An Open Letter to the Mainstream English Media: ...
"This is what Quebec looks like right now. Every night is teargas and riot cops, but it is also joy, laughter, kindness, togetherness, and beautiful music. Our hearts are bursting. We are so proud of each other; of the spirit of Quebec and its people; of our ability to resist, and our ability to collaborate.
Why aren’t you writing about this? Does joy not sell as well as violence? Does collaboration not sell as well as confrontation? You can have your cynicism; our revolution is sincere." An Open Letter To The Mainstream Englsh Media
I'm not going to repeat the comments that everyone is making about the injustice that Byron Sonne was subjected to. So let's just say that the Judge at his trial ruled that he was innocent.
Here are links to some articles with excerpts from one that provide details of the history of this case and good commentary and analysis of what occurred.
It’s safe to talk about things I learned at Byron’s preliminary hearing.
CSIS has what they call the “Open Source” program, which doesn’t mean software which allows users to access the source code (the usual meaning) but rather this is a program to spy on Canadians online. The officer testifying about this program stressed that they only spy on citizens in the “public” parts of the internet, so while they may be reading your Facebook status, he claimed they don’t delve into our “private messages” without a warrant, although he gave the impression that they could if they wanted to.
Still, I find this warrantless invasion of the privacy of private citizens in a democracy more than a little bit creepy. When they pass C-30 they will be legally allowed to take the next step into our private communications, also without a warrant.
Something else bothered me even more, something said by one of the law enforcement witnesses. I’m not sure if he was from CSIS or had just worked with them to find information about Byron, but he testified that CSIS had been unable to crack the TrueCrypt encryption on one of Byron’s computers. Because of this, he testified, Byron would always be a person of interest to CSIS — even if Byron was acquitted.
I couldn’t write anything about that then, because of the publication ban, but that attitude makes a mockery of our justice system. After facing everything that law enforcement could throw at him, Byron has been cleared. The Crown spent nearly two years trying to prove Byron guilty, spending untold tax dollars trying to transform speculation into evidence, and failed.
I am happy that Byron is now free to rebuild his life. It was great to hear that his CISSP certification was restored in record time. And I’m happy that this is the last time I need to write about Byron, so that I can spend more time writing about fictional characters. I expect I won’t need to write about Byron again until it’s time to plug the book about this mess he plans to co-author with Denise Balkissoon."
* * *
"It was the only reasonable legal outcome, but the idea that CSIS or
the police might continue to harass Byron Sonne is of serious concern.
Byron Sonne is no longer only presumed innocent, he is now legally
innocent. And innocent Canadians should not have to worry that Big
Brother is looking over their shoulder.
"Anonymous is the art of being one and yet being nothing"
"Anonymous is what happens when governments and corporations screw up too badly".
--Commander X of Anonymous
If a terrorist is someone who objects to corruption and abuse of power and who engages in civil disobedience in order to expose that corruption and abuse of power then we live in a world which considers legitimate dissent and telling the truth a terrorist act.
Was Daniel Ellsberg, a terrorist? By the standards being applied by the US government today, he would have been considered one.
What terrorist act did Daniel Ellsberg commit? He released the Pentagon Papers. An act which exposed deception and corruption at the highest levels of the US government.
What terrorist act did Julian Assange of WikiLeaks commit? He has released numerous documents resulting in the exposure of deception and corruption at the highest levels of many governments.
According to Jølly Anøn: ”Earlier tonight Commander X, founder of the PLF and Anonymous hacktivist, gave an interview on AnonPlus Radio.
Commander X was indicted in September on federal charges of conspiracy to cause intentional damage to a protected computer, causing intentional damage to a protected computer and aiding and abetting.
He’s accused of hacking into Santa Cruz County computers in 2010 as retribution for the breakup of a lengthy protest over the city of Santa Cruz’s controversial camping ban.
He recently escaped custody and is currently evading arrest outside of U.S. jurisdiction.
We were able to secure a recording of the interview thanks to phaded; a fellow anon. We strongly encourage you to listen to the interview.
A recording of the interview should be made available on http://anonsource.org/ in the coming days.
It was so good that I asked and received permission to copy and publish it to my blog.
Thanks Kevin for your very insightful comments.
Kevin Brown:
"Regarding the incredible
issue of bail being denied for 330 days, I would add, as an example of
just how unprecedented this is, the case of Vakhtang Makhniashvili
(Mariam's father).
Vakhtang stabbed his neighbor with a
kitchen knife (came very close to killing him) on a Friday and was
released on bail the following Monday! Bail amount for the attempted
murderer was $50,000 (compare that to the $250,000 Bail Byron had to
post ! for his crime of uploading video's of the convention centre to
YouTube!)
There can be absolutely no justification or basis in
law for a judge to deny Byron bail within day's of his arrest. The
judge who denied bail request was corrupt - plain and simple! She was
just doing favors for the police and crown without any regard for the
rule of law. The judge has no integrity and she should not be sitting on
the bench but she doesn't have to worry, judges are never held to
account in Canada. Unlike the U.S. where the media are not afraid to
criticize judges, in Canada the media consider judges to be above
reproach.
In the attempted murder case above where the suspect
received bail within days - his Lawyer was the former top crown
prosecutor - Calvin Berry. Berry has many friends on the police force,
the crown and the bench and you can see how his cozy connections ensured
that his client was given as smooth a ride as possible! (he would go
on to stab two more people while out on bail awaiting trial!).
If the judges involved were doing their jobs why wasn't the entire case
thrown out after the preliminary hearing? Most of the charges were
thrown out but the judge left in a few bogus charges , again doing a
favor to the police and prosecutors, a face-saving measure so that they
are not left with egg in on their face.
As for the latest
charade, where the police made a huge spectacle out of recovering a
harmless chemical buried in a back yard - if the judge was doing her job
she would have cited the participants for contempt of court. This was
not only a harmless chemical (used in high school chemistry labs) we
have PROOF that the Police KNEW it was harmless because we can see (in
videos) that the officers that lowered the canister into their special
"hopper" wore NO protective equipment whatsoever (save for Oakley
sunglasses).
Despite the FACT that police KNEW this material
was completely harmless they went to great lengths to stage this
elaborate theater in an effort to influence the decision of a judge.
If this happened in the U.S. , where they take the law more seriously, I
have no doubt that senior police officials (Tam Bui?) would be facing
contempt of court charges!
Cases like this remind me why we
need to get camera's in our courtrooms. Somehow I think that if the
actions of the players inside our courtrooms were to be held up to
scrutiny we would see far less corrupt conduct.
Hopefully in
making her decision this judge will follow the rule of the law and will
not be swayed to find some wrongdoing (however minor) just so the police
and crown are not left with egg on their face."
However, that’s not what I find shocking. We know injustices like this occur. What shocks me is that there is very little moral outrage that it occurred.
Have we become so desensitized to corruption, abuse of process and abuse of power that we either no longer recognize it or simply don’t care? Is it really okay with our government, the media and the public at large to have our Justice system undermined in this way?
Let’s look at the facts:
1. Byron Sonne was the only person arrested during the G8/G20 Summit who was held without bail for over 300 days despite the fact that he committed no violent crime.
This includes people who actually committed violent acts like the fire-bombings of the Royal Bank of Canada and the vandalism in downtown Toronto.
Clement, one of the firebombers, and the only one of the three arrested who was held without bail, went to trial in December, 2010, less than 6 months after his June arrest. Pflug-Back was alleged to have committed thousands of dollars worth of vandalism and was released on bail.
Why was Byron treated in this discriminatory manner? What exactly did he do to deserve this “special” treatment?
a. “guilt by association” claims based on his reading material and email lists he was following;
b. speculation about legal chemicals and other materials he had on his property, some of which were for geek experiments that he was able to demonstrate he was working on;
c. his open and public admission of blackbox testing G8/G20 security.
None of which are criminal acts as far as I know.
In contrast. The cases against Clement, Pflug-Back and some others included video evidence of what appeared to be them actually committing the crimes.
And yet they weren't held without bail for over 300 days.
Where is the actual evidence against Sonne to support the charges? If there was none, why were the charges not dropped in their entirety? What is the standard required to legitimately arrest and charge someone? Was this standard actually met here or was it ignored by both the Detective Tam Bui, the lead investigator, and the Crown?
3. An appearance of extreme bias on the part of Detective Tam Bui occurred both in the interview tapes and with the dramatic street theatre associated with the potassium chlorate recently dug up in Byron's yard. The dig occurred based on information that wasn't a secret and the police presumably should have known long before this. Although they claim that they found out from the Defense Closing remarks. Whether that is true or not doesn't really matter.
What matters is that the drama was quite unnecessary.
Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems patently obvious to me that the police and the HazMat team knew the compound wasn’t explosive otherwise why would they have burned it in an open fire? They did this immediately after they created a huge drama by stopping traffic all over the city as the truck took the compound to the dump to be disposed of.
In other words, publicly treating it as though it was an explosive even though they had determined that it wasn't and didn't treat it as an explosive when they disposed of it.
The Judge was initially writing her decision based on the fact that Sonne didn’t make a bomb. Now, with what appear to be deceptive tactics, the Judge has presumably been left with the false impression that he did. An impression which could have an impact on the outcome of the case if the Judge doesn’t research this new issue carefully or register the nuances.
Whether Mr. Sonne is declared Guilty or not when this Judgement is handed in, I certainly hope that not just for his sake but for the sake of all Torontonians he will sue everyone involved in meting out this injustice.
There is no Justice without Accountability and those who engage in corruption, abuse of process or abuse of power to further agendas of personal bias must be held accountable. Especially those in positions of special trust like civil servants.
If they're not held accountable, they'll do it over and over again and every citizen will be placed at risk of becoming vulnerable to this abuse.
And I'm not assuming that this kind of abuse hasn't already occurred to others.
How do I describe this book? Dystopian? Revealing? Insightful? A wake-up call?
All of those descriptions would fit it quite well.
Reading Pilgrim Process was like sitting by the side of a bubbling stream on a warm, sunny spring day; tossing a fishing line into the foaming current; feeling a tug on the line; reeling it slowly in; and then suddenly have the fish leap out of the water into your waiting hands.
Could it be describing our world 5, 10, 20 years into our future?
Everything that Mr. Spencer portrays in revealing detail is easily within the realm of possibility given the current technologies combined with the high level corruption, abuse of power, and power plays by today’s corporocrats.
He offers an intense, if not detailed insight into the potentially dangerous and stormy waters that could develop if we, the people, do not pay attention and do not assert ourselves and he does it through the eyes of people with faith, belief, and religion.
It’s a timely and relevant story we should pay attention to.
All in all, a great read and I look forward to reading more of his work.
April 1st is traditionaly known as April fools day. Anonymous is declaring it an Anon Holiday and we will begin with Operation LulzDay.
A combined global paperstorm and Hacktivist day of information, public relations and Lulz.
Be artistic, create posters and flyers, business cards. Dress up as your favoutite game or comic charcaters, ponies and Nyan cats. Deface websites and post images.
Anonymous will embrace the troll within and celebrate their roots. Most importantly get the message out that we are not going away we are here for the lulz.
Let our brothers and sisters who have been arrested know that we are thinking of them, let dictators know we have not forgiven them. let the corrupt know we have not forgotten them, Let the Occupiers in every city know we support them.
Let the people of the world know that it is time to wake up and smell the Lulz.
Create this as an Event on Facebook and other social networks, tweet it to everyone u know.
April 1st is your day stand up and be counted and don't forget the lulz.
We are Anonymous
We are Legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
OpLulzDay Initiated, Expect Us
Sista Trance, High Priestess of the Virtual Temple of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, wishes the Pirates of LulzSec calm seas and clear skies on their new mission. May the Lulz be with them and may the IPU, on her holiest of holydays, guide them safely through the maze of routers and nodes and battle the evil forces lurking in dark corners, to keep them safe.
Unorthodox, the scandalous rejection of my Hasidic roots: a memoir by Deborah Feldman is an intimate portrayal of a young woman growing up in an environment of religious constraint and slowly freeing herself from that environment.
That is her story, on the surface. If you read it from that perspective it will enlighten and provide you with an insight into her particular religious environment and beliefs. Her personal journey will also stand as an inspiration and testament to anyone else who wishes to move out of the confines of their particular religious constraints.
However, I recognize Deborah. In my opinion, she is much more than that and her story involves much more than that, in reality. So I’m not surprised that there is some controversy over her book and challenges to it.
She is one of us. She is the rebel, the square peg who can’t fit into the round hole, the person who is never satisfied and cannot be satisfied with the status quo, whatever it is. Whether that status quo be the constraints of creed (religious or otherwise), culture, gender, etc.
Her drive to be free, that hunger for freedom runs deep and it is firmly founded in her strong natural curiosity about everything.
That is what makes Deborah different. It’s what makes me and numerous others different. People like us exist across all cultures, creeds, genders, etc. And no matter what our environment is we do not and cannot fit into the status quo of that environment.
I can’t explain why. I don’t understand it myself. I only know that we exist and that we can identify and empathize with each other. Once we understand that we can’t fit in and don’t try to fit in, we can begin the process of accepting and appreciating ourselves for who we are. When we can do that, others will accept and appreciate us for who we are. Well, at least some will.
It’s okay not to fit in. It’s okay to be different. We can’t be any other way no matter how much humiliation and abuse is heaped on us; no matter how many constraints are placed on us in our respective environments; no matter how much we are smeared for speaking our truths.
We don’t understand the sheeple and their passive acceptance of the status quo.
We are the innovators, the artists, the creative thinkers, the one’s that can think outside of the box. We are the ethicists, the one’s who consider social injustice an outrage and we can’t be silent about it. We have a driving need to change the status quo to better our world for ourselves and those around us.
We produce what we love to produce whether we get paid to produce or not. Our lives are driven by our passions and not by personal gain. Once we accept our difference and don’t allow it to stand in the way of our self-confidence (“faith in ourselves”) personal gain almost always comes along with the ride at some point because we are good at whatever it is that we choose to do.
If we didn’t exist, society would never advance because there would be no driving force for change.
Welcome to the club, Deborah. I look forward to reading more of what you have to offer.
With SOPA and PIPA dead in the U.S., lobbyists may be working behind the scenes to pass similar legislation in Canada.
Because of the music industry's proposed changes to copyright reform bill C-11, Canada could be "a prime target for SOPA style rules," warns Ottawa law professor Michael Geist.
The main point of contention is the industry's push to expand and add statutory damages to an "enabler provision" that would target a wider range of websites and run liability into the millions of dollars for a target website. Other groups are pushing for language that some fear could be used to shut down sites like YouTube.
The massive public protest over the SOPA and PIPA provisions was due to their threat to the Internet and freedom of speech. The same protest is needed to stop SOPA-like changes to Canada's C-11 bill.
Byron Sonne’s trial is currently in progress and I have been following it as closely as I can without actually being there. I blogged on this issue during the G8/G20.
Byron Sonne is a hacktivist who was black box testing the security surrounding the G8/G20.
I initially thought that Sonne had been recruited to participate in the Dirty Tricks campaign that I believe occurred at the time. However, friends of Sonne contacted me and assured me that I was wrong and that Sonne was an innocent victim.
Note that there is now evidence coming out that my general assessment of what occurred during the G8/G20 in 2008 was actually a direct result of a Dirty Tricks campaign,was correct even though it appears that I was wrong about Sonne.
If the media keep digging I don’t doubt the rest of the story could be revealed. If they don’t well then an opportunity to expose some pretty ugly corruption will have fallen by the wayside. Of course, the fact that Elliott was the Commissioner during that period also means that much of the evidence could have been destroyed or fabricated to be intentionally misleading.
Based on what I’ve seen to date I would have to agree with Sonne’s friends about his innocence.
I publicly admit my error and apologize to Sonne.
It appears that their trust in their friend was well founded. Sonne does indeed appear to be an innocent victim of this particularly ugly Dirty Tricks campaign, and I thank his friends for calmly and rationally presenting their case and giving me the time to evaluate it based on it’s own merits.
One of my reasons for saying that Sonne appears to be an innocent victim is the published interrogation of Byron Sonne by Tam Bui. There are several things that become obvious in that interview and indicate that Bui was trying to make a lot more out of Byron’s actions than the evidence itself indicated. His questions about Byrons attitudes and beliefs towards the Jewish community as well as the one's related to an alleged conspiracy were baseless because there was no evidence to support them.
Given that a Ms. Bich Bui is a donor to Mount Sinai Hospital (a relative of Tam Bui?) one has to wonder if Sonne was arrested and held without bail, simply because Tam Bui and/or his personal friends held a personal bias based on nothing more than Sonne downloading a document.
One has to wonder if they held a personal bias which resulted in Sonne unjustly being held in prison without bail for three hundred days and charged for numerous offenses for which there was no evidentiary foundation?
If anyone bothered to research Sonne and read his online stuff it’s pretty clear that he isn’t antisemitic. Unless one thinks that reading something automatically means that the reader must believe it or agree with it.
That would be a pretty absurd conclusion for a presumably experienced lead police investigator to come to and one would have to question his competence if he did that.
Was Sonne simply being punished
because someone, somewhere came to baseless and therefore wrong conclusions about his
political beliefs and decided to make him pay irrespective of his clear and unambiguous explanations in the interrogations?
It's Ontario. Why wouldn't that surprise me.
(Please note that the above is not a commentary on the good people of Ontario. It is directed towards a specific circle in the wealthy elite here who has effectively bought the Liberal government and for whom the Liberals work exclusively at the expense of not only other members of the wealthy elite but the citizens of Ontario).
Sonne’s trial can be followed on the following site: Free Byron Sonne!
The Occupy Movement was discovering it’s wings. WikiLeaks and Anonymous were maturing and coming into their own as critical components of this new, dynamic social movement that was inspired by the Arab Spring.
While everyone is still working on finding their way and their focus there’s a sense of excitement and hope in the air from those of us who have tired of the rank corruption, abuse of power, and culture of impunity that has been allowed free reign in our respective countries.
What we need is focus.
What we need is Transparency, Accountability and Justice with an end to the “reconciliation” approach that permeates our system in Canada and which allows criminals to walk freely among us without being held accountable for their crimes.
My hopes?
I hope the move by Americans to recall the politicians who voted for the NDAA picks up even more steam in the US. The ball has started to roll and this is an important one for Canadians and Americans alike. It’s important for Canadians because what happens in the US impacts us. The NDAA could certainly have an impact on the current Border Security Agreement being negotiated by the US and Canada.
The fact that these negotiations are secret when they should be transparent is another serious concern. Our governments should not be allowed to arbitrarily determine what can be kept a secret from the citizens who elected them. And we citizens should have input into a process that could have such a deep. long-lasting impact on our relationship with the US and our ability to travel freely between countries.
Ironically, no-one should know this better than the Conservatives whose roots were in the Reform movement in the 1980s and whose movement grew out of an opposition to corruption, greed and abuse of power. It was the Reformers who were demanding transparency and the ability to recall politicians. And now, we are seeing them return to the same corrupt politics that has permeated Canada’s political system historically.
This is precisely why Canadians also need the right to recall politicians, that is, the right to representative recall. The only place in Canada that allows this currently is BC. We cannot do this in any other province or federally.
Calling for the right to representative recall is something the federal Conservatives would be hard pressed to refuse or ignore given that it was the Reform Party, their root organization, that initiated this demand. And if they did so, their hypocrisy would be exposed.
In addition, the right of recall should be established as a Constitutional change so that it cannot be arbitrarily denied on a whim.
In fact, we should consider a complete rewrite of the Charter of Rights and the elimination of the “notwithstanding clauses” which effectively limit our rights to the whim of the government or state at any given time.
Rights are and should be legally established as inviolable. Only a few should be allowed to be restricted and only under exceptional or extreme circumstances limited in the most minimal way. Personally, I would like to see a republican style Constitution.
The Canadian Medical and Psychiatric system is wide open to corruption and abuse and the only reason that the corrupt haven’t been caught is because it is so wide open. Medical and Psychiatric Doctors and other personnel are given a free pass on the unwarranted and baseless assumption that they have the best interests of the patient at heart.
This is demonstrably not true and our experience in Ontario under the current Liberal regime is evidence of this sad fact. We need Patients Rights legislation and tighter Psychiatric Patients Rights legislation to protect patients from this rank systemic corruption which includes but is not limited to extreme and gross medical neglect potentially resulting in medical murder as well as incompetent mental health evaluations by GPs which can have a huge and seriously negative impact on an individual’s life.
In the sick and twisted minds of some medical “professionals” in Ontario, objecting to negligent medical care is an indication of mental illness. Sure it is, when the medical “professionals” are corrupt and want to cover up their gross and sometimes intentional negligence inflicted on a patient under who knows what bizarre rationale.
Our police services should not available for hire by private corporations and private individuals. Allowing this removes the fine line between who is acting on whose behalf and enables corruption.
On a personal note, I would like to see serious criminal legislation in place to deal with the crime of Stalking. The Criminal Harassment legislation does not even come close to describing and dealing with this crime. January is National Stalking Awareness month. Keep an eye on my blog. There will be lots of information on this topic this year, including an analysis of employer, community and organizational participation in this crime and the serious impact it has on a victims life.
And last but not least we need ideas to build a stronger participatory Democracy whether that means changing our parliamentary system to a republic or something else.
The eviction of the Occupy Toronto posters is occurring now (7:39AM).
One of the comments made by protesters was that the police were violating numerous by-laws in the process of the eviction.
May I respectfully remind the Toronto Police Service that they are not above the law including Municipal By-Laws.
8:00AM. The Livestream and several protestors are indicating that CUPE Local 416 is participating in tent removal.
May I also respectfully remind CUPE Local 416 that it is not their job to to perform TPS duties. Clearing the tents amounts to enforcing the law. This is a TPS duty.
8:24AM. Sound cannon (LRAD) observed and police announce that they are planning to use it as a speaker. Request protestors move back.
8:30AM. Police announce (using LRAD as a speaker) that they are attempting the peaceful removal of all structures in the park and are asking for the cooperation of protestors in complying with the court order by removing their possessions and leaving the park. Anyone needing housing and support is invited to attend Adelaide Women's Center for assistance. Once cleared, St. James Park will be open to the public and protestors will be free to engage in their right to free speech. (Paraphrased).
(2)
Every one who willfully disturbs or interrupts an assemblage of persons
met for religious worship or for a moral, social or benevolent purpose
is guilty of an offense punishable on summary conviction.
Idem
(3)
Every one who, at or near a meeting referred to in subsection (2),
willfully does anything that disturbs the order or solemnity of the
meeting is guilty of an offense punishable on summary conviction.
I certainly hope that Occupy Toronto lawyers are taking note of all of this.
Occupy Toronto is asking people to go down to St. James Park in order to document the events (eviction) and support the protestors who have been camping there.
Judge's Decision:
XI. Conclusion [128]
For the reasons set out above, I conclude that the Trespass Notice is constitutionallyvalid. I dismiss the application. The parties have agreed that there will be no order as to costs inlight of the public importance of the issues raised by this proceeding
