive to be impartial, objective and interchangeable.”

The contemporary version of the Red Guards are rampant in Canada. The director of Ryerson University’s School of Social Work in Toronto stepped down after having been accused of committing “a violent act of anti-Blackness, misogyny and misogynoir (a newish term for misogyny directed at black women)”. What did he do that was violent - he left an anti-racism meeting. There is no indication whether he left the meeting as a protest or because he had something else to do.

In true Red Guard fashion a letter from a so-called activist accused Parada of being unable “to contain your anti-Black rage” and of “a public display of toxic masculinity” and demanded he “immediately step down” as social work director, publicly apologize “and publicly release how you will genuinely address anti-Black racism.”

Steve Ladurantaye, was until recently the managing editor at CBC’s The National. He was removed from his position because in a tweet he expressed his opinion that it was unjust that Hal Niedzviecki, the editor of Write, the publication of the Writers’ Union of Canada, had to resign for defending “cultural appropriation.” The Maoists at CBC required Ladurantaye to undergo re-education or as they put it in Orwellian language “training as to unconscious bias” and to “reach out to indigenous and other communities as part of his learning process”.

The government of Ontario recently introduced mandatory anti -racism and cultural competency training for all civil servants. Canadian columnist, Margaret Wente, has pointed out that white privilege is now a part of the Ontario school curriculum. It is taught in teacher training, and is a routine part of anti-bias education. Wente is correct in observing that anti-racism training has more than a whiff of a Maoist re-education camp. This training “teaches” notions like white privilege and the male hegemony as uncontestable facts. Participants quickly learn that you do not take issue with these “truths”. If you do, you are an (uncured) racist.

Margaret Wente suggests that the label of white privilege is almost akin to original sin. In fact being a white person is the current equivalent of having bourgeois tendencies in Maoist China. For many contemporary left-situated activists, there is no greater sin than having been born an able-bodied, straight, white male who identifies as a man but isn't deeply sorry for this utterly unintentional state of affairs.

University administrators and academics are easily intimidated by the SJW’s. They fear, if not yet for their lives as was the case at the height of Red Guardism in China, their well paid jobs and their large prospective pensions. This was amply demonstrated at the pseudo-Liberal Evergreen State in Washington. There was an annual Day of Departure when so-called students of colour gathered off-campus. For the 2016 Day of Departure these students decided to demand that all white faculty, staff, and students leave the campus instead, with white professors and students urged not to go to their classes. Those who didn’t comply with this forcible segregation were demonized. Biology professor Bret Weinstein wrote an email refusing to leave campus at the “request” of students of color on Evergreen’s “Day of Departure.” For this he was quickly labeled a racist and ostracized by his colleagues.

Disturbingly 55 of the Evergreen State College faculty (that’s more than a quarter of the faculty) and 23 College Staff signed a “statement of solidarity” with the student protestors. Their cringe-worthy confession of “guilt” would have been an appropriate “confession” during the Chinese Cultural or going further back during the Stalinist purges of the 1930's. They wrote “We acknowledge that all of us who have power within the institution share responsibility for the racist actions of others. Furthermore, those of us who are white bear a particularly large share of that.” This led to their Maoist-like call for re-education; namely, “participating actively and self-critically in the annual mandatory trainings specified in the Memorandum of Understanding recently signed by the UFE and management bargaining teams.”

"FREE SPEECH BUT"

2017-12-02T21:54:00.002-08:00

An identarian group at McMaster said “But freedom of speech doesn’t now, and hasn’t ever, meant that we can or should be able to say whatever we like in public spaces regardless of the impact of our speech on others.” Deborah MacLatchy, the president of Wilfrid Laurier University, is marginally more favourable free speech. She phrased it this way “Academic freedom and freedom of expression are very central to the university. We recognize that there will be challenging and uncomfortable conversations, but it's not okay for them to be threatening -- and that's the overall balance that we look for in every class and in every tutorial.” So anything subjectively threatening, which in effect means something that another person does not like hearing, is no o’kay.

Retired professor Harriet Lyons in article in the Toronto Star says that the rule for free speech at universities is that “if one has a position on a social or intellectual issue, one should have the freedom, at a university, to advance it, in class or published research, using appropriate expertise and respectful language”

In Harriet Lyon’s opinion would the following statements sufficiently use appropriate expertise and respectful language such as to constitute allowable free speech”? Which of these statements are not okay because they are “threatening”?

“I believe that the cost of administration at this university is too great. There are far too many people taking home a large paycheck but not providing any real value to the University. There is an urgent need for a major cull of administrative positions - perhaps up to 50% of the people employed in administration at this university are not necessary.”

“I am strongly opposed to business administration being taught at this university. Business administration is not a genuine academic pursuit. It has no proper intellectual basis. It teaches people how to manipulate other people for their own self aggrandizement. In other words it teaches greed. The kind of people that you find in Business Administration departments can properly be described as deplorables. They should be removed from the campus.”

“People from wealthy backgrounds should be excluded from enrolment at this university, or if they are allowed to enrol, they should pay substantially higher tuition fees. In other words all applicants should have to provide a personal net worth statement and a net worth statement for their parents and based on such net worth statements a personalized tuition should be set which can be up to 1000% of the regular tuition. The University plays an important part in perpetuating the class system. It must be overhauled in a revolutionary way and if that means firing three quarters of the professors and not allowing it to be the playpen of coddled rich kids, so be it.”

“I believe that the people of England are profoundly disgusting. Up until long after the Second World War they promulgated a culture and an economy which was based on the unlimited exploitation and often the hideous enslavement of various people in Asia and Africa. I do not let believe that the English should be let off the hook for their past colonialism any more than we allowed the Germans to be let off the hook for their support of Hitler and Naziism.”

I suspect that none of these statements would be allowable speech if they were reviewed by an “unbiased” adjudicator scrupulously applying the Harriet Lyons test.

The Harriet Lyons opinion (and Deborah MacLatchy’s) is the classical “free speech but” approach so ably examined by Greg Lukianoff in Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate. “Free speech but” is free speech censorship expressed in a nicer way.

As George Orwell said some seventy years ago “At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to state this or that or the other, but it is “not done”… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.”

Or to quote Chomsky from Manufacturing Consent “Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Or from the Common Good “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

Keep free speech within respectful confines, keep it within limits, keep it within a spectrum of acceptability - that precisely summarizes the free speech perspective of Harriet Lyons and Deborah MacLatchy. It is in other words the classical recipe that has always been used by tyrants to repress free speech.

FREE SPEECH v. REGULATED SPEECH

2017-03-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

On January 7, 2015 Islamic terrorists massacred eleven cartoonists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo whom they considered “blasphemous”. Subsequently four million people in France marched in support of freedom of expression. Prominent French politicians gave unremitted support for Charlie Hebdo. Despite this many of these same politicians supported the international regulation of social networks in order to crack down on “racist and anti-Semitic propaganda.

Within two days after the four million-plus march in Paris in support of Charlie Hebdo and freedom of expression, 54 people in France had been arrested for "hate speech or other acts insulting religious faiths, or for cheering the men who carried out the attacks." Included in the arrests was a controversial Muslim comic, Dieudonné, who is known for his anti-Semitic views.

Harlem Désir, France’s State Secretary for European Affairs, told reporters “There are hate videos [online], calls for death, propaganda that have not been responded to, and we need to respond. [Those who propagate] terrorism, religious fanaticism, jihadism and radical Islam use the Internet enormously. We must limit the dissemination of these messages.” Désir condemned social networks for failing to take responsibility for “racist or anti-Semitic” content published on their platforms, citing Facebook and Twitter as examples. He said that France wants to create a legal framework that would “place the responsibility on those who are passing the message, even if they are not deciding the message”.

Désir claimed that the proposed law would not target freedom of expression. He said that there has to be a clear distinction between freedom of expression, which is a fundamental right, and the liberty to incite hate, discrimination, and death or in other words hate speech. He compared hate speech to the dissemination ”of child pornography.

The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, described Désir’s plan as an “interesting proposal” that would require consulting both the general public and the private sector. She said “We’re very alert to the extent to which social media platforms are being exploited by violent extremists across the board, including by al Qaeda and Islamic State”.

Earlier in the day, Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the UN, Abdullah al-Mouallimi, stressed the relationship between Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. “We have witnessed with growing concern the increase in hate crimes around the world, and we are very concerned because some arbitrarily reject their responsibilities in this regard,” al-Mouallimi said on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation. “Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and all crimes that are based on religious hate are inextricably linked, they’re inseparable.” Another senior Saudi official said that free expression was an 'abuse of religious rights'.

Proponents of speech prohibition argue that hate speech can cause psychological harm, just as hate-motivated violence causes physical harm. Children who are called "nigger", "Paki", or "queer" suffer just as much as when they are physically bullied. For adults, verbal abuse can render workplace, educational or other environments unbearable.' In other words hate speech is not merely speech, but rather is a form of violence. Implicit is the notion that hate speech doesn’t merely CAUSE violence but IS violence.

An American an attorney and counsellor at law in Burtonsville, Maryland, Usa, Regina Njogu defined hate speech “as any expression that maligns, threatens, or insults individuals or groups based on race, colour, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits.” She made the observation that “Hate speech is not protected under clauses on freedom of speech in constitutions of the civilized world and is prohibited and criminalized in many jurisdictions.” You can have freedom of speech “with the limitation that one must not, in the exercise of this freedom, cause another harm in character or reputation by lying or using misleading words.”

She claims “Many people are not mindful of the danger the pattern of unbridled expansion of freedom of speech without social and legal safeguards portends for social order in the long run. Violent acts of hatred are generally preceded by hate speech.” She further alleges that “Enduring hatred over many years will take a toll on most people. It can limit their opportunities, push them into poverty, isolate them socially, lead to depression or dysfunction, increase the risk of conflict, and endanger their physical health or safety.”

She is also concerned that some people will be corrupted by bad speech. “Although the harmful effects of hate speech may not be immediately apparent, they are cumulative and can influence and indoctrinate the gullible.”

So it all comes down to prohibiting speech deemed to be harmful. “The purveyors of hatred must learn to exercise self- discipline, simple decency, and restraint or the law should come down hard on them. This is because hate speech is personal and a sign of lack of tolerance to diversity. Perhaps it is the result of poor upbringing. The answer to confronting hate speech lies in individual responsibility and behaviour — everyone must share the responsibility of making our society orderly whether by restraint, genuine will and desire, or polished lying.” She concludes “If they cannot restraint their behaviour, the law should force them to do so.”

In his book “The Harm in Hate Speech” Jeremy Waldron, puts forth a theoretical basis for expanded hate speech laws. He wants to prohibit speech when it might cause harm to "dignity". He calls "dignity" "the social standing, the fundamentals of basic reputation that entitle [persons] to be treated as equals in the ordinary operations of society". He says dignity "is a matter of status -- one's status as a member of society in good standing -- and it generates demands for recognition and for treatment in accord with that status" ; it involves, "intrinsic[ally]" the "assurance that one will be dealt with on this basis [as an equal in rights and entitlements]"; it involves what Stephen Darwall famously dubbed "recognition respect"; and "it is a matter of . . . one's status as an ordinary member of society in good standing, entitled to the same liberties, protections, and powers that everyone else has". He summarizes his view by saying that, "Hate speech and group defamation are actions performed in public, with a public orientation, aimed at undermining public goods", that is, the good of assurance of dignity in public.

Fortunately in the U.S. the First Amendment has been an impediment to this type of assault on free speech. Not so in Canada or the U.K. or Australia. In the Anglo countries it is certain people who self identify as human rights activists that probably pose the biggest challenge to free speech. An example is Barbara Hall who was until recently the chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. In a letter to Maclean’s Magazine she wrote “The OHRC is mandated to express what it sees as unfair and harmful comment or conduct that may lead to discrimination. We need to keep in mind that freedom of expression is not the only right in the Charter. There is a full set of rights accorded to all members of our society, including freedom from discrimination. No single right is any more or less important than another. And the enjoyment of one depends on the enjoyment of the other. This means if you want to stand up and defend the right to freedom of expression then you must be willing to do the same for the right to freedom from discrimination.”

She had an ideological ally in Jacques Frémont, who as head of the Quebec Human Rights Commission (QHRC), was a driving force behind Quebec’s infamous Bill 59. Fremont said that he would use the new powers provided to him by Bill 59 to target people who would write against the Islamic religion on a website or on a Facebook page. The law would allow the QHRC to "apply for a court order requiring [alleged hate speech] to cease" and would further impose a fine up to $10,000 if "a person has engaged in or disseminated such speech". The exact monetary value of the fine would be determined by a Human Rights Tribunal.

The legislation treated words as equal to “sticks and stones”. It would have allowed the Commission to apply to a court for "any emergency measure" if the Commission has "reason to believe" that [speech is a] threat to "health or safety" exists. This would allow the Commission to "put an end to the threat."

People like Hall or Fremont supporting expanded human rights legislation have invariably been very generous in defining targeted hate speech. It has been variously said to include speech which offends, insults, demeans, threatens, disrespects, discriminates against, and/or incites hatred or violence against a person or a group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, color, nationality, religion, sexual orientation or sexual activity, gender identity or gender expression, disability, language, language ability, ideology or opinion, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, hair color, etc.), mental capacity, and/or any other comparable distinction.

In fact It is a very short step from protecting religious beliefs from criticism to likewise protecting political beliefs. Many people are deeply offended by having their political beliefs insulted. It may indeed cause them considerable psychological stress - even pain - in some cases substantially more stress or pain than a racial epithet. In fact Bill 59 included “political convictions” in the list of “prohibited grounds” for the purposes of “hate speech”. So not only was it included in the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in, say, public accommodations or employment. By being thusly being included in prohibited hate speech it meant that the Commission could police speech denigrating people not on the basis of some personal characteristic they were born with, but because of their political opinions. As was pointed out it would be prohibited speech to say or write that Nazism was an abomination because Nazis are "a group of people sharing … political convictions".

Under the guise of prohibiting hate speech human rights initiatives are leading to regulated speech, potentially highly regulated speech.

One final comment about Barbara Hall and Jacques Fremont. These people are not left-wing or right-wing ideologues. They were both card carrying Canadian Liberals. They are middle of the roaders, Centrists, nice respectable people. Yet they and their ilk as much as anybody are helping to grease a slippery slope at the bottom of which there is no longer free speech.

THE FREEDOM TO BE OFFENSIVE TOWARDS RELIGION

2017-03-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

There has to be absolute freedom to criticize religion. There has been a curious retreat from this proposition among so-called liberal academics. Gaad Saad noted in a 2102 article: “It would not be melodramatic to state that one of the first steps of totalitarianism is when intellectuals begin to engage in self-censorship. Having been an academic for close to two decades, I know of numerous scholars in the United States and Canada that have repeatedly refrained from sharing their views on religion in general, and a specific religion in particular, lest they fear the dire consequences of doing so (ranging from losing their jobs, being ostracized by friends, to outright bodily harm). Any freedom-loving individual living in the West should be deeply concerned about this reality. Freedom of speech (especially the criticism of religious dogma) should be a non-negotiable right whose protection is valued above all other rights.”

Anything less is a fundamental denigration of the freedom of speech. Many well meaning people begin a discussion about free speech with what Mick Hume has termed “free speech but” as in “I believe in free speech - but there are limits/-but not for hate speech/-but you cannot offend or insult or upset other people’.”

Bishop Michael Ingham, of the Anglican Diocese, New Westminster in a forum on the criticism of religion captured the essence of “free speech but” when he said “There is no unlimited right to freedom of speech and no absolute right to freedom. To exist, freedom needs self-imposed restraints and democracy requires a consensus based on mutual respect. What we have in the Paris cartoons is a misuse of freedom. It is secular fundamentalism that insists on the right to cause offence in the name of freedom. Religious satire is not off limits when it serves the public good by exposing hypocrisy and causing us to live up to our ideals in a better way, but when its purpose is to deliberately offend, how is that different from hatred.”

It has been pointed out that when religious satire has to be respectful and avoid offense it is no longer either funny nor is it free. Satire is almost always disrepectful of its object and free speech is only meaningful when it is offensive to someone or some group or to some authority. And who is going to be the arbitrar of public good - religious leaders like Bishop Ingham or a human rights commission or tribunal or a secret court? Bishop Ingham’s formulation would be the death knell of free speech as it affects religion.

Bishop David Zubik, of the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese, is in favor of some decidedly more stringent restrictions on free expression: “As I have said over these last few weeks, this is an opportunity for all of us to be reminded that freedom of speech and freedom of expression do not constitute a freedom to dismiss or disrespect the beauty of anyone’s race, the sacredness of anyone’s religious belief or the uniqueness of anyone’s nationality,” The disrespect of the “sacredness of religiousness belief” that Bishop Zubik found offensive was a papal parody - in which a student doing an action art project wrote half naked dressed (partly) as the pope.

Bishop Zubik conflates disrespect of race with disrespect of religion but they are not the same things. Religion is about ideas and criticizing ideas - even if it involves harshly criticizing ideas - is a fundamental freedom. Indeed why should religious ideas be carved out as criticism free zone any more than political ideas or ideas about appropriate etiquette. Indeed people can be and usually are deeply offended when their political views are ridiculed. When political ideas are ridiculed or satirized it is typically a deliberate act to offend.

Religion is all about faith (as opposed to science or rationality) and the most ardently religious have the deepest faith. They are the true believers and true believers are easily offended. When ‘hurting the feelings’ of the believers becomes a basis for limiting speech - as it does for Bishop Ingham - speech is always at risk of being offensive to true believers and hence not permitted.

True believers are also described as fundamentalists and today they have substantial numbers in all religions including Christianity and Judaism but most spectacularly in Islam. True believers now run the show in most countries where Islam is dominant. Blasphemy law are now widespread in those countries where Islam is the majority religion and there are countless examples of people who are deemed to insult Islam - often in most trivial ways - being imprisoned or executed not only by the state but also by religious zealots, who invariably go unpunished.

Islamic true believers are offended by any depiction of Mohammed. In fact Islam fundamentalists are offended by any negative comment about Mohammed as an historical figure. Islamic true believers were offended by Gunter Luling who was hounded out of the profession by German universities because he proposed the radical thesis that at least a third of the Koran was originally a pre-Islamic, Christian hymnody, and thus had nothing to do with Mohammed. In other words a legitimate academic study on the history of Islam and its historical connection with earlier Abrahamic religions was off limits because it was offensive to the religion’s true believers.

Religious true believers are offended by the very existence of other religious beliefs. Per Mindy Townsend “If you are a member of religion A, and you discover that religion B believes something different, does that not arguably “dismiss or disrespect…the sacredness” of your religious belief? Sure it does, because it plants the little seedling in your brain that suggests that you might be wrong. To get rid of that threat, you need to eliminate religion B. Suddenly you have a medieval-style death match.”

As stated by Rowan Atkinson “To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize? and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed. It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended. The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression”.

A few years ago a fundamentalist Christian preacher in North Ireland was charged under the the UK’s 2003 Communications Act with improper use of a public electronic communications network and causing a grossly offensive message to be sent by means of a public electronic communications network. The two charges arose out of a sermon that was streamed online, in which he described Islam as “heathen” and “Satanic”. Ultimately he was found not guilty on the basis that while his remarks were offensive they were not “grossly offensive”. The case, however, illustrates the danger of illegalizing “offensive” comments about religion. It is a religious opinion that Islam is heathen and satanic. It can be an Islamic religious opinion that Christianity is heathen and satanic. It can be an atheist opinion that both Islam and Christianity are ridiculous and absurd.

What particularly concerns nice otherwise liberalish people like Bishop Ingham is the fear that free speech will result in social discord. He says “We must use freedom of speech with responsibility. That is the price of keeping a civil society.” Totalitarian societies have always been justified on the grounds that they preventing social discord. This was a constant theme with the Nazis.

The blasphemy laws, that once prevailed in the Christian majority nations, punished individuals for making statements that could be perceived as criticisms or insults against religious doctrines, figures, deities, and symbols. Typically, the language of these laws contained the following words: offending, insulting, wounding, denigrating, or outraging religious ideologies or feelings.

In an English blasphemy case from the 18th century the issue was whether any religious denomination other than the Church of England was “protected” by the then blasphemy law. It was held that a publication attacking the Old Testament was not merely as an attack upon Judaism but rather because ‘the Old Testament was so connected with the New that it was impossible that such a publication as this could be uttered without reflecting upon Christianity itself’. Other religious groups, Christian or not, were protected ‘to the extent that their beliefs overlapped with those of the Church of England. The material needed to be couched in indecent or offensive terms likely to shock and outrage the feelings of the general body of Church of England believers. This requirement meant that the offence of blasphemy did ‘not protect religious beliefs as such’ but was ‘concerned with attacks on those beliefs expressed in highly offensive ways. In the manner of Bishop Ingham “Decent and reasonable criticism was not blasphemous.”

As stated by Alan Sokal in Beyond the Hoax “All of us are understandably reluctant to give offense to our fellows especially concerning their most cherished beliefs, and in personal interactions this self-restraint is generally a sound instinct. But public debate is impoverished and distorted by our culture’s deferent attitude towards faith. After all conservatives are not ordinarily offended by the obligation to debate their ideas with liberals (though in recent years this seems, alas, to be changing) and most capitalists can tolerate the occasional encounter with a socialist.”

He notes “The free ride given to “faith” is so deeply imbedded in our culture - so taken for granted - that even critical voices often end up committing the very errors that they decry. For instance, the American scholar of religion Mark C. Taylor in a thoughtful critique of “religious correctness” nevertheless felt obliged to reassure his readers that "The sum of critical analysis [of religion] is not to pass judgment on religious beliefs and practices - though some secular dogmatists wrongly cross that line - but to examine the conditions necessary for their formations and to consider the many functions they serve."

But asks Sokal "why should anyone accept such an arbitrary limitation on the aims of “critical analysis”? Substitute “scientific”, “philosophical”, “economic”, or “political” for “religious” in that sentence, and the double standard becomes patent. In every other sphere of life, beliefs and practises are subjected not only to descriptive analysis but also to evaluative judgment - and rightly so.”

Of course, the additional problem is that laws making it an offence to be offensive to religion - as Bishop Ingham might advocate - don’t stay limited to religion. It can soon extend to political beliefs themselves, as is the case in some Islamic nations - since political beliefs can easily merge with religious beliefs. Similarly at some so-called liberal American universities “wrong” views on politics, on epistemology, on social relationships (especially sexual ones), on legal issues, on many other topics are increasingly becoming non-tolerated. Why? It is often because one or more (intolerant) individuals find them offensive.

CREEPING AUTHORITARIANISM

2017-02-15T21:14:00.001-08:00

According to Merriam-Webster, the following is one of the ways that the word “totalitarian” is defined: “of or relating to a political regime based on subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation especially by coercive measures”. In contemporary Western democracies totalitarian has taken on a new character - it is being distilled down to an extensive micro-management of individuals by state and corporate organizations - what has been described as a ‘smiley face fascism’ in which all interactions are regulated but almost invariably for superficially benign reasons. To quote George Carlin “When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts …”

How and why is this happening? I have identified four horses of modern totalitarianism. The first is the rapid growth of offences. The second is the decline of critically important legal rights. The third is the expansion of state and corporate surveillance. The fourth is the bigger and broader enforcement of all the offences. Can the four horses of totalitarianism be stopped.

I am a pessimist for many reasons. Most significantly the new authoritarianism is coming at us from too many angles. The rush to create new offences and the concurrent attack on civil rights comes from the left, the right and the centre of the political spectrum. Right wing governments introduce legislation overriding historical civil rights because they have a tough on crime agenda or they want to catch subversives; left wing governments create new social crimes because they want to protect so-called vulnerable people or they wish to create a “safer” environment. Authoritarian initiatives - such as anti-bullying laws - are often the work of well intentioned people who would self identify as middle of the roaders, as ideologically centrist. So it does not seem to matter whether the governing party is ostensibly liberal or ostensibly conservative or somewhere imbetween.

There is the unabated growth of new “offences”. These new offences are being created by government at all levels - civic, state or provincial and federal. Most significant the law making machine has discovered brand new areas to regulate - such as social relationships. Many types of social interaction are now criminal or quasi-criminal. Many activities formerly considered harmless are now an offence of one type or another.

The assault on traditional rights and freedoms have also come from all points on the political spectrum. The Right led the attack in the 1970's through to the 2000's. They were motivated by a supposed war on crime and by anti-Communism - later to be replaced by anti-Islamism. They wanted to make it easier to convict people of crimes. They said it was necessary to give the police vast new military like powers. They advocated witch hunts against people engaging in various alleged conspiracies.

The toll on traditional civil liberties in the U.K., the U.S. and Canada has been huge. In 2013 the UK hammered in the final nail in the coffin of civil rights with the passage of the Justice and Security Act which introduced so-called "secret courts" (Closed Material Procedures) into ordinary civil cases in Britain for the first time in over three hundred years. Closed Material Procedures ( "CMPs") mean that one party is not able to take part in either part or the whole of a trial. The party will usually be either a civilian who is bringing a claim against a government agency or a civilian who is the defendant in a case. The government and its lawyers are present during the CMP but the civilian and their lawyer cannot be present, cannot see the evidence the government is relying upon (and which is said to be national security sensitive information) and cannot know the government's case on this evidence.

This particular bill does not stand alone. Under firstly the Conservatives and then New Labour there was a savaging of legal rights in the U.K. over two decades. That set of legal rights that were bequeathed to us by England, some of which date back to the Magna Carta, all took a beating. Section 18 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 allowed the police to search the home of arrested (not charged) people without the need for a warrant. Section 110 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 gave the police powers to arrest without warrant, which made all offences, no matter how trivial, into arrestable offences . The police could now collect and retain fingerprints, palm prints and DNA samples of all those arrested for a recordable offence, including those of innocents, i.e. even when the arrestee was not charged with any offence or had been acquitted of an alleged offence. Section 23 of the Terrorism Act 2006 allowed innocents (not even charged) to be held for 14 to 28 days. Section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA) outlawed protests without prior police authorisation within a designated area of 1 km straight line from the central part of Parliament Square. Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 (SCA) made it an offence to encourage or assist in the taking part in or organising of a demonstration not authorised under SOCPA (modified by the SCA) possibly further criminalizing peaceful opposition to the government.

The police also used Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 to move away photographers and journalists from protests. In the Serious Crime Act 2007, the Home Office introduced 'serious crime prevention orders' (SCPO) targeted at those whom police believe are likely to commit violence, i.e. including those who have not yet have committed an offence - and may never commit any. With the Mental Health Bill, ministers also attempted to allow enforced detention of people who were mentally ill, even if they have not committed any crime. Control orders and even more restrictive special bail surety conditions forced persons to live in what amounted to being under quarantine.

The legal definition of terrorism, specified in section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (amended by the Terrorism Act 2006) is very broad. Section 58 (collection of information) of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows prosecution for simple possession of an item likely to be useful to terrorists, and carries a sentence of up to 10 years. The indelible record left by a long-forgotten internet search is an sufficient for a conviction. Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 extended section 58 further; in particular it criminalized taking or publishing a photograph of a police officer, which is of a kind likely to be useful to a terrorist collection of information. Saying or wearing the wrong words could get you arrested. The Terrorism Act 2006 introduced new offences of encouragement of terrorism and preparation of terrorist acts. These are so broad that they constitute an incursion on free speech.

There was a full scale assault on civil liberties when New Labour was in power.

Some of the most egregious initiatives were scaled back under the Coalition (Conservative/Liberal) government. Political opponents to the authoritarian legislation has generally come from the fringes of the main political parties in the U.K. They are outliers like UK Conservative MP, David Davies who resigned his parliamentary seat in 2009 to specifically fight a by election on the issue of erosion of civil liberties. He produced a report which identified 50 measures since 1998 that had eroded civil liberties. Davies commented: "We cannot actually trust politicians or the process of politics to preserve liberties. Our liberties must not go unprotected in the way they have for the last 10 years."

Unfortunately when the Conservatives replaced Labour the push back against the erosion of civil liberties quickly petered out. When she was Home Secretary Theresa May, was a busy beaver pushing dangerous new initiatives to damage civil liberties. As noted by the Conservatives for Liberty: "The highly overrated Home Secretary and (worryingly) possible future Conservative leadership candidate, Theresa May, is a bigger threat to liberty than any Islamist. Her time as Home Secretary has been one of fear mongering and ever increasing authoritarianism. In order to gain support for draconian measures, she has made cynical and hysterical claims such as the assertion that the terror threat in the UK is “greater than at any time before or after 9/11”. Statements such as these are designed to lay the groundwork for the expansion of state powers."

The “(worryingly) possible future Conservative leadership candidate” is now prime minister!

In Canada the recently demised Conservative government introduced their own anti-rights legislation with Bill C-51. Bill C-51 was a compendium of many of the rights limiting features of the UK legislation described earlier. It contained provisions that went further than the U.K.’s Terrorism Act 2006 in limiting free speech. It authorized the intelligence agency to engage in illegal acts against allegedly sbversive groups. Activities that undermine security was said to include interference with the capability of the Government of Canada in relation to intelligence, defence, border operations, public safety, the administration of justice, diplomatic or consular relations, or the economic or financial stability of Canada. This latter provision could be used against economic boycotts whether such are directed at a foreign country or a local corporate giant.

The United States witnessed a huge erosion of civil rights under the Bush regime. Soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks, President Bush issued an executive order that authorized the infamous National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless wiretapping program. This secret eavesdropping program allowed the surveillance of certain telephone calls placed between a party in the United States and a party in a foreign country without obtaining a warrant through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In the years after 9/11, the U.S. government illegally kidnapped, detained and tortured numerous prisoners. The USA Patriot Act severely limited the constitutional rights of immigrants and US citizens. It permitted non-citizens to be jailed based on mere suspicion without charges and detained indefinitely. It broadened the definition of activities considered “deportable offenses,” including defining soliciting funds for an organization that the government labels as terrorist as “engaging in terrorist activity”. The Patriot Act also subjected lawful advocacy groups to surveillance, wiretapping, harassment, and criminal action for legal political advocacy, expanded the ability of law enforcement to conduct secret searches and engage in phone and internet surveillance, and gave law enforcement access to personal medical and financial records. The Military Commissions Act gave the president absolute power to decide who was an enemy of the country and to imprison people indefinitely without charging them with a crime. It removed the Constitutional due process right of habeas corpus for persons the president designates as unlawful enemy combatants and allowed our government to hold hundreds of prisoners for multiple number of years without ever being formally charged and tried.

In south-eastern United States evangelists are dominant in the Republican Party and the Republican Party are dominant in government. States like Louisiana and Florida are prone to passing draconic legislation imposing long sentences for minor drug offenses. Under Louisiana law, a second pot possession conviction is classified as a felony offense, punishable by up to five years in prison. Three-time offenders face up to 20 years in prison.

There are currently over sixty thousand individuals listed on Florida’s sex offender registry! They include child molesters alongside sexting teens. They include violent rapists alongside the couple who had sex on the beach. They represent dots on a map and names on a list, for life, irrespective of the seriousness of their crimes, how long they have lived offense free in the community or the level of risk they presently represent. In Florida, it's legal to lock someone up indefinitely for a crime they haven't yet committed. The Miami-Dade ordinance has received national attention for effectively forcing sex offenders into homelessness with over 70 offenders living underneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway Bridge Sex offenders are treated uniquely under state and federal law as the only offenders whose punishment does not end once they have completed their court-imposed sentence. For many, the punishments they suffer after finishing their sentences are much harsher than those they received from a judge.

There was a slight pull back in the U.S, during the Obama presidency but the new Trump regime are promising a reinvigoration of the Bush assault on civil liberties.

Starting in the 1990's the attack on civil liberties from the Right was joined by the Left. The Left brought forward a strange new version of totalitarianism most dramatically characterized by anti-harassment policies and speech codes at universities. In some ways the Right has now been eclipsed by the Left.

While the Right are advocating virtually unlimited mass surveillance to locate subversives the Left are doing their part in the march to totalitarianism with one “social good” campaign“ after another. There is a creeping nature to social good campaigns - for example, anti-stalking became anti-harassing became anti-street harassing became anti-sexual harassment, became anti-workplace harassment became anti-bullying. In other words the realm of punishable behaviour gets ever larger. For example New Jersey’s law against general harassment prohibits communicating with another person using offensively coarse language and “engaging in a course of conduct meant to seriously annoy the person”.

Anti-bullying campaigns have an almost motherhood character. Often the starting point has been a suicide. The suicide was invariably attributed to bullying although a close look at the facts of individual cases show that there are multiple causes. It didn’t matter - bullying became a cause de celebre and every municipality, every state and every province were rushing to bring in anti-bullying legislation. It was the rare politician who could stand up against grieving parents immortalizing their child with a new law named after him or her. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan brought forth a so-called anti-bullying bylaw which in many way epitomizes the extent to which sincere people in government are prepared to regulate ordinary person-to-person relationship. Included in the definition of bullying was “gossiping or rumour mongering” which, of course, make up a significant portion of human discourse.

University students are not fighting the new unfreedom. Instead they are in the vanguard of those very people pushing to regulate social behaviour at a micro level. The campus social justice warriors are shouting down speakers they don’t like, advocating the expulsion of fellow students for thought crimes, promoting frightening new behaviour controlling notions - eg. micro-aggression, triggers, etc.

Even though conduct is not fully criminalized it is tagged as improper or inappropriate and invariably some kind of punishment is applied - in the university it is usually expulsion. Or for Amtrak it is being kicked or forbidden to ride on one of their trains. Amtrak told its employees (and customers) that passengers exhibiting various behaviours "should immediately be reported to trained law enforcement personnel." It detailed a long list of behaviours which were deemed to be suspicious including “unusual nervousness of traveller, unusual calmness or straight ahead stare, looking around while making telephone calls, position among passengers disembarking (ahead of, or lagging behind passengers), carrying little or no luggage, purchase of tickets in cash and purchase of tickets immediately prior to boarding.” With these kind of indicia everyone (mathematically) must be a suspect.

The internet has provided a public platform for nasty comments which were formerly restricted to private conversations in the locker room or the barroom. You can just feel the desire among respectable people to do something about this type of speech. Recently Bob Paulson, the reform oriented head of the RCMP, said “think everyone would agree, a more sort of caustic tone to the political discourse that seems to attract and agitate and radicalize people of all persuasions, particularly those who know hardly anything about it, to engage.” ... “And that represents a concern for us. And I think everybody’s concerned about that including the Service (Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS) and us and other police forces. And we are doing everything we can to get our heads around it.”

There is an implicit suggestion in these comments that authority must do something about the “caustic tone to political discourse” because it attracts and agitates and radicalizes people of all persuasions, OR cutting to the root of the proposition, speech must be controlled because otherwise it causes people to act bad. This has always been the core reason that totalitarian regimes advance to justify repression of free speech.

The new totalitarianism whether it originates from the Left or the Right is usually politically popular. Poll after poll show support for legislative proposals that further erode historic legal rights. According to a Pew research centre from June, 2013 an astonishing 56% of Americans had no problem with the National Security Agency’s (NSA) program tracking the telephone records of millions of Americans as an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism. Republicans are especially supportive of mass surveillance - 75% of Republicans said it was acceptable for the NSA to investigate suspected terrorists by listening in on phone calls and reading emails without court approval but Democrats also viewed the NSA’s phone surveillance as acceptable by 64% to 34%.

In Canada Bill C-51 attracted criticism from commentators from the right, centre and left but initially was very popular with the public. According to an early survey of 1,509 Canadians conducted by the Angus Reid Institute after the introduction of the legislation more than four in five (82 per cent) of Canadians backed the new legislation to expand the powers of intelligence agencies and police. Sixty-four per cent of respondents, believed there was a “serious threat” of terrorism in Canada. Far from seeing it as too sweeping, 36 per cent said it did not go far enough while less than one in five (19 per cent) worried that it went too far, compromising freedoms and privacy.

The push to criminalize so-called bullying has also been politically popular. An Angus Reid online survey of 1,006 Canadian adults carried out in February, 2012 found that two-thirds of respondents thought bullying should be considered a crime even if no physical violence was involved. Only six per cent of respondents didn't think it was necessary to criminalize bullying. There was overwhelming support for legislation specifically targeting cyber-bullying with ninety per cent of those surveyed said it should be illegal to use electronic means to "coerce, intimidate, harass or cause other substantial emotional distress." Support for anti-bullying legislation was especially high in Quebec, as well as among women and people over the age of 55.

Mario Canseco, vice-president of Angus Reid Public Opinion, told CTVNews "We were a bit surprised by the high level of support for cyber-bullying laws. It's very hard to get 90 per cent of Canadians to agree on anything."

Most of the survey participants said bullying was a serious problem in Canada's elementary, middle and high schools. The majority felt that bullying gets more intense and dangerous as students get older. More than half said that bullying continues later in life, both at work and at home. "I think this survey shows Canadians are ready to accept (bullying) as a serious crime," Canseco said.

Although the anti-bullying campaign has now somewhat faded it has left behind a whole new set of intrusive legislation. Characteristically the most draconic Canadian provincial laws on bullying originated in Nova Scotia under an NDP government and in Alberta under a Conservative government.

The Conservatives in Canada were replaced by Liberals. The Liberals had mildly criticized Bill C-51 but in the end had voted for it. They still have not introduced any amendments (despite being told that the security forces are actively using their “right to sabotage”). Eventually it might mean that the worst anti-rights elements of the Conservative legislation will be tracked back slightly - but will the Liberals on the other hand bring in a whole new batch of social correctness legislation? Will they introduce anti-blasphemy laws in the context of fighting Islamophobia. This is certainly suggested by the wording of a motion before the House of Commons which “condemns” Islamophobia.

Along with the unrelenting expansion of illegality (and the concomitant weakening of legal rights), there has also been in all the Western democracies a big expansion in surveillance - through new technologies, through "better coordination" between government departments, through "information sharing" arrangements with foreign governments. State and corporate surveillance is driven by ever increasing computer power. Every use of the internet becomes part of big data - you know how closely you are being tracked when last weeks searches create this weeks ads on your smart phone, tablet or computer.

In the paper era the state had in aggregate a massive amount of information about its citizenry but it could not make very good use of it. Computerization has changed all that. When something is possible, it will happen - the police will use its access to the information record just because it is such a powerful tool to keep tabs on everyone. It doesn’t matter if it is legal or not. It does not matter whether the courts uphold privacy and try to restrict access to the information record. The reality is that a large number of police and bureaucrats will be able to quickly access detailed profiles of every individual including his or her exact location.

Finally there are new ways to punish - such as civil forfeiture, huge fines, preventative detention, expulsion from schools and universities and others. Terrorism has not been the only excuse. Civil forfeiture is justified as a necessity to fight gangs. The expanded policing of social relationships is justified as needed to protect vulnerable individuals. The slippery slope analogy may not be the best. It is more like the death of personal freedom by a thousand cuts.

There is also a new method to sanction people even before they do anything criminal - which as stated above can be a whole lot of things. This new method is called pre-policing. It is particularly popular in the U.K. where the Prevent program gives the state power to interfere in people’s life BEFORE they have done anything criminal.

Pre-Policing and PREVENT

2016-12-16T21:32:00.001-08:00

We have pointed out before that the UK, which was once an icon for legal rights, has in this century (starting in the last two decades of the last century) flipped and now leads in engineering the new authoritarianism. From thousands of security cameras to anti-social policing (and ASBOS) to highly intrusive child welfare legislation to secret courts to curtailment of free speech at its universities the UK is painting the picture of a new society - an unfortunately very Orwellian society.

The latest UK addition to this sustained assault on legal rights is a program called “Prevent”. Prevent is said to be part of a counter-terrorism strategy which tackles the problem of terrorism at its roots, by preventing people from becoming terrorists. Prevent is a “pre-criminal space” program which means that it is intended to identify individuals who are at risk of radicalisation. It is not limited to identifying potential Islamic radicals. It is not limited to a particular ideology but rather extends to all forms of state identified extremism.

The public in general and professionals in particular are asked to identify individuals who are “vulnerable” to radicalisation or whose behaviour and ideology has changed. These individuals are “snitched” to a body with the rather imposing bureaucratic title “Health Corporate Safeguarding Team” which independent of any legal process decides upon the appropriate response.

The police force for Prevent are various health and educational professionals including any National Health Service front line staff, managers and clinicians and teachers at state schools. In fact teachers are now obliged to undergo Prevent training. Although couched in the usual social worky “supportive” language it is clear that Prevent is a surveillance program.

Doctors, in particular, are being conscripted to act as spies. Personnel from their offices will have to attend courses where they will be taught to identify radicals - whom the doctor will be required to report to Big Brother. If a GP practice fails to send a member of staff on the “Prevent” counter terrorism course, part of their funding will be cut.

At the present time Prevent is directed at radical Islamism but it has a far broader reach. The 2015 legislation’s definition of extremist ideology includes “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”. In other words an atheism, which does not respect religious beliefs, is potentially identified as an extremist ideology. Depending on what one considers to be fundamental British values there are a lot of other potential thought crimes - opposing abortion, supporting abortion, opposing the monarchy, criticizing capitalism and calling for state nationalization, opposing eating meat, disliking vegetarians or whatever else might be the unacceptable viewpoint of the day.

The Prevent legislation includes “extremism disruption orders”, which go beyond previous anti-terrorism legislation by criminalizing not the act itself but rather the intent to act. These measures are aimed at those who operate in what the police have called the “pre-criminal space” and therefore expand the definition of people who could be incarcerated from those who do bad things to those who think bad things. It means prosecuting a person’s mens rea where there is no actus reus.

What will they teach the spies that attend the Prevent indoctrination sessions? Across the Atlantic the Minnesota Department of Corrections has developed a program that identifies criminal thinking patterns. Examples of statements which supposedly disclose a proclivity to engage in criminal activities include “I tend to be a victim of the whims of others. Friends, family, employers, and/or the government really created the mess I am in today.; “It doesn't take a lot of hard work, time or effort to be successful. I am really interested in ‘get rich quick' ideas.”; “No one knows what I have gone through. I've lived a tough life that has given me the experience to be better at things than others.”; “Rules and laws are made for other people. I tend to have my own way of doing things.; “People are always telling me that I should learn from my mistakes and plan for my future. Not me, I live for today.”; “I'm a thrill seeker. I live for excitement - responsibility is not for me.; and “I tend to be possessive of my things and the people around me, but get upset when others don't share their good fortunes with me.”

The Minnesota list identifies thought patterns held by millions of people - one suspects that some of these attitudes are especially widely prevalent among highly successful people - whether in sports, entertainment, politics or business.

The UK’s National Health Authority are drawing up their own lists of “attitudes” which supposedly will disclose unacceptable radical thinking. They will inevitably reflect the ideological perspectives of the drafters. As a product of mindless, unimaginative bureaucrats they will invariably come down hard on outliers, eccentrics, non-conformists, individualists, free thinkers.

The “trained” people from doctor’s office will return to their jobs with their nice little lists. They will be looking hard for patients who supposedly have identified proclivities. And no doubt people will get reported just because the snitch just doesn’t like them or their “attitudes”.

Pre-policing, of course, is an intrinsic component of any authoritarian state. In Hitler’s Germany the citizens including educators and doctors were expected to report people who showed the slightest hint of disrespect for the regime. It was the same in the Soviet Union. Police states are constantly engaging in pre-policing; ie. identifying people who have the wrong thoughts and who might, in the future, act against the regime. On the other hand pre-policing is antithetical to that bundle of civil rights which underlie law and order in a democratic state. The U.K. - as it used to be.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT v. THE DARK FORCES

2016-12-06T20:02:00.002-08:00

The Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries which emphasized reason and individual freedom. It challenged the traditional class system; it challenged the designation of some people as superior and others (the many) as inferior. The Enlightenment argued for equal treatment under the law, equal opportunity for all, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, civil rights and civil liberties for everyone, the equality of women and minorities, and especially the separation of church and state and the freedom to practice any religion or no religion at all. The Enlightenment was indistinguishable from rationalism. Its more modern day descendant is probably secular humanism.

Baruch Spinoza is often called the philosophical founder of the Enlightenment. Other Enlightenment figures included Descartes, Locke, and Newton, Kant, Goethe and Voltaire. The classical economists like Adam Smith (but not the neo-classical economists like Pareto) were mostly associated with Enlightenment. More often than not Enlightenment figures were critics of the then prevailing religion. In the Age of Reason Thomas Paine wrote “Whenever we read ... the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind. And, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.”

Since the 18th century there has been an epic struggle between the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment. There have been many strands to the Counter-Enlightenments from the middle of the 18th century through to the 21st century. The Enlightenment has enemies on all points of the ideological compass, from the far left to the far right, and even points in between. Its most vehement critics have come from the Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism although current critics of the Enlightenment even include critical theorists, post-modernists and feminists.

I refer to the enemies of the Enlightenment as the Dark Forces. I identify five main categories of present day Dark Forces. These are puritanism, kleptocracy, fascism-nazism, statism and red guardism. These are necessarily arbitrary and arguable categorizations as many characteristics are shared by these cohorts.

The original Puritans wanted to “purify” the Christian church by following intensely strict religious principles, which earned them the name Puritan. Puritanism has come to mean adherence to scrupulous moral rigour and extreme strictness in religious matters and especially hostility to social pleasures and indulgences. The original Puritans in England and in the American colonies wanted to set up a theocratic state in which clergy had authority over both religious and civil life. Accordingly Puritanism is associated with a prominent role for religion and the preist hood in determining the laws of the land and political and social structure.

Puritanism has continued as a significant influence on Christianity - in recent times the Fundamentalists carry the puritan banner. A leading puritan philosopher of modern day Christians was Rousas John Rushdoony who was associated with the Reconstructionism movement which openly advocated theocracy and the restoration of Mosaic law. Rushdoony’s fundamentalist Calvinism has had an important but often unseen influence on the Christian Right in the United States.

The Reconstructionists looked to the Mosiac laws in the Old Testament as their guide for the society that they envisioned. Government posts would be reserved for the righteous, as long as they are male. There would be thousands of executions a year, with stoning a preferred method because it would turn the deaths into “community projects,” as movement theologian Gary North (Rushdoony’s son-in-law) has noted. Sinners in line for the death penalty would include women who commit adultery or lie about their virginity, blasphemers, witches, children who strike their parents, and gay men. Gays would be executed if they were caught indulging in sodomy.

Gary North succinctly set out what Reconstructionism was all about when he wrote,“We must use the doctrine of religious liberty…until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”

In the United States the open advocacy of biblical law has been restrained because in many cases it would be criminal. While a theoretical discussion about stoning disobedient children or adulterers might be protected as “freedom of speech” an intonation to stone a specific child or adulterer would land the good pastor in jail. Thusly Reconstructionist notions have more usually been advanced by mediators like Francis Shaeffer.

In the last several decades the extreme puritans have mostly been Muslims. While the Christian puritans especially in the U.S. are there, they are kept in check by a secular legal system. Muslim puritanism, however, is the official orthodoxy in countries as diverse Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. In the Islamic State and in Taliban Afghanistan the kind of puritanical extremism that the Reconstructionists can only theorize about is the law of the land. Stonings, death penalties for adulterous women, beheadings for blasphemy, persecution of gays ... are all common occurrences.

Muslim fundamentalists have often derived their theological premises from the intolerant puritanism of the Wahhabi and Salafi creeds. Wahhabism was founded by the eighteenth-century evangelist Muhammad ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab in the Arabian Peninsula. He wanted to rid Islam of the corruptions that he believed had crept into it. He was a strict literalist in which the text became the sole source of legitimate authority and like the Calvinists with respect to Christianity he was extremely hostile to intellectualism, mysticism, and any sectarian divisions within Islam. It was necessary to return to a pristine, simple, straightforward Islam, based on the literal implementation of the commands of the Prophet, and by strict adherence to correct ritual practice. Wahhabism opposed any modernization of Islam on account of changed circumstances. It perceived the vast majority of Islamic history as a corruption of the true and authentic Islam. It narrowly defined orthodoxy and was extremely intolerant of any creed that contradicted its own.

On the surface the Christian fundamentalists and Muslim fundamentalists are implacable enemies. Many Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. would like to make it illegal to be a Muslim and most Muslims in most Muslim ruled countries support making Christianity illegal. These two strands of fundamentalism, however, are also very similar - they both subscribe to the notion that their primary religious texts - the Koran in one case and the Old and New Testaments in the other - are the inerrant word of God. In arguing for inerrancy they both inevitably advance Abrahamic law - where there is no freedom of religion, where many offences are punishable by death - usually stoning - where there is a hatred of deviation.

One ever present characteristic of both Christian puritanism and Islamic puritanism is the fear of freedom for women. This intense desire to control women probably has a root in sexual monopolization but the targeting and degradation of women is more than just ensuring faithfulness to a mate. There is a certain undeniable vehemence and angst in the treatment of women, as if the more women are made to suffer, in order to secure the future of the religion. Puritan orientations do not hesitate to treat all theological arguments aimed at honouring women, by augmenting their autonomy and social mobility, as if they were part of the Western conspiracy designed to destroy Islam. This is also manifested in the puritans' tendency to look at Muslim women as a consistent source of danger and vulnerability for Islam, and to go as far as branding women as the main source of social corruption and evil.

The code word for the Enlightenment is secular humanism. Both Islamic and Christian fundamentalists are extremely hostile to "secular humanism". According to Francis A. Schaeffer in his book How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (1976) rampant secular humanism would lead to moral relativism and ethical bankruptcy. For Shaeffer secular humanism was pernicious and diabolical, and would morally and spiritually destroy America. This premise is a frequent theme in North American fundamentalism where secular humanism is typically portrayed as a vast evil conspiracy, deceitful and immoral, responsible for feminism, pornography, abortion, homosexuality, and New Age spirituality.

For the fundamentalists secular humanism is the devil’s work. One Christian pastor put it this way “We live in a day when there is a great war going on in the society in which we live. There are many battlefronts and aspects to the war, but the primary war in our day is between Christianity and secular humanism. Secular humanism is a religion and a philosophy of life which views man as the supreme being of the universe. It rejects the existence of God and the supernatural. It sees moral values as relative and changing and varying from person to person. It is important for every Christian to know the subtle ways that secular humanism is manifesting itself all around us. It is important for us to make decisions on a daily basis that demonstrate that we have not been captured, to any degree, by this intoxicating and persuasive philosophy and religion.”

Another fundamentalist preacher, Robert L. Waggoner writes “Many are only now suddenly awakening to the realization that the Christian foundations of our society have drastically eroded. Christians must realize a war is in progress. Christians must resist philosophical enemies. To defeat humanism, Christians must understand it and how it operates. Because Christians have too often failed to understand humanism, Christians have often compromised their beliefs and have therefore suffered defeat in many battles. The conflict between humanism and Christianity is a war of many battles. This war is about whether a third of our unborn children shall continue to be murdered within their mothers’ wombs. It’s about whether a fourth of all births in this nation will continue to be outside of wedlock. It’s about whether decency or pornography shall prevail. It’s about who controls the education of children – parents or civil governments. And it’s about many other such things. This document contrasts humanistic and Christian beliefs and their consequences within society, and notes reasons why Christians have been losing this war with humanists.”

An Islamic scholar Habib Siddiqui writes “In the minds of people, the term “humanism” has certain magic, electric charm – like the "Aladdin’s lantern”. It bemuses many with its so-called rational, liberating gimmicks. Many Muslims, therefore, have developed false opinions without questioning the origin of western humanism and its effect on modem man.”

Malaysian prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said, “They call it human rightism, where the core beliefs are based on humanism and secularism as well as liberalism. “It’s deviationist in that it glorifies the desires of man alone and rejects any value system that encompasses religious norms and etiquettes. They do this on the premise of championing human rights.”

Every religion has its puritans and they are increasingly powerful - the ultra orthodox jews, Hinduist extremists. Todays fundamentalists whether they identify as Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or other religion are the storm troopers of the new puritanism. They are out to destroy the enlightenment values which many of us thought had been preserved for all times with the defeat of Hitler.

SASKATOON'S EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS ANTI-BULLYING BYLAW

2016-03-19T21:13:00.004-07:00

I have earlier article on Regina’s anti-bullying by-law which I described as ridiculous. Saskatchewan’s other metropolis has done Regina one better with an anti-bullying bylaw which deserves unrelenting ridicule.

It starts with one of most far-reaching definition of bullying imaginable. Bullying is said to mean any unprovoked, repeated and inappropriate comment or conduct by a person which causes, which is intended to cause or which the person ought reasonably to know will cause harm, fear or physical or psychological distress to another person, including taunting, tormenting, name calling, ridiculing, insulting, mocking and directing slurs towards another person. kicking, pushing, hair pulling or pinching another person; and shunning, ostracizing, excluding another person and gossiping or rumour mongering about another person.

Lets distill this at its worse: Bullying is any ... conduct by a person ... which the person ought reasonably to know will cause ... psychological distress to another person, including ... name calling, ridiculing, insulting, mocking ... another person. At the time of considering this by-law there is an election going on in Saskatchewan. Better suspend that election in Saskatoon since any election in Saskatchewan involves a whole lot of ridiculing, insulting and mocking of another person.

Of course kicking, pushing, hair pulling and pinching all fall under one or more criminal offences and do not need to be nor should they be the subject of a municipal bylaw. As to a municipal by-law making it illegal to shun, ostracize or exclude another person - what can one reasonably say. People in Saskatoon will no longer be free to choose their friends and associates. This is a level of human relationship micro-management that would not even have been contemplated in the Soviet Union in the 1950's and 1960's. There is obviously no concern in this part of Canada about protecting free speech like in the United States with its First Amendment.

The ultimate absurdity is making gossiping illegal. Gossiping is a universal human social behavior - there have been estimates that it makes up forty per cent or more of human discourse. Of course to stop gossiping it will be necessary to have multiple microphones in all public places - one up on the omnipresent cameras in the U.K.

The definition of "public place" includes any place to which the public has access as of right or by express or implied invitation. In other words public place includes restaurants, bookstores, community halls, clubs, golf courses, churches, etc. as well as roads, streets, parks and other places traditionally considered public. A political rally would most likely be deemed to be taking place in a public place.

Retired Saskatoon police Sgt. Brian Trainor, a gentleman who is now making his living in the burgeoning anti-bullying industry, loves it. He says “I think it’s an intermediary tool that the police can use instead of a slap on the wrist or doing nothing.” What this really means is that police have another tool to push people around - bully them if you like. The bullying will invariably be directed at young people. If a police officer doesn’t like some young person’s attitude he or she will have an excuse to levy charge which can result in a significant fine.

The accused has the ability to participate in mediation to deal with charges as an alternative to the court process; this all sounds so nice and goodie, good but really it is just another way to interfere in a person’s life in what can be a most Kafkaesque manner.

If approved, the proposed effective date of the Bylaw is September 1, 2016, which will permit implementation of an awareness campaign and provide time for an appropriate mediation program to be developed to handle the diversion of matters from the court process. People who push these kind of laws like the notion of diversion from the court process - because what it really means is avoiding oversight from judges who might still have some vestigial appreciation of civil liberties

MUNICIPAL CODES OF CONDUCT

2015-03-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

CODES OF CONDUCT

The thing about 21st century totalitarianism is that it seems so nice at first appearance. Like Codes of Conduct. Shouldn’t codes of conduct be welcome. Isn’t it a social good to encourage people to be polite to one another?

Codes of conduct have been notoriously imposed on many U.S. campuses. But free speech limiting, democracy restricting codes are not limited to universities. For example they are being widely adapted by municipal governments in Canada. This is particularly true in Ontario, which in many ways is Canada’s leader in “soft authoritarianism”. Codes of conduct have been popping up here and there all over the province. Missisauga, is a sprawling suburban town outside of Toronto which was famous for its (now retired) 93 year old mayor, Hazel McCallion. It also has a very extensive Code of Conduct governing its elected Council. It is appropriately divided into rules - yes, a list of rules just like the Councillors would have been subjected to forty years earlier in high school.

Rule No. 10 of the its Code of Conduct reads “members of Council will accurately communicate the decisions of Mississauga City Council, even if they disagree with the majority decision of Council, and by doing so affirm the respect for and integrity in the decision-making processes of Council.” It is difficult to imagine a more blatant way to chill opposition to Council decisions. A critical Councillor will invariably be tagged with not accurately “communicating the decisions”. Why should a Councillor be forced to affirm respect for and integrity of the decision-making process of Council when he or she disagree with that process and the decisions resulting from the process.

The commentary attached to Rule No. 10 makes it even worse. It says “A Member should refrain from making disparaging comments about other members of Council or about councils, processes and decisions. In other words, a Councillor cannot criticize Council decisions. Missisauga does not tolerate opposition. Goodbye democracy, Mississauga.

Rule No. 11 of the Missisauga Code keeps up the assault on political opposition when it says that Members “shall encourage public respect for the city and its bylaws”. Why? - if a Councillor disagrees with the bylaws and does not respect the type of decision-making being made in the City? This Rule goes beyond telling a Councillor that he or she should not encourage citizens to violate a bylaw. In compelling a Councillor to be a cheerleader for a bylaw with which he or she disagrees, it is totally inappropriate in a democratic society.

Rule No. 11 also says “Members shall conduct themselves with decorum at all times.” Imposing such a requirement on a Councillor also has no basis in a democratic society. A Council is a political body and an elected member in a democratic society has every right to “rant and rave” at political meetings in the community and sometimes even to abandon “decorum” at a Council meeting or elsewhere.

Rule No. 13 reads, “Members shall be respectful of the role of staff to advise based on political neutrality and objectivity and without undue influence from any individual Member or faction of the Council.” This rule effectively shields municipal management from criticism from Councillors. It is also, of course, ridiculous to claim that staff advice is based on “political neutrality and objectivity”. The import of such a statement is that staff advice is pure and above reproach. A Councillor is essentially disallowed from stating that staff advice is anything other than politically neutral or objective. Subrule 13(4) includes the further chilling provision “all members shall show respect for the professional capacities of the staff of the City.” In other words, don’t disagree with what we say because we are the professionals and you councillors are the know-nothing amateurs.

The Town Council in Carleton Place employs a cop to ensure that councillors do not get out of hand. The deputy mayor, Ed Sonnenburg, was reprimanded for a series of e-mails that used “offensive” language in a message to a resident and others that criticized the town’s chief administrative officer, Paul Knowles. The town’s integrity commissioner, Robert Swayze, a lawyer in Caledon, Ont who at the time was the integrity commissioner for nine different Ontario municipalities, suspended Sonnenburg’s pay for four weeks which was a penalty amounting to about $1,700. Swayze cited a couple of examples of unacceptable behaviors: the Councillor sent e-mails about changes in a development plan discussed at meeting he apparently missed, only to learn the news from a ratepayer: The e-mail: “But then again, council has been proven over and over again to be powerless” ... and “For Paul (the CAO) once again a ratepayer is providing information to a councillor.” Or another e-mail about a capital project in town: “Who decided to build what on whose authority --- or is it just the CAO using his discretion again?” Council, it turned out, had approved the very work.

The Carleton Place Code of Conduct contains the following: “Members of council....shall treat every person including other Members of Council, corporate employees...and the public, with dignity, understanding and respect for the right to equality and the right to an environment that is safe and free from harassment and discrimination.” The writer of an article in the Ottawa Citizen concerning the Councillor’s problems made the following comment: “On the one hand, especially among elected officials, is scrutiny and criticism of each other not just part of having a healthy democracy? It’s not kindergarten. Look at that band of partisan banshees up on Parliament Hill. One wonders, too, whether these limits on free expression would even stand up in court. It is troubling, too, that the integrity commissioner has been delegated to decide what is and isn’t contrary to council’s code of conduct, which is written in that “everybody play nice” kind of language.”

It is troubling that an unelected official can exercise this kind of authority over an elected councillor. Councillor Sonnenburg was essentially reduced to a civil servant by a non-elected “Integrity Commissioner”. It doesn’t matter if the councillor’s comments were accurate or inaccurate - it is incompatible with democracy that he can be punished for making these kinds of comments.

Port Hope (Ontario, of course) exemplifies everything that is perversely undemocratic about municipal codes of conduct. Under the heading “What are the Responsibilities of Council Members?” one finds this statement “Political Activity - Members of Council are to be allowed as great a measure of political rights as can be reconciled with the need to ensure the fact and appearance of impartiality, in the performance of their duties with the Municipality as Members of Council. The point at which any appropriate balance can be struck in any particular case depends primarily on the nature and level of the Council Member's responsibilities.” This statement basically says that the political freedom of a councillor is something that we will try to allow but don’t count on it. The drafter of this document suffers from democracy impairment - an elected councillor is a politician and as such it is his or her role to express their opinions and to represent the views of their constituents. He or she is not “allowed” political rights. Political rights are fundamental to being a democratically elected representative.

Even more outrageous is Port Hope’s provision on Public Comment: “In accordance with the Municipality's Communications Policy, By-law Number 115/2007 every member of Council shall display the reserve inherent in his/her position with the Municipality when publicly expressing his/her personal opinions on matters of political controversy or on existing or proposed municipal policy or administration. This policy is not intended to restrict the legitimate public comment of spokespersons of Council, nor the public comment of Council Members on matters of essentially a personal interest related to his/her position as a Council Member with the Municipality of Port Hope.”

A councillor is not required to display any “reserve” when it comes to publicly expressing his/her personal opinions on matters of political controversy or an existing or proposed municipal policy or administration. To quote from a letter written by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association when the City of Victoria was considering a similar conduct provision “Political debate, by its very nature, can involve heated discussions on matters of great contention. It can involve polemics and diatribes. This may, again by its nature, result in people being offended. It may involve people having their motives questioned and that is, as we would expect in any truly open and democratic process. The accountability of Councillors for their conduct in these regards is to electors.”

Michael Vonn of the B.C.C.L.A. made a particularly valid point about codes of conduct that prohibit councillors from openly criticizing staff. She said "The downside if you have a code of conduct that includes the requirement that you respect or consider the self-esteem of staff and colleagues, you really are in an area of chilling appropriate political speech. Obviously in the context of debate, people are going to disagree. You have to allow for that disagreement without the chill of having somebody being brought up on a conduct matter."

What we see with codes of conduct is the downgrading of municipal councils to the role of an advisory board to the unelected bureaucrats. Is it the level of democracy closest to the people or it is it the level of bureaucracy with the closest control over the people? One has to think the latter is more accurate.

ONE BIG REGISTRY

2015-03-09T20:10:00.000-07:00

Online registries are flourishing in the U.S. Politicians just can not resist them. Identify a bad set of behaviors and then legislate an online registry naming the miscreants that have engaged in that kind of behavior.

SEX OFFENCE REGISTRIES

The movement to create online registries - like compulsory reporting laws - were initially motivated by crimes against children. Sex registries in the U.S. began in California in 1947 but were not used in a major way until 1994 with passage of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act - which required states to form a database of offenders convicted of sexually violent offenses or offenses against children. In 1996 following the abduction and murder of seven-year-old Megan Kankain New Jersey, the law (Megan’s Law) was amended to require law enforcement to make registration data public.

Like compulsory reporting laws on-line registries have not remained confined to horrendous sex crimes against children. While they were originally intended to name the worst of the worst, sex offender registries have gradually broadened to include any type of sexual offence. For example offenses listed on Pennsylvania’s sex offender registry include “aggravated indecent assault,” “unlawful contact or communication with a minor” and “sexual assault.” New York’s list is even broader including patronizing a prostitute.

As a result in 2013, there were nearly 750,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S., including individuals convicted of non-violent crimes such as consensual sex between teenagers, prostitution and public nudity, as well as those who committed their only offenses decades ago. Children as young as 13 have been placed on a registry.

Jill Levenson, an associate professor of psychology at Lynn University in Florida, questions the effectiveness of sex offender registries. She references Department of Justice figures that conclude that only 13 percent of new sex crimes are committed by known sex offenders, and that such crimes are at least six times more likely to be committed by other types of offenders who do not appear on any sex offender registry. She notes that studies, that have examined the effect of registry and notification laws for sex offenders on recidivism, “do not show a decrease in repeat sex offenses that can be attributed to sex offender registry or notification.”

MORE REGISTRIES

There are now a host of registries listing non-sexual offenders. In fact an organized effort to establish a new registry seems to always succeed. Typically the New York State Senate voted 57 to 4 on Tuesday for a violent offenders registry. In Illinois, the murderer’s registry bill passed the House in April by a 97-to-1 vote. Representative Monique Davis, the lone member of the Illinois House to oppose the law, said that although she favored the state’s sex offender registry, “I just don’t think that a murderer registry is of much value to anyone except those getting paid to set it up.” She noted that the recidivism rate for murder was very low to begin with and that the state, facing a deficit of more than $4 billion, could not afford the cost of another registry. In fact murderers have among the lowest rates of recidivism. Only about 1.2 percent of convicted murderers go on to commit another murder within three years of their release; roughly 35 percent commit other types of crimes within the same time period.

Activist groups across the U.S. are successfully promoting registries for drunk drivers even though as Maine State Representative Gary Plummer, a Republican, stated they are “prohibitively expensive.” He said “I haven’t even gotten to the point of considering is it fair to put people on this type of registry, when we don’t have the resources” to do it, he said of the drunken driver bill, adding that he had also opposed proposals for arsonist and animal abuser registries as too costly.

BAD TENANT REGISTRIES.

With all these stories about bad tenants, Ontario PC MPP Ernie Hardeman has called on the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to look into creating a registry where bad tenants (and bad landlords) could be listed and seen by the public. Hardeman said “there must be a way that once you have a record that record becomes public.” And BC landlords now the importance of tenant screening. And even Alberta landlords are making sure they rent to great tenants and avoid the pro bad tenants.

ANIMAL ABUSE REGISTRIES.

In fact registries are no longer being restricted to crimes against humans. Suffolk County, on the eastern half of Long Island, has created the nation's first animal abuse registry, requiring people convicted of cruelty to animals to register or face jail time and fines. The online list is open to the public, so that pet owners or the merely curious can find out whether someone living near them is on it - on the theory that some animal abusers have been known to steal their neighbors' pets.

"We know there is a very strong correlation between animal abuse and domestic violence," said Suffolk County legislator Jon Cooper, the bill's sponsor. Repeating was essentially is an urban legend he said "Almost every serial killer starts out by torturing animals, so in a strange sense we could end up protecting the lives of people."

Cathy Mulnard, a founder and co-director of Second Chance Rescue, a Suffolk animal shelter, said about animal abusers "They don't mean to be bad to the animal, but they get overwhelmed and don't know how to ask for help. They may be innocent abusers," She called the legislation "a godsend for the animals." She added "We take care of our animals and love our animals the way you do your children," she said. "We need to protect every animal that's out there because they don't make the decisions in their life; human beings do."

Suffolk County is also notorious for having imposed such onerous restrictions on sex offenders exceeding those required by New York State law that it was faced with a situation where 40 sex offenders ended up living in two cramped trailers located in isolated locations.

Animal Abuse Registries exemplifies the whole problem with laws created by people with good intentions. As SCOTT H. GREENFIELD, says on his Simple Justice blog “Animal abuse is wrong, therefore anything that causes misery to animal abusers is good. And this is how bad law happens.” He observes that animal registries (like other registries) essentially gets the bad guy twice “You mean they were already sentenced for their crime? You mean they served their sentence, paid their dues, and only afterward do they get this dumped on them, on top of everything else?” Another erosion of the rule against double jeopardy.

ONE BIG REGISTRY

Every time there is publicity about some repugnant act - idling a car in a parking lot, smoking in the vicinity of children, throwing a plastic bottle into a culvert, saying something hateful about a religious belief, some legislator somewhere in the U.S. will be trying to create another registry. So the country will invariably end up with a significant portion of the population on a bad person registry. Eventually the various registries will be combined into one BIG REGISTRY.

In fact, in British Columbia, Canada that has happened. B.C.’s Court Services Online provides public access to court records including the Provincial Court ticket records and Provincial Court criminal records. Most of the records displayed on this site are traffic offences or criminal code offences. Some offences are even municipal bylaw offences or offences under provincial or federal Acts, such as the Fisheries Act. B.C’s Online Registry, like other registries, is accessed by all the information systems that are being utilized by government and policing institutions in Canada and the U.S. so invariably a person trying to travel to the U.S. will be stopped from entering the country because of catching a fish that was too small or failing to license the cat.

FOOD FASCISTS

2015-03-06T20:13:00.001-08:00

How do contemporary authoritarians differ from authoritarians of yesteryear. In most of the developed world today’s authoritarians are a gentler bunch. They don’t (usually) want to use a secret police force to beat up, execute or jail the miscreants that violate the rules. On the other hand there are a lot of areas of a person’s life that were untouched by old authoritarians but into which the new authoritarians are more than willing to intrude. For example, food. They want to regulate what you eat. Food may well be the next big expansion area of illegality.

The authoritarians almost invariably use health to justify their initiatives. At the forefront of health concerns is obesity. Fighting obesity is now up there with fighting drugs. The war on obesity has not yet been officially declared but the anti-obesity forces are marching to the front lines. Those famous U.S. SWAT teams may soon be breaking down the doors of the obese and emptying the refrigerators!

For the time being the measures being proposed to fight obesity are usually financial like special punitive taxes on disfavored foods such as a one percent excise tax on so-called junk food. Special excise taxes are also being proposed on the sale of soft drinks or soft drink syrup and on bottled, ready-to-drink tea or coffee, sports drinks, spring or mineral water, and flavoured milk products. It is called “taxing fat”. American food warriors are advocating prohibiting the use of food stamps for the “incorrect foods” which is to be expected, since we all know that the poor are the fattest of them all. It is an historical constant that so much authoritarianism originates from an upper middle class disapproving of the behaviour of the poor.

Some Food Fascists advocate subsidizing veggies and organics. Other Food Fascists simply want to ban a wide range of foods of which they disapprove. There is a long list of proposed bans ranging from large sodas to anything that is a product of biotechnology.

There are lots of food fascists who would like to ban the eating of meat. They claim that meat and dairy industries take up 38% of the world's land use and account for 70% of global freshwater consumption or, in other words, the planet is to small and crowded to permit unrestricted consumption of meat. We could supposedly feed 10 billion of people if we would go on a vegan diet planetary-wide. Meat is also accused (unsupported by carefully controlled tests) of causing all sorts of diseases including arthritis, cancer, diabetes, obesity, excessive cholesterol/ high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. So meat will be banned because it is for your own good.

Children as usual are a favorite target of the authoritarians (who seem to be particularly numerous in the education system) who want to re-engineer school lunches to the point of inedibility. At Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not even allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria. Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices. "Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school," Carmona said. "It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception".

Parents of students at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic School in Hamilton, Ontario, are being asked to avoid putting dairy, eggs and fish into their kids’ lunches because of one student’s severe allergies. Clamoring PC food fascists can intimidate your favorite restaurant into removing your favorite dish from its menu.

How far will they go. Will doctors be required to report people who have poor diet habits? Do they report parents who allow their children to eat too many sugary foods. Doctors in Ontario already have compulsory reporting obligations under eighteen different statutes. Why not add another one.

Standing just behind the people who want to ban a wide list of allegedly unhealthy foods is another group of Food Fascists. These are people from health departments and agencies - they see e coli lurking in any food product that has not been properly incinerated. They have a habit of targeting food production and sale where there have been few reported incidences, e.g. Chinese barbecued meats.

Does Food Fascism have any scientific justification. A study from the University of North Carolina showed that today's fatter kids are not eating more than 20 years ago, they're just exercising less. Another study involving 400,000 people has shown that eating lots of fruit and vegetables makes little difference to your risk of getting cancer. This contradicts the received opinion of nutritionists who have for years bombarded us with bossy propaganda telling us we must eat five fruit and vegetables every day.

Another study involving 400,000 people has shown that eating lots of fruit and vegetables makes little difference to a person’s risk of getting cancer. So much for nutritionists dictating that we must eat five fruit and vegetables every day.

Consequently food scares are being constantly being revised. New ones added. Old ones dropped. At the same time food fad come and go. We have those radical vegetarians who wish to ban the consumption of meat. We have the paleo diet people who oppose eating any food that was a product of the agricultural revolution - which incidentally was so bad for Homo Sapiens that it resulted in a huge increase in our population.

Unfortunately Food Fascism will be pushed along by well intentioned politicians backed by a well intentioned public. The latest evidence is a poll commissioned by the do-gooders at the Public Health Agency of Canada claiming that a “majority of Canadians” support a ban on the marketing of candy, pop, chips and other essential fun foods of childhood as well as near-majority support for new taxes on treats.

VERBOTEN

2015-02-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

The censorship of commentary does not necessarily start with overt repression. A social and political milieu can convince people not to express unwelcome words or notions ab initio. State repression is unnecessary if people can be coerced to repress themselves.

Speech intolerance is enveloping our culture. The most egregious form of this non-legislated censorship is found on American university campuses where elaborate speech codes have become almost universal. The new censorship, however, is not limited to universities. Public personalities must carefully parse their speech to avoid saying or writing anything that offends an ever developing code of correctness. Even a celebrity like Madonna was forced to apologize for alleged racism after re-posting fan art of famous people’s faces such as Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Bob Marley tied up in rope in order to look like the cover of her forthcoming album Rebel Heart.

A staunch conservative like former University of Calgary political scientist Mr. Flanagan was spectacularly exposed to the new censorship. He learnt that is not permissible to say anything that downplays or questions any aspect of the protection of children. Mr. Flanagan had in a previous university talk endeavored to distinguish between crimes that involve the abuse of actual children and those that involve "just pictures." In response to a question about people who are jailed just for viewing child pornography on the internet, he said "I certainly have no sympathy for child molesters," but then added, "It is a real issue of personal liberty to what extent we put people in jail for doing something in which they do not harm another person."

Now there is an obvious response to this statement; namely, that pictures of child pornography usually require a child being subjected to pornographic acts. Mr. Flanagan’s comments, however, were not met with a reasoned response. He had made the mistake of uttering a a verboten opinion. By the end of the day, his employer of 45 years, the University of Calgary, had disassociated itself from him and the CBC had fired him as a commentator. Subsequently he would be disinvited from speaking engagements across North America.

Mr. Flanagan’s friends on the Right were first and foremost in denouncing him. Mr. Flanagan had worked hard to help build Danielle. Smith's Wildrose party into a credible political force in 2008. But now, Danielle Smith was declaring "There is no language strong enough to condemn Dr. Flanagan's comments," She said the party would no longer have anything to do with him. The federal Conservatives followed suit. The Prime Minister's communications director, Andrew McDougall said in a tweet "Tom Flanagan's comments on child pornography are repugnant, ignorant, and appalling”.

President Kathleen McCartney, the president of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, learnt how remarkably easy it is to cross the line separating permissible and non-permissible speech. She was forced to profusely apologize simply for sending an e-mail to students that had the subject line, “All Lives Matter.” She quickly sent a second email expressing regret that she was unaware the phrase “All Lives Matter” was being used on social media as a counterargument to the “BlackLivesMatter” movement. One student wrote “It minimizes the anti-blackness of this the current situation; yes, all lives matter, but not all lives are being targeted for police brutality,”

Kathleen McCartney had previously “crossed the line” because there is a long list of words you can't say at Smith College - or apparently reproduce in the student paper. She had said “We’re just wild and crazy, aren’t we. The comment was re-written in a transcript in the student newspaper to read “[Smith President]: We're just wild and [ableist slur], aren't we?”

Smith alumna Wendy Kaminer, a feminist lawyer and civil-liberties advocate, spoke on a panel discussion on free speech and hate speech at the College in September, 2013 and asked the audience what word came to mind when she said "the n-word." When they said it out loud, she repeated it and said "nothing horrible happened." Kaminer was accused in the Huffington Post of committing "an explicit act of racial violence," President McCartney - who moderated the panel - had obviously learnt her lesson - she even apologized for those who felt "unsafe" listening to Kaminer.

Trigger warnings are customary in some feminist and other spaces. They are designed to prevent people who have an extremely strong and damaging emotional response (for example, post-traumatic flashbacks or urges to harm themselves) to certain subjects from encountering them unaware. Having these responses is called "being triggered".

A blog with the title “Kyriarchy & Privilege 101” gives a list of triggering words ot types of words which includes swearing, talk of drug use (legal, illegal or psychiatric), descriptions/pictures of medical procedures (even if they don't contain blood or gore), any time slurs are used (this includes words like "stupid" or "dumb"), death or dying, spiders, insects, snakes, vomit, pregnancy/childbirth, blood, serious injury and best of all “slimy things”. Perhaps the blog was being satirical - it is getting increasingly hard to distinguish between when some of these people are being satirical or “correct” to an absurd degree. Perhaps satirical, perhaps extremist - it does give a flavour of the trigger word mentality.

The trigger warning idiocy is inevitably leading to even broader speech code rules at American universities. Oberlin College, for example, recommends that its faculty "remove triggering material when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals". When material is simply too important to take out entirely, the college recommends trigger warnings. Things Falling Apart is a novel about the great harms of colonialism, At Oberlin College “Things Fall Apart” now carries the warning that it “may trigger readers who have experienced racism, colonialism, and religious persecution, violence, suicide, and more” even though “it is a great and important book”.

Trigger warnings have inevitably become a way to short-circuit uncomfortable, unpopular or offensive arguments. It is a new way to try to control speech.

The Oxford University Press, which bills itself as the largest university press in the world, provided another startling example of declaring certain words verboten. It has told its authors not to mention pigs or sausages, or anything else which could be perceived as pork in their books in order to avoid offending Muslims and Jews.

A few years back in an effort to eliminate potential "unpleasant emotions" among students, the New York Department of Education placed a ban on mentioning 50 or so common words including “birthdays, dinosaurs,slavery,Halloween, evolution and dancing" in city-issued tests. After considerable ridicule New York’s educators (?) rescinded the ban.

So we can see two different developments. Firstly, specific topics have become off limits. At the same time more and more words are being removed from permissible communication. This adds up to a chilling effect on freedom of speech generally. In order to avoid running afoul of these inhibitors” politicians or media commentators will studiously avoid meaningful debate. It is all part and parcel of a frightened, cowed society.

THE SCOTTISH NEW ORDER - A SOCIAL WORKER FOR EVERY CHILD

2014-12-16T22:25:00.003-08:00

The Scottish National Party (SNP) are leaders in establishing the contemporary Nanny State. Their triumphant piece of legislation is the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, under which every child from birth will be given a "named person", charged with keeping an eye on that child's interests until he or she reaches adulthood (age of 18). A specific government worker will be assigned to every child at birth. These “named persons” will be charged with safeguarding each child’s welfare and with representing the state to the family. Lets repeat that - every child in Scotland, not just children who are subject to abuse or neglect, gets a state minder.

The Children and Young People Bill was introduced to Parliament on 17 April 2013, passed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament on 19 February 2013, and received Royal Assent on 27 March 2014, making the Bill an Act of the Scottish Parliament. The legislation is intended to be fully implemented by 2016. It is a World First - there has not been a scheme providing for universal state surveillance of youth since the Nazis made the Hitler Youth compulsory for all German children in 1939. The guardians will be chosen from among existing teachers and healthcare professionals and will be people who may already exist in a child's life but they are being given extra powers which make them in effect an overseer of parents and parenting.

The scheme has been trialed in the Highlands since 2010. A council spokeswoman says 7,927 children have been given a “child’s plan” by a head teacher or health visitor. Before the trial began, there were just 64 children on the child protection at-risk register in the whole Highland council area, now every child is supervised AS IF at-risk.

Every Health Board in Scotland must appoint a “named person” to every child at birth - the named person will be a health worker until the child reaches the age of five. After the age of 5 the responsibility will then pass to councils until the child reaches 18, with teachers expected to be asked to take on the role.

A Health Board is responsible for keeping records, not only on every child but on their parents too, who will be assessed against the new National Risk Framework. This can be used by “any practitioner in any circumstances where agencies are exploring a child’s needs”. Section 23 of the bill, “Communication in relation to movement of children and young people” requires that if any family in Scotland moves home, their local health board/authority current “named person” must pass on all the information held on each adult and child to the “named person” in the area to which the child moves. A head start perhaps on a dossier which will be built up over a person’s lifetime.

The new legislation significantly reduces the threshold for state intervention in a child’s parenting. The previous test was that a child must be at “serious risk of harm”; now the test is merely the risk of not meeting state dictated ‘wellbeing’ outcomes. These well-being outcomes are set out in a “National Risk Framework to Support the Assessment of Children and Young People. What comes through very clearly in this document is that parents must be compliant. They had better not shown any resistance to the opinions and actions of the intervening professional. What is required (if parents do not want to “lose” their children) is “An admission by a parent of the problem and a willingness to co-operate with a treatment and intervention programme ...” A resistance related risk Indicator for a parent includes merely having “a different perception of the problems/risks.” In Nazi Germany children could be taken away from their parents if they did not provide a "politically reliable" home; in modern Scotland a child will be taken away if the parent fails to provide the kind of idealized, middle-class parenting that young social workers were taught in university.

PART 5 of Scotland’s totalitarian legislation is headed CHILD’S PLAN. Yes the State has a PLAN for each child that a Named Person thinks has a well-being need. The Named Person will rarely be called out for making a wrong assessment since “A child has a wellbeing need if the child’s wellbeing is being, or is at risk of being, adversely affected by any matter.” When Big Mother has identified a well-being need the child is made the subject of a “targeted intervention”. At that point the state will decide whether the targeted boy or girl requires a CHILD’S PLAN. The responsible authority is required only as “reasonably practicable to ascertain and have regard to the views of the child, and the child’s parents.” Scotland’s very own Balder von Shirach, Children's Minister Aileen Campbell, very magnanimously declared "we recognise that parents ALSO have a role" in raising their children. A subsidiary one, of course.

The scheme fundamentally replaces parents with state officials. For example under new guidance issued to Scotland’s schools teachers whose under age pupils admit having sex are instructed to inform the SNP’s planned network of “state guardians” instead of parents. The Scottish Government document advises teachers they should contact the youngster’s “named person” if a pupil tells them about sexual behaviour that raises a “child protection concern”. Any other information that raises the possibility the pupil’s welfare is at risk must also be passed to the named person, according to the advice. It makes no mention of telling mothers or fathers.

Perhaps the order of the initials for Scotland’s ruling party got mixed up. Rather than SNP it should be NSP as in National Socialist Party or Nazi.

BIG DATA AND BAD PEOPLE

2014-11-29T15:38:00.000-08:00

What is big data? Wikipedia defines big data as an all-encompassing term for any collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process them using traditional data processing applications. Big data is the machine-based collection and analysis of astronomical quantities of information. Vast quantities of data are analyzed to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, market trends, customer preferences and other useful business information. Algorithms are used to search for statistical correlations between one kind of behavior and another. The data is typically derived from the internet and includes web server logs and Internet clickstream data, social media content and social network activity reports, text from customer emails and survey responses, mobile-phone call detail records and machine data.

Essentially, big data is all about following and then analyzing our digital footprints on the internet and elsewhere. Every aspect of our life including location records via mobile phones, purchases via credit cards and interests via web-surfing behavior has been recorded and potentially shared by some entity somewhere. All of this data is then analyzed to provide fundamental insights into both our personal and collective behavior. The unpleasant reality is that these insights can be surprisingly revealing.

Just how powerfully intrusive is big data. A recent study published in the journal Science found that just four bits of information mined from a shopper's credit card could be used to uniquely identify ninety per cent of individuals. The credit card information was made up of ordinary, every day expenditures such as where the individual bought coffee or purchased a new sweater or pair of shoes.

Credit cards use was just as reliable at identifying someone as mobile phone records. An individual could be re-identified with "just a few more additional data points” even if some of the specifics were removed from credit card data, such as the general area where a purchase was made instead of the specific shop or if the time range was expanded to one day to 15. Interestingly women were more identifiable from metadata than men. Similarly people with higher incomes were also easier to identify.

Data brokers collect consumer information and then sell it to other companies. They are not hindered by "do not track" option which are available on many browsers, since it is not legally binding. Giant data-collection firms sort details of online and offline purchases to help categorize people as runners or hikers, spenders or savers, conservatives or liberals, main streamers or counter-culturalists and so on.

A bank will use the data to assess a mortgage applicants credit worthiness. Big data’s supposed predictive qualities go far beyond the traditional elements which determine whether a person has good credit i.e. the person has paid all of his or her loans and debts in a timely fashion. For example, a person’s contacts on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn can be used to assess his or her "character and capacity" when it comes to loans. This might be done by “analyzing” friends. Are they rich? Are they poor. If a number of associations with losers are detected by algorithms, a person can be labeled a poor credit risk and disqualified from a loan. The individual may very well never find out about the true cause of the loan rejection - the “”lender will likely avoid being up front about the reason.

It has been suggested that even the repayment history of the other customers of stores where a person shops can result in a negative "behavioral scoring". Although this method of credit rating (guilt-by-association) is something that is totally beyond an individual’s control, lenders will use it because it provides a reliable statistical inference. The consequences, however, for the individual will likely be horrendous.

Insurers are particularly excited by big data. It is costly to use blood, urine and other physical tests to assess a person’s health. Big data, however, may be able to reveal as much about a person as a lab analysis of bodily fluids. The individual leaves an information trail that show such lifestyle factors as exercise habits and fast-food diets which can be used to estimate risk for illnesses such as high blood pressure and depression. Similarly the individual might reveal concern about injuries and illnesses from websites that are visited.

The contemporary notion of privacy is based on two premises; namely, 1) individual choice in the sense that there is informed consent to disclosure and 2) on anonymization or that data is decoupled from an identified individual. With big data, however, the information is used and reused in a manner separate from purpose for which it was originally provided. Similarly even if the information is devoid of identifying data, the relationships between the individual pieces will identify the individual.

A person can avoid creating bad data by simply by cutting himself or herself off from the internet. We can’t help that suspect that “no data” will have the same negative consequence as having no credit cards and no mortgages.

The negative impact of big data is not limited to a form of economic blackballing. Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Security Agency in the U.S. has full access to internet information and all the analytic tools of big data. Combine this access to an individual’s digital footprint (which, of course, is mostly gratuitously created by the individual) with all the information that government already has on individuals through income tax and social program records, financial disclosure requirements, travel records and the like and you have the blueprint for surveillance at a level never previously approached even in highly totalitarian societies.

Assurances are given that these super powers of surveillance will only be used to counter terrorism or the drug trade or other nefarious activities ... but once a “power” is there does it ever really remain benign for very long. There will be an inevitable expansion in the ways that super surveillance is used to “regulate” the entire population.

THEY KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU - A GOVERNMENT DOSSIER ON EVERY PERSON

2014-11-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

We are moving step by step to a world where the national governments in the U.K., Australia, the U.S. and Canada will have a dossier on each of its citizens. It will be quickly and readily accessible to a number of government officials, security agencies and police. The information in the dossier will be extensive - it will include detailed financial information, information on tax and GST filings, information on travel history, information on property ownership and information on political tendencies.

This article looks at the development of the information web in Canada - there are similar legislative trends in the U.S., Australia and the U.K. The information web is not yet perfected but it is quickly getting bigger and better. Most of the legislative framework is in place. Components of the dossier system in Canada include the following:

Border Crossing Information

On December 13, 2012 Canada signed a Treaty with the United States of America (U.S.) to enable systematic immigration information sharing between the two countries on border crossings. The Treaty creates a legally binding instrument under international law to govern systematic information sharing. Two separate implementing arrangements are currently contemplated under the Treaty. The first covers systematic biographic information sharing to be implemented in 2014, and the second will cover systematic biometric information sharing to be implemented in 2015.

Canada and the United States under the so-called bilateral “Entry/Exit Initiative,” are already collecting and exchanging the entry data at all land border ports of entry of third-country nationals, permanent residents, visitors, foreign students and those who are here on work permits. The personal information collected includes a traveler’s name, date of birth, nationality, sex, document type, document number, work location code/port of entry code, date and time of entry, and the country where the travel document was issued. The scope of the program is being extended to all people traveling through land border crossings, including Canadian and American citizens. Canadian and American authorities will automatically be notified of every border crossing by a citizen, immigrant or visitor almost instantaneously under the vastly expanded border control system. The system will track the movements of Canadian and American citizens with "near real-time" exchange of information between government agencies. Ultimately, in the program’s final phase, Canada will develop a system to establish exit records similar to those in the United States, where airlines are required to submit passenger info on outbound international flights.

The program will pass the tracking information on to other federal departments in Canada and the United States. The Canada Border Services Agency has confirmed the new practice and said data would be passed on only in accordance with stringent rules. CBSA spokesperson Esme Bailey would not say if this new program would be used as an enforcement tool for purposes other than border security, however, she said “access to the information will be limited to designated users with an operational requirement for the information on a “need-to-know” basis. But the revelation is raising questions about privacy, how the information will be used and whether the federal government plans to use this data to crack down on immigration, citizenship, health and tax cheats.

The United States will be allowed to share information about Canadians with other countries under a sweeping border deal. The U.S. will not be required to explicitly tell Canada about its plan to pass along the personal details.

Immigration policy analyst Richard Kurland said “With this system, it is a blank cheque to the Big Brother. Where you go and when you go becomes government property.” Kurland noted that the data collected can be used as an enforcement tool of immigrant residency and citizenship laws for newcomers, as well as in the application of health care and taxation rules for Canadian citizens by counting their days spent in Canada.

Citizenship

The Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, known as Bill C-24, which was enacted in July, 2014, contains provisions which gives Ottawa broad new powers to disclose information. It is not yet known to whom such information will be disclosed as he Act gives the government power to pass a set of regulations which will set out the details to whom and under what circumstances such information will be disclosed.

In fact regulations may be passed under the Act to provide for the collection, retention, use, disclosure and disposal of information for the purposes of the Act. Regulations may also provide for the disclosure of information for the purposes of national security, the defence of Canada or the conduct of international affairs. International Affairs includes the implementation of an agreement or arrangement entered into under section 5 of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act or in other words an agreement for information sharing with a foreign government. Additionally regulations may be passed to provide for the disclosure of information to verify the citizenship status or identity of any person for the purposes of administering any federal or provincial law or law of another country. Finally regulations may provide for the disclosure of information for the purposes of cooperation within the Government of Canada and between the Government of Canada and the government of a province. To summarize, information may be shared with other federal departments, with provincial departments and with foreign governments. There is no guarantee that this information will be narrowly restricted to relevant immigration issues. Given that other provisions of the Act require prospective citizens to make broad disclosure of their personal affairs, the government dossiers on New Canadians will have some extra heft.

Income Tax Enforcement

Section 241 of the Canadian Income Tax Act seemingly requires the CRA to keep taxpayer information confidential but this traditional privacy notion has been largely amended out of existence. There is a long list of exceptions to Section 241. Information can be disclosed to Canadian government officials when it can reasonably be regarded as necessary for the purposes of the administration or enforcement of the Income Tax Act, the Canada Pension Plan, or the Employment Insurance Act. It can be disclosed to provincial governments for purposes of the administration of the workers' compensation program, for the use in the management or administration of a program relating to earning supplementation or income support or for use in the management or administration by that government of a program relating to payments under subsection 164(1.8) of the Act.

The Minister may, where the taxpayer is, or is about to become, liable to make any payment to the federal government or to a province, apply the amount of the refund or repayment to that other liability and notify the taxpayer of that action. Refunds can also be redirected for a child maintenance payment made pursuant to provincial law.

There are a host of other exceptions. Information can be passed to a government official for the purposes of formulation or evaluation of fiscal policy; to a police officer or a Canada Customs officer for the purpose of investigating whether an offence has been committed under the Criminal Code and to “appropriate persons” if the information relates to the imminent danger of death or physical injury to any individual. The Income Tax Act also provides that taxpayer information may be disclosed to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada where the information may be used by these organizations to assist with ongoing investigations related to national security. This disclosure provision was introduced as part of the recent package of “terrorism-related” legislation.

Section 79 of the Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act provides access to so-called information banks maintained by various federal government departments, and where there is an information agreement, provincial departments notwithstanding any provision in any other Act of Parliament that prohibits or restricts the release of information.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) can enter into written collaborative arrangements, such as Information Sharing Agreements (Agreements), with federal, provincial and territorial departments. For example the Agreement with the British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency (BCVSA) has been in effect since July 28, 2009. The CRA can give information to other countries with which Canada has a tax treaty that authorizes the exchange of information. These include a Tax Information Exchange Agreement ("TIEA“) or a listed international agreement, which includes the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ("OECD") Agreement.

Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act requires Canadian financial institutions to supply comprehensive financial information to the Canada Revenue Agency which then turns it over to the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S. The agreement provides that if an account holder is a “U.S. person” (such as U.S. residents and/or U.S. citizens (including U.S. citizens who are residents or citizens of Canada), the financial institution will be required to collect and report information on the account to the CRA in respect of that account holder. The information that will be collected and shared with the IRS will include information about the account holder including his or her name, address, the individual's U.S. taxpayer identification number and certain financial information pertaining to the account. This information will be transmitted by the CRA to the IRS under the existing provisions of the Canada-U.S. tax treaty relating to exchange of information.

The Operations Centre Information Portal

The Canadian Safety and Security Program (CSSP), led by Defence Research and Development Canada's Centre for Security Science and the Government Operations Centre (GOC), have developed the OCIP which is a system that enhances the GOCs ability to share data immediately across federal operations centres. It gathers information on all types of events affecting Canadians at home and abroad ranging from a local fire department responding to a forest fire, to special security arrangements for visits from international dignitaries. The portal was created with the express purpose of organizing incoming information and readily sharing what's relevant with many operations centres at the click of a mouse. It gives users the ability to share documents quickly, track ongoing events, and issue notices about incidents of interest. It also has a number of collaborative custom-built features such as a chat tool, a Request for Information tracker, and an incident management log to categorize incoming alerts. Recently, an `automatic messaging' feature was added which allows alerts to be sent to offline operations centres users when a request for information is posted.

Initially only a few key federal departments had access to this so-called tool but it now employed by 21 federal departments and agencies, with more likely to join in 2015. Federal agencies using the portal are currently looking at how it could be used in their regional offices. The use of common data standards in OCIP will allow for continued growth in the future.

The Internet

One of the documents retrieved by U.S. whistle blower Edward Snowden showed that Canada's electronic spy agency uses information from the free internet service at a major Canadian airport to track the wireless devices of thousands of ordinary airline passengers for days after they left the terminal. This is probably illegal since the spy agency is supposed to be collecting primarily foreign intelligence by intercepting overseas phone and internet traffic, and is prohibited by law from targeting Canadians or anyone in Canada without a judicial warrant. Security experts who have been apprised of the document point out the airline passengers in a Canadian airport were clearly in Canada. CSEC justified its actions by claimiing that it is "mandated to collect foreign signals intelligence to protect Canada and Canadians and that in order to fulfill that foreign intelligence role for the country, it is legally authorized to collect and analyze metadata.

The kind of metadata being collected is more than just "phone book" information. It reveals a trove of information including, for example, the location and telephone numbers of all calls a person makes and receives. Knowledge of subscriber information, such as phone numbers and IP addresses, can provide a starting point to compile a picture of an individual's online activities, including online services for which an individual has registered, personal interests based on websites visited; and organizational affiliations. It can also provide a sense of where the individual has been physically (e.g., mapping IP addresses to hotel locations, as in the Petraeus case).

This information can be sensitive in nature in that it can be used to determine a person's leanings, with whom they associate, and where they travel, among other things. What's more, each of these pieces of information can be used to uncover further information about an individual.

Bill C-13

Frank Addario, a Toronto-based lawyer, notes that digital data surveillance gives the state virtually unfettered access to eavesdrop or read every single personal communication with no mechanism for accountability. He suggests that the government has done nothing to rein in police techniques to obtain digital information from third party carriers like cell phone and social media providers. “By not recognizing the pressure that state snoops put on these regulated carriers, the government has delivered us into a post-privacy world.”

The Supreme Court of Canada in the Spencer case tried to put the brakes on the police coercing third party carriers to hand over digital information. Addario questions whether the courts are an adequate “substitute for legislative control of surveillance techniques to restrain overenthusiastic intelligence collectors”. It is unlikely that such legislative control is forthcoming. Rather than trying to restrain overenthusiastic intelligence collection the Harper government has made repeated attempts to legalize it. Their latest effort is BILL C-13 which has now passed through the House of Commons and is on to the Senate. Bill C-13, if passed, will give police easier access to the metadata that internet service providers and phone companies keep on every call and email by their customers. It will make it easier for police to get preservation or production orders by lowering the threshold from a "reasonable grounds to believe" a crime has happened or could happen to "reasonable grounds to suspect." Most significantly, the bill will give immunity to any companies that turn over to police the information they hold. Although these companies might not be compelled to hand over the information, past experience shows that they usually accede to police pressure especially if it has no negative legal consequences.

Privacy Laws

Provincial governments are increasingly exempting themselves from the operation of privacy laws. In 2011 the B.C. government amended the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act to increase the ability of government ministries to share citizens' information amongst themselves and centralize that data electronically. The legislation, among other changes, lets ministries share information when government programs involve more than one department, permits use of so-called data linking to combine existing databases, such as for research and allows for the creation of a super ID combining driver's licences and health-care cards.

Conclusion

Government, provincial and federal, are erecting a vast information structure exemplified by the Operations Centre information Portal. This is BIG DATA IN FULL FLIGHT. There are still technological weaknesses in the structure but it highly likely that there will soon be a time when certain government officials, spy agencies and the police will be able to bring forth a detailed dossier on each and every Canadian citizen by inputting a name, a social security number and an address. This dossier will not only give a detailed description of a person’s life history, it will have point in time accuracy. Our governments assure us that they have instituted internal reviews and controls to prevent misuse of this information but history tells us that internal bureaucratic run controls are useless. Governments also tell us that the information web will only be used for good purposes - catching terrorists, drug dealers, child pornographers, cyber bullies, criminals generally. We should note, however, that federal and provincial governments have been busy creating new crimes, new offenses. All sorts of social misbehavior are being criminalized or semi-criminalized. Punishments for provincial offences are constantly being made more severe. In a society where almost everyone is a criminal or potential criminal almost everyone is a government surveillance target.

THE JOYLESS SOCIETY - A JOKE FREE WORKPLACE

2014-10-24T20:02:00.005-07:00

An Ontario Department of Labour pamphlet asks “What is Workplace Harassment?” It begins to answer this question by referencing the definition of workplace harassment in Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act. Workplace harassment means "engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct against a worker in a workplace that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome." According to the Ontario Department of Labour “Some of the types of harassment that workers could experience in the workplace include sexual harassment, teasing, intimidating or offensive jokes or innuendos, display or circulation of offensive pictures or materials, unwelcome, offensive, or intimidating phone calls, or bullying. Leering, unwelcome gifts or attention, offensive gestures, or spreading rumours could also be considered harassment. It says “This definition of workplace harassment is broad enough to include harassment prohibited under the Ontario Human Rights Code, as well as "psychological harassment" or "personal harassment."

This is a typically very broad definition of harassment now found in like statutes. In New Brunswick personal harassment means “any objectionable or offensive behaviour that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome. It includes objectionable conduct, comment or display made on either a one-time or continuous basis that demeans, belittles, or causes personal humiliation or embarrassment”. The test in Ontario and New Brunswick is essentially a subjective test since the determining factor is whether the conduct is “unwelcome” to the so-called victim. This contrasts to the U.S. where at least federally workplace harassment must be severe or pervasive enough to create a "hostile or abusive work environment" for the plaintiff and for a reasonable person.

How far reaching is workplace harassment in Ontario? Consider this example. A fellow worker, who is an avowed atheist, is reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. She brings the book with her to lunch and is “confronted” by the victim who makes it very clear that because of his own fundamentalist Christian beliefs he finds the “display” of this book as unwelcome and offensive. But our harrasser doesn’t care. The victim can read his bible at lunch if he so chooses and she will read Dawkins so she continues to bring the book to the staff lunch room. Under the definition she is engaging in harassment because HE finds the display of the book offensive and SHE KNOWS that it is unwelcome. In New Brunswick a single so-called objectionable comment or display (like the cover of the God Delusion) if it is unwelcome and is embarrassing (to a complainant), constitutes workplace harassment.

Even an unwelcome gift can constitute harassment. Jill brings back female figurines from her Cuban vacation and gives one to each of her five co-workers. One of the co-workers is offended by the voluptuousness of the figurine. Once again we have workplace harassment.

Teasing is included in workplace harassment. So are any jokes that the sensitive individual might find offensive. If a person wants to avoid problems at his workplace, he or she should be suitably dour - keeping comments to a minimum avoiding saying anything beyond vague pleasantries.

Leering is workplace harassment. What is leering? Does it mean looking at someone for too long a period of time or is it the nature of the look? A leer is defined in the dictionary as looking “at someone in an evil or unpleasantly sexual way”. How do we know that there is an evil or unpleasantly sexual thought behind a look. Given the overall tenure of workplace harassment law in Ontario it is the victims’s perception which is determinative - if the victim “feels” that there is something sexual or evil in a the perpetrator’s look, then that must be the case. So how do you avoid being accused by the sensitive individual of leering? Keep you head down. Avoid eye contact.

Of a similar vein is the notion of offensive gestures. Is rolling your eyes an offensive gesture? It may well be very offensive to an easily threatened individual. It is readily apparent that the all encompassing and very subjective definition of harassment is creating a new tyrant - the sensitive individual who is quick to see offense in the conduct of her fellow workers and bosses.

Workplace harassment is not limited to one worker “harassing” another worker or a boss “harassing” a worker. We are told in the Ontario Department of labour pamphlet that “Workplace harassment, like workplace violence, can arise from a variety of sources, such as other workers, supervisors, customers, clients, patients, students, intimate partners, or family members.”

It is similar in British Columbia where the definition of bullying and harassment in British Columbia includes any inappropriate conduct or comment by a ‘person’ towards a worker that the ‘person’ knew or reasonably ought to have known would cause that worker to be humiliated or intimidated. A ‘person’ includes any individual, whether or not they are a workplace party. This means that a ‘person’ could be a workplace party such as an employer, supervisor, or co-worker, or a non workplace party such as a member of the public, a client, or anyone with whom a worker has contact at the workplace.

In other words workplace harassment extends to a customer in a coffee shop who makes an “inappropriate comment” to a waiter; i.e. “You dumbass, you served me the wrong drink” said in a voice loud enough for other diners to hear thus causing the waiter to (quite reasonably) be humiliated. The struggling to survive restaurant owner will be liable.

The penalties under the Ontario Act are not minimal. Every person who contravenes or fails to comply with “a provision of this Act” is guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a fine of not more than $25,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than twelve months, or to both. If the culprit is Ma & Pa Corner Grocery Store Ltd. (and owners are made liable for the sins of employees) the maximum fine that may be imposed upon the corporation is $500,000.00. Bankrupted because the delivery boy told a bad joke.

It is not surprising that waiting rooms in hospitals, government offices and other institutions are now littered with intimidating signs warning customers, patients and users of public services - in effect - not to complain too much.

Employers are made responsible for preventing so-called workplace harassment. Because they can be blamed and usually will be blamed for worker on worker harassment (and the resultant liability), they must when considering potentially harassing conduct be as conservative as possible. They must tell their workers not to say or do anything that can be remotely interpreted as unwelcome to anyone near or at work. In particular they must forbid any mention of anything relating to sex. They must by necessity create a nervous, rule bound, joyless, sterile, unfree workplace. Examples from the U.S. (even with its more objective criteria) illustrate this. At the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, a harassment complaint was filed against a graduate student who had on his desk a 5" x 7" photograph of his wife in a bikini. The employer ordered that the photo be removed. At Penn State a professor complained that a print of Goya's Naked Maja hanging in a classroom constituted sexual harassment and accordingly the school administration removed the painting.

Well intentioned governments are creating social environments where people are in constant fear of offending a colleague, where workers and bosses are constantly walking on eggshells, where the rights of overly sensitive individuals override the rights of everyone else, where casual, relaxed humour is outlawed ... This is the new unfreedom of the 21st century.

RISK ASSESSMENT & DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOUR IN THE AGE OF FEAR

2014-09-22T20:04:00.009-07:00

Future historians may very well label this the Era of Fear. Our fears are multi-dimensional. We are afraid of terrorists. We are afraid of crazies shooting up people in malls. We are especially afraid of young people.

Fear is a driver for people in authority. Government offices are in a permanent state of lock down with multiple guard points keeping out the dangerous public. Schools are increasingly taking on the appearance of a prison.

Into this comes "risk assessment". School administrators - an especially paranoic set of bureaucrats - have taken up risk assessment with a vengeance. Consider the Threat Assessment Protocol of the Langley School District, a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Part of it reads "3. Worrisome Behaviours. Worrisome behaviours are those that cause concern for members of the school system and which may indicate that a student is moving toward a greater risk of violent behaviour. This would include instances where a student may be engaging in behaviours such as drawing pictures, writing stories in class, or making vague statements that do not, of themselves, constitute "uttering threats" as defined by law but are causing concern for some members of the school community because of their violent content. The majority of threat-related behaviour, from Kindergarten to Grade 12, falls into this category. All worrisome behaviours will be communicated to the school principal."

You know what results from this kind of protocol. A five year old draws a picture of a gun and all hell breaks loose. In fact that has happened a number of times in paranoic school districts in North America. The parents of an eight year old boy at Scottsdale Country Day School were called to a meeting last week. The principal told them that their child was a danger to other children and threatened to expel him over three drawings which depict a soldier, a ninja and a Star Wars character. Each was carrying a weapon and all were ideas the boy had for his Halloween costume. The principal apparently was "acting" in accordance with Scottsdale County Day School policy which makes the drawings of weapons grounds for expulsion. Elsewhere a drawing of a gun by a four-year-old resulted in the arrest of her father when he came to pick her up from school. The father was detained by police and strip-searched and his children were questioned by social services. The gun depicted was a plastic toy that belonged to his kids. There have been numerous other such incidents.

If not expelled, thousands of students will be identified as "worrisome" and will be made subject to a formal assessment. The formal assessment will become part of the student’s file. It will follow them through their entire time in the education system and into the career world.

Formal assessments are a form of policing. In fact, in many cases fear stricken principals will pass the formal assessments onto the police. The police in turn are increasingly maintaining (and passing on) material above and beyond criminal convictions.

The next big movement in risk assessment will be the utilization of Big Data. Governments in the U.K., the U.S. and Canada have pretty much unlimited access to people’s internet usage. Big Data identifies persons who are constantly doing internet searches on topics of violence or other controversial topics. It will be a valuable tool for government to identify political outliers left and right such as environmentalists, anarchists, survivalists and socialists. In particular it will identify people who are seen as having "disruptive" attitudes.

Disruptive behaviour is another categorization favoured by the Grand Nannies that now seem so omnipresent in the administrations of North American universities. Texas Woman's University provides a procedure for the referral, evaluation, and appropriate disposition of students displaying so-called disruptive behaviour. There is the typically broad definition namely "Disruptive behaviours are overt actions, omissions to act, or verbal or written statements that would not be consistent with the actions or statements of a reasonable, prudent person under similar circumstances." The University further explains "Disruptive behaviour typically refers to directly observable behaviour. But, it may also include a student’s behaviour by electronic means (e.g. e-mail, social networking sights, postings to electronic classrooms, etc.) as well." The Associate Vice President for Student Life must be notified by faculty, staff, or students of any instance where a student demonstrates disruptive behaviour. The next step is to have the Orwellian named Behavioural Assessment Team (BAT) spring into action - the consequence to the student may be the university’s favorite big stick - expulsion.

The University of Minnesota Duluth claims in a direction to faculty and staff that "Disruptive, disrespectful, and even violent student behaviour has become a national trend at universities." That is surprising only if one does not consider what the University’s baby sitters describe as "disruptive behaviour". The directive states that "Students are responsible for conducting themselves in a manner that is respectful of the instructor and other students in the classroom, is civil in language, tone and behaviour, and is receptive to ideas and other points of view." In other words do not disagree too vigorously with your professor and other students. Avoid any sarcasm, hyperbole, irony, overt criticism, etc. If you don’t, your professor is instructed that "it is essential that you take appropriate and immediate steps to curtail this behaviour" So students beware - do not express any strong views and modify your comments so that they fit in with the consensus opinions of your fellow students and professor. As per the old Japanese saying "`the nail that sticks out gets hammered down".

MANDATORY REPORTING ABOUT EVERYBODY AND EVERYTHING

2014-09-16T22:15:00.003-07:00

In an earlier article I described how citizen spies are increasingly being used by the state to report on the possible wrongdoings of their neighbors. There is another type of spy which is increasingly being used by authorities in the U.S., Canada the UK and Australia. These spies are usually professionals like medical doctors and nurses and they are compelled to report certain types of wrongdoing.

Historically a person in the Anglo jurisdictions did not commit an offence by not reporting a crime. The exception was misprision of felony which was an offence under the common law of England and was classified as a misdemeanour. It consisted of failing to report knowledge of a felony to the appropriate authorities. It has been abolished in England and Wales, in Northern Ireland, in the Republic of Ireland, and in New South Wales.

The United States still has "misprision of felony" as a federal offence. It provides that "whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both". This offence, however, requires active concealment of a known felony rather than merely failing to report it.

Like many legal rights, the right not to report an offence has been eroded since the 1980's. Compulsory reporting is now part of the law in a hodgepodge of ways and in a hodgepodge of jurisdictions, state, provincial and national. Compulsory reporting like all these things started out with the most laudable of intentions. The first area of concern was bringing child abuse to the attention of social workers and police. As usual the U.S. was the source of the movement to expose child abuse. Legislation was passed in most of the American states requiring various persons to report child abuse.

Forty-eight American States have legislation designating professions whose members are mandated by law to report child maltreatment. Individuals designated as mandatory reporters typically have frequent contact with children. Compulsory reporting was initially limited to professionals who have frequent conduct with children such as social workers, teachers, principals, and other school personnel and physicians, nurses, and other health-care workers. The list of mandated ‘child abuse’ reporters, however, has gradually expanded. Seven States and the District of Columbia even include animal control or humane officers. Court-appointed special advocates are mandatory reporters in ten States; clergy are mandatory reporters in 27 States and Guam. Eighteen States have made it all really simple; any person who suspects child abuse or neglect is required to report regardless of profession. Upon conviction in Florida a mandated reporter who fails to report can face jail terms ranging from 30 days to 5 years, fines ranging from $300 to $10,000, or both jail terms and fines.

New Hampshire’s law makes the following long list of people mandatory reporters: "any physician, surgeon, county medical examiner, psychiatrist, resident, intern, dentist, osteopath, optometrist, chiropractor, psychologist, therapist, registered nurse, hospital personnel (engaged in admission, examination, care and treatment of persons), Christian Science practitioner, teacher, school official, school nurse, school counselor, social worker, day care worker, any other child or foster care worker, law enforcement official, priest, minister, or rabbi". It then adds "or any other person having reason to suspect that a child has been abused or neglected".

The General Medical Council in the U,K, advise all doctors seeing adults to always be suspicious of child abuse and neglect even if they may never have met the children of those adults. Mr Dickson of the General Medical Council said: "It is important that doctors treating adults are child protection aware. Their responsibility extends to patients they may not have seen. Doctors need to be aware of the environment and individuals who may increase the risk of harm." All doctors have a responsibility to be aware of child protection issues and should report concerns even if they simply have a 'hunch or feel uneasy', says Sir Peter Rubin, chairman of the GMC.

Compulsory reporting is not, however, confined to child abuse. In North Carolina every citizen has a legal duty to report cases where there is suspected child abuse and/or neglect by a parent, guardian, custodian or caretaker; they are also required to report abuse, neglect or exploitation of a disabled or elder adult by their caretaker. Physicians and hospitals in North Carolina must report to law enforcement certain kinds of wounds, injuries or illnesses. School principals must report immediately to law enforcement when he or she has personal or actual knowledge that an act has occurred on school property involving certain offenses. Photo processors or computer technicians are also mandated to report, if within the scope of their employment, they come across images of a minor (or one who reasonably appears to be a minor) engaging in sexual activity.

Seniors are a rapidly expanding object of compulsory reporting. S. 7(1) of Alberta’s Protection for Persons in Care Act requires every person who has reasonable ground to believe there is or has been abuse involving an adult who receives care or support services from a hospital or lives in a care facility" to report abuse to a complaints officer, the police, or other authorized person, body or committee authorized to investigate abuse. In Manitoba the Protection for Persons in Care Act (s. 3(1)) requires every person with a reasonable belief that an adult resident, in-patient or person receiving respite care in a health facility is, or is likely to be, abused to promptly report the belief to Protection of Persons in Care Office at Manitoba Health. It is therefore mandatory for all health professionals to report abuse covered by this act.

Ontario’s Long-Term Care Homes Act applies to abuse and neglect of the residents of senior’s facilities. The Act (s. 24(1)) imposes a duty on the general population to report abuse and risk of abuse. Any person must report to the Director (who has been appointed by the Minister of Health) the following; improper or incompetent treatment or care resulting in harm or risk of harm, abuse of a resident by anyone, neglect by the licensee or staff that has resulted in harm or a risk of harm to the resident, unlawful conduct that has resulted in harm or a risk of harm to a resident and misuse or misappropriation of a resident's money. Abuse includes verbal abuse which in turn means "any form of verbal communication of a threatening or intimidating nature or any form of verbal communication of a belittling or degrading nature which diminishes a resident’s sense of well-being, dignity or self-worth".

Nova Scotia has taken it all one step further. It has made all of its citizens mandatory reporters of ALL adult abuse and neglect. Section 5(1) of Nova Scotia’s Adult Protection Act (s. 5(1)) requires every person to report abuse and neglect of vulnerable adults. The law states: "Every person who has information, whether or not it is confidential or privileged, indicating that an adult is in need of protection shall report that information to the Minister of Community Services. "Adult in need of protection" means an adult who, in the premises where he resides, (i) is a victim of physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental cruelty or a combination thereof, is incapable of protecting himself therefrom by reason of physical disability or mental infirmity, and refuses, delays or is unable to make provision for his protection therefrom, or (ii) is not receiving adequate care and attention, is incapable of caring adequately for himself by reason of physical disability or mental infirmity, and refuses, delays or is unable to make provision for his adequate care and attention" Individuals who fail to report the information are guilty of an offence and may be fined up to $1,000 or imprisoned for up to one year, or both (ss. 16(1) and 17). The wise, law abiding citizen wishing to avoid a one year jail sentence should be sending daily reports about his neighbors to the Minister of Community Services since they could be victims of mental cruelty (the citizen hears the neighbor’s wife delivering a nasty insult to him) or refuses or delays in making provisions for his protection therefrom (the husband does not report this mental cruelty to authorities) or refuses or delays to make adequate provision for his adequate care and attention (the neighbor is giving himself lung cancer by smoking or heading towards diabetes by over eating).

There is a also panoply of elder abuse legislation and mandatory reporting requirements in the U.S. Under Connecticut law elder abuse includes, but is not limited to, the willful infliction of physical pain, injury or mental anguish, or the willful deprivation by a caretaker of services which are necessary to maintain physical and mental health. Elder abuse also includes neglect, exploitation, and/or abandonment of an elderly (ages 60+) person. The list of mandated reporters is very similar to that for child abuse and neglect including licensed physicians and surgeons and licensed or unlicensed residents and interns, registered and licensed practical nurses, nursing home administrators, nurse’s aides, orderlies, and anyone else paid for providing care in a nursing home, patient advocates, medical examiners, dentists, osteopaths, optometrists, chiropractors, and podiatrists, psychologists and social workers, clergy, police officers, pharmacists and physical therapists. Maryland requires financial institutions to report suspected financial abuse of an elder adult.

Bullying is another new and expanding area of mandatory reporting. The Alberta Education Act was revised in 2012 to requires students to "refrain from, report and not tolerate bullying or bullying behaviour directed toward others in the school, whether or not it occurs within the school building, during the school day or by electronic means," In other words students are required to report all alleged bullying by other students whenever and where ever it occurs. Bullying as is usual is defined very broadly to include "demeaning behaviour by an individual where the behaviour is intended to cause harm, fear or distress to one or more other individuals in the school community, including psychological harm or harm to an individual’s reputation."

The Alberta law is particularly notable because it requires students to report cyberbullying if they witness it, with penalties including suspension and expulsion possible for those who do not. It has been pointed out that the Alberta legislation is asking kids to do more than the law requires of Canadian citizens when they witness a crime on the street. The observer (of crime) is not asked to step in and stop it; if anything, police discourage it and recommend that they be called instead. While there might be a civic duty to report crime, there is no legal threat if a person doesn’t do so (subject to being an accessory).

There are numerous "compulsory reporting provisions in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada related to funding of organizations deemed to be "terrorist". A typical provision is a requirement under the Canadian Criminal Code for anyone in Canada and any Canadian outside Canada to disclose to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service the existence of property in their possession or control that they know is owned or controlled by or on behalf of a terrorist or a terrorist group. In the U.K. a mandatory duty has been applied since 2002 on professionals who suspect that money or assets are the proceeds of any crime. The purpose was to combat the phenomenon of ‘money laundering’. Since 2000 a mandatory duty has applied to all citizens to report on the preparations and activities of terrorists. Mandatory reporting is required if a person merely believes or suspects that another person has committed an offence under any of sections 15 to 18, and bases his belief or suspicion on information which comes to his attention in the course of a trade, profession, business or employment.

The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 has increased the scope of mandatory reporting. It has introduced duties to pass on information about criminal proceeds with the result that professionals may have to report the criminal activities of their clients or third parties. Unlike existing duties to report, the obligations in the Proceeds of Crime Act apply to all criminal offences and therefore represent a significant change in the approach of English criminal law towards mandatory reporting.

Terrorism on the road is also a mandatory reporting requirement in the U.K. According to sections 70 and 172 of its Road Traffic Act 1988, a driver or a vehicle owner may commit an offence by not reporting an accident or road traffic offence.

Physicians have a long list of mandatory reporting duties. In Ontario there are eighteen different categories of compulsory reporting that extend far beyond child abuse situations. For example the Highway Traffic Act of Ontario requires that physicians report every individual 16 years of age or over attending upon the physician for medical services, who, in the opinion of the physician is suffering from a condition that may make it dangerous to operate a motor vehicle. Reports must be sent to the Registrar of Motor Vehicles, and include the name and address of the individual, as well as the medical condition that affects their ability to drive.

Ontario physicians involved in the care of mentally ill patients who are following community treatment plans, have specific reporting duties under the Mental Health Act, and its regulations. These obligations include providing the police with information pertinent to the community treatment plan. Where a physician issues an order for examination, the physician must ensure that the police have complete and up-to-date contact information of the physician responsible for completing the examination (including name, address and telephone number), and are informed immediately if the patient attends the examination or if the order is revoked for any other reason before it expires.

Every Ontario facility that treats a person for a gunshot wound must disclose to local police services the following: the fact that a person is being treated for a gunshot wound, the person's name, if known, and the name and location of the facility. Ontario’s legislation (which was copying U.S. initiatives) was quickly followed by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Québec and Nova Scotia.

Ontario physicians are required to tattletale on their patients and fellow doctors if they suspect cheating on the medicare system. When, in the course of professional duties, a physician has reason to believe that a person (either another physician or an individual) or entity has paid or conferred a benefit, or charged or accepted payment of a benefit in exchange for improved access to an insured health service, the physician must report the matter to the General Manager of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. Under the Health Insurance Act, physicians are required to report instances of health card fraud.

Nova Scotia has a similar long list of mandatory reporting requirements imposed upon its doctors. They go one better with The Personal Health Information Act imposes a duty to report on physicians where there has been a privacy breach. An individual who has custody or control of personal health information about a patient (such as a physician) must notify the patient as soon as possible if the custodian believes that the information is stolen, lost or subject to unauthorized access, use, disclosure, copying or modification; and as a result, there is potential for harm or embarrassment to the individual. Creates a kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

Mandatory reporting just keeps getting bigger and bigger. There is a problem; let’s pass a law to compel someone to report it. If a doctor already has to deal with 18 different mandatory reporting situations, one more won’t make much difference. So what if the doctor’s major stress point with a patient is no longer diagnosing an illness and developing a successful treatment program but rather is figuring out whether there is a mandatory reporting requirement. The patient on the other hand has to wonder if it is a relationship with a medical caregiver or a deputized cop.

One well meaning law by one well meaning law we are creating a society where everybody is a spy on everybody else. Totalitarian regimes in other times and other places have created spy-on-spy systems in one big swoop; we are doing it with a "thousand cuts".
　

THE RETURN OF SECRET COURTS

2014-08-09T18:40:00.002-07:00

The Star Chamber was an English court of law that sat at the Royal Palace of Westminster from the late 15th century until 1641. Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing.

The court was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against the English upper class, those so powerful that ordinary courts could never convict them of their crimes. a court of equity, which could impose punishment for actions which were deemed to be morally reprehensible but were not in violation of the letter of the law. This gave the Star Chamber great flexibility, as it could punish defendants for any action which the court felt should be unlawful, even when in fact it was technically lawful. Common role of dealing with riots and sedition by the time of King Charles I, it had become synonymous with misuse and abuse of power by the King and his circle. King James I and his son Charles used the court to examine cases of sedition, which meant that the court could be used to suppress opposition to royal policies. It came to be used to try nobles too powerful to be brought to trial in the lower court. The Star Chamber quickly gained a notoriety

In 1641, the Long Parliament, led by John Pym and inflamed by the severe treatment of religious dissenters and other abuses abolished the Star Chamber with the Habeas Corpus Act 1640. After its abolition it became a maxim in the Anglo jurisdictions that legislatures and courts should be open to the public; the very term “Star Chamber” became a negative attached to any court or legislature that was not open.

One of the defining characteristic of the new unfreedom is that more and more legal processes and legislative activities take place behind closed doors. In the last couple of decades secret courts have reappeared in the U.K., the U.S. and Canada. With the passage of the Justice and Security Act "secret courts" (euphemistically called Closed Material Procedures) were introduced into ordinary civil cases in Britain for the first time since the Star Chambers. Despite vehement opposition, the Act gained Royal Assent on 25th April 2013. It has not yet come into force because the rules of court provided for under the Act have not yet been passed and so, as yet, are not being used. It is only a matter of time, however, before secret courts will be used in civil cases across the United Kingdom.

This legislation allows any civil case in any of the High Court, Court of Appeal, Court of Session or the Supreme Court to be made subject to the Closed Material Procedures if sensitive information is required to be disclosed during it course. Sensitive material means material the disclosure of which would be damaging to national security. The result will be a legal proceeding where one party is not able to take part in either a part or the whole of a trial. Furthermore their lawyer cannot be present; neither the party nor their lawyer can see the evidence the government is relying upon (and which is said to be national security sensitive information); they cannot know the government's case or the evidence upon which it is based and consequently cannot challenge this evidence or the government's case. Finally they cannot know the reasons for the judge's decision based on that evidence. The civilian will be told whether they have won or lost, but not the facts nor all the reasons upon which the result is based.

The trigger for Closed Material Procedures is national security. National security, however, can have a very wide ambit. National security usually means more than just defending the state from the aggressions of other states. It can concern a wide range of facets including those affecting the non military or economic security of the nation and the values espoused by the national society. In order to possess national security, a nation needs to possess economic security, energy security, environmental security, etc. Accordingly security can theoretically be at risk not only from threats from another nation-state but also from violent non-state actors, multinational corporations, drug cartels, non-governmental organisations and even natural disasters.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) is a secret tribunal that has been operating in its present form in the U.K. since 2000. It has exclusive jurisdiction over challenges to the clandestine surveillance programme being carried out by the government. An application must be made to this secret tribunal to challenge a secret surveillance activity and to request an explanation as to why the government is spying on a British citizen or citizens.

United States has its own secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC, also called the FISA Court). It is a federal court which was established and authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States by federal law enforcement agencies. This court is also a "secret court" – its hearings are closed to the public. Usually only government attorneys are permitted to appear before it. It sits ex parte - in other words, in the absence of anyone but the judge and the government present at the hearings. This, combined with the minimal number of requests that are rejected by the court - the Court's approval rate of application is over 99% - has led experts to characterize it as a rubber stamp.

Canada too has a secret court. Sessions take place in a secret bunker in Ottawa. Judges are designated by the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Canada under the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and are empowered to issue secret warrants and to authorize various spy activities including the installation of wiretaps and bugs. Unlike the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges can and very occasionally do retain amicus curiae or "friends of the court" to make submissions in opposition to government requests.

There are other courts and tribunals in Canada which meet in secrecy or partially in secrecy. Even the Supreme Court of Canada can and does meet in secrecy when dealing with alleged security matters. Portions of the inquiry into the torture of Canadian citizen Maher Arar (2004-06) were conducted in secret by Ontario Associate Chief Justice Dennis O'Connor, while former Supreme Court Judge Frank Iacobucci presided over a completely secret inquiry into Canada's role in the torture of Canadians, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin. Even the Competition Tribunal is engaging in judicial secreacy. It dismissed a complaint from major Canadian retailers about the way credit card companies charge them for processing transactions but said “The reasons are confidential. A public version of the decision [will be released] as soon as possible after a determination as to what information must remain confidential has been made."

Canadian immigration tribunals can accept and increasingly are accepting secret information that cannot be contested by refugee claimants. Under Section 86 of Canada’s Orwellian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Immigration Minister may, using the exact same procedures of the security certificate, apply to introduce secret allegations.

Canada and the U.S. are contemplating entering into trade agreements which will have as their defining characteristics secret tribunals which neatly override laws passed by elected legislatures. Under Canada’s Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) foreign companies can bring proceedings in secret tribunals outside of Canada’s court system. Municipal, provincial, and federal governments could be prevented from enacting strict environmental and health regulations lest they be sued by oversea investors who can claim that the rules have changed and are adversely affecting their investments. Decisions favouring investors will often be made by three personal tribunals (with members often drawn from international law firms) safeguarded from any annoying public scrutiny.

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF TOTALITARIANISM

2014-06-25T21:02:00.001-07:00

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF TOTALITARIANISM

In the last twenty years there have been a whole set of developments in the Anglo nations (the U.K., Canada, United States, New Zealand and Australia) which adversely or could adversely affect rights and liberties which have been both long held and proudly proclaimed. These developments include over-criminalization, growth of regulatory mazes, micro-management of interpersonal relationships, invasive surveillance technology, statutory abridgments of civil legal protections, privatized police forces and prisons, new ways to punish people and zero tolerance policies in schools and elsewhere. They occur at various levels and superficially appear unconnected and uncoordinated. Perhaps for these reasons we have not really grasped the extent to which our freedoms are being eroded.

We look for snapshots of this dystopia in the works of George Orwell or Franz Kafka. And so the terms “Orwellian” and “Kafkaesque” are often applied to what we observe in modern society. certainly there are comparisons to what people experience in dealing with bureaucratic authority to the experiences of Josef K. in the Trial. There is a Kafkaesque edge to many of the U.S. prosecutions that are reviewed by Harvey Silverglate in Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent and by Paul Roberts and Lawrence Stratton in The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

In many ways, however, the new totalitarianism is not like the totalitarianism the world has known in the past. It is not as visibly apparent; it has not arrived in one fell swoop. Most significantly it is not directly experienced by the average person in his or her daily life. It is almost a reverse lottery where (at the present time) only a small percentage of people like Abner Schoenwetter (six years in a federal prison for importing Honduran lobsters that were packed in plastic rather than cardboard) end up in a nightmarish entanglement with the legal system.

Many people do not see what is happening because it is a velvet totalitarianism and it has been has making an incremental step by step advance over the last thirty years. There is no one person, no single political group, no secret society designing the new totalitarianism yet it is ever evolving on a number of different fronts.

I identify four horsemen of totalitarianism. The first horseman is represented by an enormous expansion of the criminal sphere. All sorts of acts have been partially or fully criminalized. There are new environmental crimes, new health and safety crimes and a panoply of new crimes in the sphere of interpersonal relationships. Behaviours, which were not considered criminal, such as youthful exuberance and poor social conduct, are now brought into the criminal net.

The second horseman is surveillance. The information gathering abilities of the modern state and large private corporations are immense. It is now recognized that both governments and corporations gather enormous amounts of information on people through their behind-the-scene access to internet activities. There are also many other surveillance instruments including cameras on every street corner, cameras attached to police vehicles, drones in the sky, virtually unrestricted wire tapping and ubiquitous tracking devices. The modern state is also putting together a citizen spy system - using nurses and doctors, social workers, teachers, tax collectors, etc. to report on individuals who are allegedly engaging in bullying, tax evasion and other unpopular acts.

The third horseman is the assault on those legal protections that developed over the centuries precisely to protect freedoms and civil rights. These traditional legal rights have had identifying labels such as habeas corpus, rule against double jeopardy, right to remain silent, privilege against self-incrimination, mens rea, open courts, right to legal representation, the demarcation between the civil and the criminal and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Governments have used the cover of fighting terrorists and criminal gangs to severely abridge all of these freedom protecting legal doctrines.

A big part of the undermining of civil rights results from the way the modern state grounds down its victims with publicly financed litigation. The conduct of the civil forfeiture process in British Columbia is illustrative of the state “winning” through relentless litigation. The government side is not constricted by costs; on the other hand, the forfeiture target will invariably be forced to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend his or her property. The result is that the forfeiture target more often than not makes the pragmatic choice and gives up. The B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office is fully aware of its power in this respect and in fact does not hesitate to bring it repeatedly to the attention of the target.

There has been a relentless growth in a new kind of adjudication system - set deeply in the bureaucracy. An example is Workers Comp tribunals. These new tribunals have an irresistible proclivity to go private - to become quasi-secret tribunals. This is often justified for superficially good reasons - preserving privacy of participants.

The fourth horseman is the punishment regime. Starting in the 1980's the U.S. went crazy with handing out lengthy terms of imprisonment. Three strikes and you are out and you get twenty year for stealing a loaf of bread. People receive prison sentences which will lock them up for half their life because they had a few marijuana plants.

It is not only a matter of imprisonment. In the U.S. in particular there are numerous collateral consequences which accompany incarceration - civil penalties, which, unlike fines, prison time, or probation, are not specified in the criminal law and are not imposed during the sentencing of the convicted person. These collateral punishments are frequently post-incarceration. Then there is civil forfeiture which does not even require a conviction. Civil forfeiture of a personal residence or an expensive vehicle is an out of proportion fine which for many people is a life disaster - they would rather have spent a few months in prison. Then there are the other social control punishments - expulsion from a school or university or the loss of a driver’s license. The Greater State is even re-legitimizing long-term ostracism.

Velvet totalitarianism seems to come together most completely with children and old people. Under the rubric of safety concerns children are not allowed to play with any form of a ball on a school ground and there are absurdities such as no touch rules for five year olds. Kids are expelled from school because they draw a picture of a handgun or have a plastic knife in their backpack. In the U.K. boisterous teenage behaviour is labelled as anti-social. At the other end of life old people are institutionalized against their will - ostensibly in order to protect them.

The truly worrisome event will be when the Four Horsemen get together. This will happen when the instruments of surveillance - whether it is spy cameras, citizen spies or internet snooping is used in a coordinated manner to keep tabs on all aspects of an individual activities including his or her interpersonal relationships. The charges that emerge out of this giant spy system will be dealt with by bureaucrat cum police, bureaucrat, policeman and judge all rolled up into one,

Does there come a point when the combined effect of the four horsemen of totalitarianism results in a very different type of society? A New Society that is arriving by stealth.

THE SCHOOL AS A MINI-POLICE STATE

2014-05-20T20:05:00.003-07:00

Forty years ago police were almost unknown in Canadian schools and rare in American schools. In the early 1990s following several high profile shootings police started to be present on a daily basis in American schools located in the poor areas of major cities. John Paul Jones in Philadelphia was a typical school located in an inner city slum. It was nicknamed Jones Jail by its students and was typified by metal detectors, barred windows, windows that open only a crack ostensibly to keep objects or people from being thrown out of them and militaristic security staff that roam the hallways demanding documentation from students not in the classroom.

After Columbine the inner city slum model for a school rapidly spread across the U.S. In the wake of the 1999 shootings at Columbine, high schools in the United States rushed to adopt strict policies and filled the hallways and entrance ways with armed guards, surveillance cameras, metal detectors and drug-sniffing dogs. These are now almost standard features of the modern American school. Yet for all these extreme measures, public fears over student safety remain high.

The policing of schools was accelerated further by the Sandy Hook tragedy. The NRA had a solution to Sandy Hook - it certainly wasn’t restricting the civilian ownership of military level weaponry. It was the arming of the other side - armed police officers, security guards and staff members in every American school, including allowing trained teachers and administrators to carry weapons.

This inspired various arming proposals across the country. For example, rural Northern Colorado's Thompson School District plan was to put reserve deputies in the halls of six elementary schools. The principal of one of the schools welcomed the development saying that “it is very difficult to go to bed at night if you don't think you've done absolutely everything you can to keep your kids safe, and when Sandy Hook happened and we realized even elementary schools are vulnerable, it was a very difficult time," Marlboro Township, a leafy, well-heeled New Jersey suburb was one of the first jurisdictions in the aftermath of Sandy Hook to station a permanent armed cop in each of its nine schools. Mayor Jonathan Hornik said “With this new evil, you can’t just sit there and hope that it doesn’t happen in your town. We must protect our kids.” A small school district in rural Arkansas proposed arming the teachers. Clarksville High School, planned to take this step under a state law that allowed licensed, armed security guards on campus. Teachers in the program would, after undergoing 53 hours of training, function as security guards as well as educators.

Now America’s schools are being redesigned with a single electronically controlled entrance with cameras, metal detectors and invariably a guard. Back in Marlboro the council is planning to fortify school entrances with steel doors and bulletproof glass and installing surveillance cameras “all over” to feed to the local police department.

In addition to armed guards at the front door the numbers of police assigned to public schools have soared. An estimated one-third of all sheriffs' offices and almost half of all municipal police departments assign nearly 17,000 sworn officers to serve in America’s schools and nearly half of all public schools have assigned police officers. In the 2008-2009 school year, there were 5,246 law enforcement officers in New York City’s public schools but only 3,152 guidance counselors.

The nice name for these policemen in the classrooms of America is school resource officers or SRO’s. One of the primary consequence of the battalion of SROs in America’s schools has been a surge in criminal charges against children for misbehaviour that used to be handled in the principal's office. As can be expected the very presence of these police officers in the schools results in greater numbers of students being arrested or charged with crimes for nonviolent, childish behaviour.

In 2010, the police in Texas gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six for offences in and out of school. Misdemeanours include swearing, misbehaving on the school bus, scuffles, truancy and cursing at teachers. Children have even been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing "inappropriate" clothes and being late for school. The result is that every day hundreds of schoolchildren, who have received Class C tickets. appear before the courts. These charges result in fines, community service and even prison time. Texas records show more than 1,000 tickets were issued to primary schoolchildren over the past six years. It has been described as a school-to-prison pipeline" with a high proportion of children who receive tickets being arrested time and again because they are marked out as troublemakers or find their future blighted by a criminal record.

Most schools do not face any serious threat of violence and police officers patrolling the corridors and canteens are largely confronted with little more than boisterous or disrespectful childhood behaviour. "What we see often is a real overreaction to behaviour that others would generally think of as just childish misbehaviour rather than law breaking," said one observer. Tickets are most frequently issued by school police for "disruption of class", which can mean causing problems during lessons but is also defined as disruptive behaviour within 500ft (150 metres) of school property such as shouting, which is classified as "making an unreasonable noise".

Accompanying the policed school are zero tolerance programs. Zero tolerance policies lead to the inevitable idiocies. Several years ago a first grader student in Delaware was suspended from school after bringing a Cub Scout-issued fork-spoon-knife tool into his classroom. Under the school's zero-tolerance weapons policy, he was suspended for 45 days and forced to attend an alternative school. Then there was the honors student who spent a night in jail for skipping class and the 9-year-old boy who was suspended for sexual harassment for remarking that his teacher was cute. The charge against Sarah Bustamantes on the police docket was "disrupting class". The crime; she sprayed two bursts of perfume on her neck in class because other children were bullying her with taunts of "you smell".

When her teacher called the policeman, he did not have to come very far since he patrols the corridors of Sarah's school. That is the thing about zero-tolerance policies. They do not apply just to deadly weapons and drugs but to fighting, prescription drugs, Scout’s knifes, perfumes, harmless comments and anything else deemed bad in the closed mentality of certain administrators and teachers. If a student is caught violating these broad rules, there is no discussion and no elaboration and no investigation. There is just a one-size-fits-all punishment.

The reality is that America’s schools taken as a whole are really not any more violent or dangerous than they were forty years ago. More than 98% of youth homicides do not occur in schools; in the 2009-2010 school year there was approximately one homicide or suicide of school-age youth at school per 2.7 million students.

America’s school children, however, are being taught a lesson about civil society; namely, that they must accept authority without question and that they have absolutely no rights to question punishment. If a kid wants to participate in an organization they learn that he or she should expect to be drug tested. Furthermore guards and metal detectors at the “reinforced” entrances, police officers in the hallways every day and omnipresent security cameras including in washrooms are all part of normal life. Don’t challenge these security features if you want to avoid a police record that will affect you the rest of your life. In fact don’t do anything including saying anything which someone in authority might consider out of line.

John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute asks “How do you persuade a nation of relatively freedom-loving individuals to march in lock step with a police state? You start by convincing them that they're in danger, and only the government can protect them. Keep them keyed up with constant danger alerts, and the occasional terrorist incident, whether real or staged. Distract them with wall-to-wall news coverage about sinking ships, disappearing planes and pseudo-celebrities spouting racist diatribes. Use blockbuster movies, reality shows and violent video games to hype them up on military tactics, and then while they're distracted and numb to all that is taking place around them, indoctrinate their young people to your way of thinking, relying primarily on the public schools and popular culture.”

If the schools are going to be mini police states how long is it before the rest of society is going to be restructured along the same lines. Perhaps not very long. Government offices are now heavily “fortified” with guards at the entrances, employees (all with identification badges) working in locked rooms and the (greatly feared) public largely excluded. And like heavily policed schools nobody really even questions this super-security environment any more.