{"id":5636,"date":"2015-02-20T13:39:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T21:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=5636"},"modified":"2015-02-20T13:44:41","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T21:44:41","slug":"will-no-one-rid-me-of-these-troublesome-canadians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=5636","title":{"rendered":"Will No One Rid Me of These Troublesome Canadians?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It pains me to do this. I mean, I did a privacy rant just a few installments back, and today I wanted to talk about this really cool paper showing that squids are Lamarckian. But the news cycle Waits For No Man, and a couple of recent items have got me re-evaluating my sunny optimism<\/a> of only a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Of course, there’s a ton of commentary happening over C-51<\/a>, the bill currently undergoing (limited) debate in the House. That’s not really news, although its highlights warrant a bit of review in light of recent events. C-51 is the Bill that would, among other things, jail for up to five years anyone who<\/p>\n

“by communicating statements, knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What exactly is a “terrorist offense”? According to S83.01 of Canada’s Criminal Code, it’s an act committed<\/p>\n

\u201cin whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause, with the intention of intimidating the public\u2019s security or compelling a person, government or organization to do or refrain from doing an act.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seems a bit broad, no? Lots of people and groups try to compel governments to change their behavior for ideological or political reasons. That’s what advocacy is<\/em>. I hope that I’m not alone in thinking it something of an overreach to classify acts of civil disobedience\u2014 a roadblock, for example, in pursuit of “ideological” ends involving First-Nations or environmental issues\u2014 as acts of terrorism.<\/p>\n

But C-51 goes one better. I don’t have to be the one planting bombs, hijacking planes, or holding up a protest sign on Exxon’s front lawn; thanks to C-51, I can go jail if I just promote that kind of activity out loud, knowing that someone within earshot “may” be inspired to act on my words.<\/p>\n

The bill is almost more remarkable for what it omits than for what it encompasses. There’s no exception for private conversation, for example; I’m just as guilty if I communicate my thoughts in a personal email, or whisper them to my wife at bed-time to get her in the mood. (Yes, they’d have to be monitoring those emails, bugging that bedroom, to catch me at it\u2014 but don’t worry, C-51 has that covered too). There’s no exemption for critique or artistic merit, protections which extend even in cases of child pornography. There’s no geographic limitation; I’m just as much a criminal if I speak out on behalf of Hezbollah or Ukrainian rebels as I am if I go Yay Team!<\/em> To the local chapter of Idle No More. I don’t even need to be guilty of a “terrorist purpose”, whatever that even means these days. If I were to stick my tongue in my cheek and write a blog post in favor of Baby-Eating For Constructive Political Change\u2014 knowing, as I do, that my words might be taken seriously by some unhinged and highly motivated reader\u2014 well, tough shit. Do not pass Go.<\/p>\n

Kent Roach and Craig Forcese have written a number of backgrounders, freely available<\/a>, about C51 and its implications. They point out that<\/p>\n

“A sign or even a gesture could qualify, provided that it promotes or advocates the commission of a terrorism offence. This raises the question of whether a sign that says \u201cI support Hamas\u201d or \u201cTamil Tigers GO\u201d or \u201cthe IRA will strike again\u201d would fall within the ambit of the offence.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But you know what? Fuck that legalistic ambiguity. If you want to see a terrorist act, right off the presses, here it is:<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ah, the Classics.<\/p><\/div>\n

God, I’d like to see someone take a shot at Stephen Harper.<\/em><\/p>\n

There’s something ironic about the fact that such statements are going to become indictable at exactly the time when they most need to be said.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind, this is only one small part of C-51. The rest of it is wondrously problematic<\/a> in its own right. Hell, “four prime ministers, five retired Supreme Court judges, three former justice ministers, four past solicitors general, three ex-members of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, two recent privacy commissioners, and a longtime RCMP watchdog<\/a>” are speaking out with one voice\u2014 and, of course, getting<\/a> the brush-off<\/a>\u2014 on the oversight and accountability issues alone. (You should probably check out Michael Geist’s overview<\/a>, even if you don’t have time for Roach and Forcese’s more detailed analysis.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

But none of this is news<\/em>, right? At worst, it merely confirms ancient fears<\/a>. So why does the same bill that gave me hope back on February 4th<\/a> shrivel my balls here on the 20th?<\/p>\n

Two new revelations, released within hours of each other. The first is a leaked<\/a> RCMP document (scanned-pdf here<\/a>) that puts all the ominous hypotheticals about C-51 firmly into the realm of empirical observation. It lumps environmental activists of all stripes together under the label “Anti-Canadian Petroleum Movement” motivated by an “anti-petroleum ideology” (“ideological motive” box, check), while redefining physics as political belief (“…greenhouse gas emissions which, they believe, are directly linked to the continued use of fossil fuels”). It laments the “violent rhetoric” on social media sites (“knowingly advocates or promotes”, check<\/em>), and it does this all under the rubric of a “Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Assessment”. (Oh, did I forget to mention? Interference with Critical Infrastructure<\/em> is one of the things that C-51 is crafted to deal with. It’s #6 on the list. “Terrorism”, strangely, is only #4.) The whole document seems pretty explicitly crafted to take advantage of the tools that C-51 would offer.<\/p>\n

Again, though, how is this anything beyond another bit of grim told-you-so? For that we go to the second revelation, the only item in this increasingly lengthy post that did<\/em> come as news to me. It turns out that\u2014 even against the backdrop of all these later-than-you-think headlines\u2014 Canadians like<\/em> Bill C-51. It’s overwhelmingly popular<\/a> across all ages and demographics, with an overall approval rating that weighs in at 82%.\u00a0Ninety<\/em> percent of us think it’s okay to criminalize speech that “promotes terrorism”. Over a third of us think the bill doesn’t go far<\/em> enough<\/em>, choosing a survey option which contains the line\u2014 I shit you not\u2014 “if you’re not a terrorist you have nothing to hide”.<\/p>\n

This is what has robbed me of hope: the realization that I live in a nation of morons.<\/p>\n

My reason to be cheerful, a few weeks past, was that we were fighting back<\/em>. Sure the pols kept trying to sneak the Snooper’s Charter in through the back door, but they kept getting caught at it. Sure, the US had cops and congressmen who wanted to outlaw encryption; it also had companies who were finally taking encryption seriously enough to piss off those Powers that Be. Even up here in the Great White North, the number of C-bills that kept trying to strip away our privacy\u2014 only to get shot down at the last minute\u2014 was something of a joke. Our Masters wanted to see our nude selfies and poke at our stools every time we took a dump, but they kept falling short of those ambitions because we said no<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But it kind of takes the wind from your sails when you realize that over three quarters of the people you pass on the street have drunk the Kool Aid and gone back for seconds. We’re not just letting the Panopticon assemble itself around us; we’re actually applauding the engineers who are putting it together.<\/p>\n

I know terrorism is a thing. I know measures need to be taken. But up here at least, the ideologically-driven dismantling of scientific institutions is also a thing. The muzzling of scientists and the censorship of research and the denial of fucking reality<\/em> is a thing. The flooding of aquifers with mine tailings, the strip mining of the oceans, the Anthropocene Extinctions and weather chaotic as a grand mal<\/em> ECG\u2014 things<\/em>, every last one of them.<\/p>\n

ISIS may be a cadre of murdering fundamentalist assholes, but that’s all<\/em> they are; they don’t even pose an existential threat to Canada, much less an entire biosphere. Now Harper and his cronies shake those psychos in our faces to scare us into emptying our pockets and opening our bedrooms, and I can’t help but see Pol Pot offering us protection against Charlie Manson.<\/p>\n

It would actually be kind of comical, if only so many of my fellows weren’t taking him up on it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It pains me to do this. I mean, I did a privacy rant just a few installments back, and today I wanted to talk about this really cool paper showing that squids are Lamarckian. But the news cycle Waits For No Man, and a couple of recent items have got me re-evaluating my sunny optimism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-brother","category-rant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5636"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5645,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions\/5645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}