Exposing The Invisible: Stalking In Indian Country by Terri Hansen

Republished.

Ever feel you’re being watched?  

Most Americans don’t pay much attention to their surroundings as they go about their daily business, but that’s not an option for the more than 3.4 million who become stalking victims each year.

Thirty-three percent of those stalking victims are Native American, more than any other race or ethnicity, according to a U.S. Department of Justice 2009 report, “Stalking Victimization in the United States.”

The sample size of Native Americans might have skewed that percentage, Shannon Catalano, a statistician with the DoJ said. “But in victimization that is something we see, a higher crime rate across the board against Native Americans.”

American Indian women suffer the highest rates of domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault of any population, reports another study by the Tribal Law and Policy Institute and the Southwest Center for Law and Policy. The majority of perpetrators of these crimes are non-Indian males.

“Stalkers are usually older, more intelligent, have higher levels of education and status, and are the most violent of all criminals,” says Ann Dapice, Ph.D., a Lenape/Cherokee and director of Education and Research at T.K. Wolf, Inc., an American Indian stalking authority.

Tamela Dawson dated, and left, the wrong man. “It started with psychological warfare,” Dawson, of Cherokee descent, says.

She came home to find that her furniture had been rearranged, and the crotches torn from her underwear. She figured her house was bugged when she told a friend she needed a soup ladle and one appeared soon after in her dishwasher. She suffered sleep deprivation when a noise campaign ensued.

“It started gradually, then escalated. Phone calls. Anything in my house that had an alarm feature they’d set at five minutes after the hour several times through the night, which would trigger my startle reflex multiple times,” says Dawson. “Wherever I went, up to 10 times a day, cars would either go by my home or follow me with a very distinct and recognizable pattern of honks,” says Dawson.

“They played songs over and over and wherever I went, I heard those songs. Sting’s ‘I’ll be watching you,’ and Stevie Wonders’ ‘Mon Cherie.’ Cars would park outside of my house in the middle of the night, or would do drive bys, with the songs blaring out their rolled-down windows.”

Her perpetrators worked her in stages. “With sophisticated psychological manipulation, a woman loses her problem solving ability,” Dawson says. “You’re operating at maybe 20 percent. You share the crazy things happening to you with your support structure, and that separates you from them. Once they’ve isolated you, they break you.”

Dawson says someone drugged the food in her home and later returned to rape her.

“I remember on several occasions coming out of whatever drugged state I was in to seeing multiple men in my room, and another time finding a man on top of me. I remember fighting to stay conscious and I couldn’t.” Her physical therapist saw bruises and asked if she was abused. Shocked, Dawson said no.

It wasn’t denial. “You’re so busy trying to stay one step ahead of the stalking, harassment, and noise, for me, there were no words. You just do not think.” Date rape drugs like Rohypnol, GHB, and Ketamine can cause memory problems and confusion even when used just once on a victim.

Her therapist’s suspicion prompted Dawson to contact police and hire a bodyguard.

“Get out of Santa Rosa,” police told her. “We cannot protect you. Go home to your family.” She moved home to Arkansas after her bodyguard turned to her, furious, asking what she’d done, if she’d testified against any one – because, he said, gang members were stalking her house. Dawson now believes her ex-boyfriend set her up for sexual trafficking.

Stalking is not a single, identifiable act but a series of actions meant to cause fear in the target. Some states define it to include lying-in-wait, surveillance, nonconsensual communication, telephone harassment or vandalism. It takes the form of theft, kidnapping and arson, killing pets, breaking and entering, and gaslighting—when perpetrators steal or hide insignificant items or make changes in a victim’s home to make them think they’re going crazy.

Dapice says stalkers use mind games to make victims ‘feel crazy,’ and successfully obtain help from others, called proxy stalkers. “Stalkers excel in planning, scheming and subtlety,” Dapice says. “They display obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and become addicted to their own brain chemicals. The longer they stalk the more obsessive they become, until they kill.”

Stalkers use technology like satellite global position systems (GPS), computers, and hidden cameras to track the daily activities of one in four victims. “Roving bug” programs installed into a cell phone can listen through its microphone, even when the phone is off.

The DoJ stalking study measured unwanted calls, texts, e-mails, notes or gifts, cyber-stalking, and posting information or spreading falsehoods about the victim on the Internet, in a public place, or by word of mouth. Dapice says stalkers also use electronic technology such as tracking devices, identity theft, mail theft, bank account theft, and wiretapping to expand their power.

Dawson’s stalkers dressed uniformly, like wearing red t-shirts and standing on every corner on her drive to work, or in the aisles at the grocery store, smirking. “A red t-shirt is not enough evidence to bring to someone’s attention, so only the victim knows,” she says.

Victims often report such bizarre behaviors they have trouble convincing others that it is happening—including the professional assigned to help them. “Stalkers are very smart, and the police don’t believe victims,” says Dapice. “Or they don’t like looking for clues, and putting the evidence together.”

T.K. Wolf’s board member Sheree Hukill Hukill listened to a woman who said she’d reported to the police that ‘God’ was talking to her each night when she went to bed. “As you can imagine, local law enforcement did not take her seriously. Eventually, one officer found the stalker had rigged an elaborate sound system under the woman’s house with speakers in her bedroom. Her stalker was the voice of ‘God’ telling her these very bizarre things.”

“Denial of the serious nature of this criminal behavior — and the high risk of  violence — is still endemic among mental health and law enforcement professionals,” forensic psychologist Reid Meloy Ph.D., a clinical professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego says. “Only two percent of victims claim they are being stalked when in fact they are not.”

Dapice had a case where police told the victim if she called to report further evidence, they would lock her up. She’s even seen a case where rogue law enforcement officials cooperated with the stalkers.

T.K. Wolf interviewed law enforcement across the country and found a pattern of passing the buck, from police to district attorneys to judges to U.S. postal inspectors to FBI agents. In turn, Dapice says that social service providers, mental health experts, governmental agencies and private attorneys are unable or unwilling to provide services to victims.

Meanwhile, the physical and mental toll of stalking is staggering.

“Cortisol, meant for fight or flight in temporary danger continues acting, and continuous cortisol results in destruction of brain and body cells and organs,” says Dapice. “We know that post traumatic stress disorder induces cell loss in the brain and is related to depression. Worse is what I have named CATS – continuous, acute, traumatic syndrome, where the trauma continues over years and the victim remains in an acute trauma situation.”

The Tides Foundation funded a video documentary of stalking victims. Almost all have a cortisol “pudgy face” appearance, says Dapice. “Many victims gain weight in the abdomen; it’s nature’s once adaptive way of preparing the body for hard times ahead via a message from the stressor that caused the cortisol release originally. With weight gain comes cardiovascular problems.”

Agencies and the law often categorize stalking as domestic violence, limiting services to ‘known intimates.’ Yet this group represents only 30.3 percent of victims. ‘Known others,’ like co-workers, relatives, classmates, and neighbors account for 45.1 percent. A surprising one in four does not know their stalkers. Some is organized stalking, or “mobbing.” Others hide behind hired individuals who do their harassment for them.

“There are people who stalk relationships, people who stalk in order to do revenge, people who stalk political and entertainment figures,” says Dapice. “There is group and proxy stalking. There are different motives but whatever it is, it is always a power play.”

Stalkers will follow their victims from one jurisdiction to another – making it difficult for authorities to investigate and prosecute their crimes. “Often moving makes no difference,” says Dapice. “Stalkers will walk around a neighborhood and tell lies and stories about their victims.”

Dawson thought moving home to Arkansas would provide safety. She learned the campaign to discredit her had followed her when an elderly man, passing her on the street said, ‘You are disgusting.’ At her new job, “One day everyone loved me and I was doing a stellar job. The next day nobody would talk to me. People glared and stared at me, good people.”

“I was so traumatized I didn’t know where to start.”

Dawson’s gas-lighting incidents, slander, the following, and a noise campaign continue. Her story is remarkably similar to that of Vicki Burnett, a Minnesota Chippewa who lives in Nevada, and Elisabeth Buchanan and Diane Dillon, both Metis women living in British Columbia, Canada, who also report having had sonic devices used to ward off animals trained on them from a distance, and radar devices that measure a car or baseball’s speed that cause great discomfort when aimed at humans.

Like Dawson, Burnett’s terror began as stalking. Then came fuzzily waking to men in her room. Suspecting rape, but not knowing which nights the assaults took place, Burnett’s doctor offered to test her hair for drugs. “But they charged $500, and my medical insurance said it wasn’t medically necessary.”

After waking to unaccounted pinpoint bruises on her forearms and legs, and her stalker’s uncanny ability to track her, Burnett suspects her stalkers injected a radio-frequency identification microchip. She woke once to IV apparatus and tubing in her bedroom and called the police, “but all they could do was take a report, because nothing was taken from my house, and there was no physical assault.

Kits that let you inject a grain of rice sized tracking chip into pets with a hypodermic then track them with a handheld radio-wave scanner sell on popular sites such as Amazon. Today’s scanners can locate a chip as far as 30 to 60 feet away, and interface with computers. Chips can also hide in a woman’s purse, but if found would serve as hard evidence.

Burnett wants an MRI to prove her suspicions but faces physicians leery of ordering a scan without medical justification, or worse, ordering her to a psychiatrist.

Human rights advocate Debbie Newhook lives in the picturesque harbor community of Nanaimo on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. She knows seven stalking victims in her community. Two are Native, and one has MRI and CAT scans that prove she has implants.

“Her doctor will not remove them until she has legal counsel, but no one will take her case,” Newhook says. “All doors seem to be slammed shut even when medical imaging proves that there is some kind of foreign object in their bodies.”

Most of the violence in Indian country has been non-Natives against Natives, and not because stalking victims are on tribal lands, Dapice says. “No one, Indian or non-Indian who is stalked gets any help.” Worse, some people blame the victims so they are afraid to come out of the closet.

Men make up 27 percent of stalking victims, and are often doubly victimized “because police will say ‘what’s wrong with you, why can’t you protect yourself?’” Dapice said the police blame the judges, and the judges blame the system. “Everyone blames everyone else and eventually it’s somebody else’s fault, and nothing gets done.”

Dawson’s goal is to expose her stalking and sexual trafficking story. “If we can engage women’s groups, we’ll have success in fighting it.”

“People who go along with this kind of extra judicial punishment because they believe the lies and slander about the victim should be ashamed of themselves for participating in this harassment,” Newhook says. “The people who are misusing energy devices against their neighbors should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Communities that understand stalking and support its victims help to combat the crime. The only thing that’s going to stop it, says Dapice, “is peer pressure.” Don’t accept lies or rumors that generate hate about the victim.

“If we are to stop stalking, we must believe the victims and the statistics and then take action on multiple fronts,” says Dapice. “We must educate each other on the causes and effects of stalking, and bring all players to the table: victims, social service agencies, law enforcement, attorneys, judiciary, mental health professionals, medical professionals, employers, governmental agencies, scientific researchers, media and the faith communities. All must work together and be held accountable.”

If a friend, neighbor, coworker, or family member thinks they’re being stalked, encourage them to take it seriously and get help. If you or someone you know is a victim, visit the National Stalking Awareness Month, National Center for Victims of Crime or the DoJ’s Office on Violence Against Women for information and links to state and regional resources. Or contact your local women’s crisis center.

Other Resources:

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

My Mobile Witness: You get the feeling something is not quite right. Now, you can use your cell phone to take a picture of the person or situation that is making you uncomfortable, and send it with a note to secure vault. Your message is timestamped, and is accessible only by law enforcement in the event your suspicion turns out to be true. And the service is free. Sign up at My Mobile Witness.

 

by Terri Hansen

[Bolding and italics are Blog poster's emphasis]

Original article: Exposing The Invisible: Stalking In Indian Country

Mammoliti’s Red Scare and Red-Baiting

“McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, "McCarthyism" soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.” –Wikipedia on McCarthyism

Now, frankly, I have to seriously question the sanity of any person who thinks that communism is a threat to anyone in this modern era. Particularly given the fact that it’s failed around the world and there are very few people who consider it a serious alternative to anything, never mind an actual solution to society’s problems.

I know I don’t take communism or communists seriously and I don’t know of very many people who do. Including those in and around left wing circles. Communism and communists have essentially become toothless, basically advocating social safety net policies within the existing capitalist system. Other than the usual empty rhetoric that most don't buy, including many of their own members, they are effectively no different than any other social activist organization.

Now, I don't doubt there are a few aging dinosaurs in their 70s and 80s who are still living in the Cold War era because of their dementia and others stupid enough to buy their rather insane paranoid delusions but for the most part no-one cares about the communists or communism in modern day politics. They've become quite irrelevant.

No, there isn't a red under every bed.

So, giving Mammoliti, the benefit of the doubt, and going on the assumption that he isn’t insane (which may be a stretch), one can only wonder what he hopes to gain by introducing Red Scare politics and Red-Baiting into Toronto Municipal politics in 2011.

Mr. Mammoliti. May I take this opportunity to point out to you that the Berlin wall came down and the Cold War ended years ago.

If you’re going to look under beds for monsters, there are plenty of real ones out there that you might want to be concerned about.

Why do you appear to be ignoring these real threats to the peace and security of the citizens of Toronto, in favor of fabricating phony threats? Are organizations like the Tamil Tigers, Islamic terrorist groups, English Defense League and Jewish Defense League (a group declared terrorist and extremist in the US and on the FBI Watch List), all of whom are currently active in Toronto, acceptable to you? Why aren’t you raising the warning flag about them?

Is it because this campaign of yours is simply a self-serving attempt to discredit anyone who disagrees with you rather than any genuine concern about the influence of extremists and terrorists on Municipal politics?

Just wondering ….

My Weird Meter exploded when this story hit the news.

A more detailed take on this story by David Nickle of Inside Toronto:

Mammoliti's Strategy Isn't Pretty But It Is Effective

Love Works! The Dynamism of Stephen Shellenberger

Stephen Shellenberger dot com

"Whereas a door requires a choice a wall is clearly there. It does not necessitate a choice to enter but is in plain view and one can choose not to look at it, but it still remains there." -- Stephen

Google+ vs FaceBook

Like many people I’m more than a little fed up with FaceBook these days. I’m there for the same reasons that a lot of people are there. It’s the main Social Networking site going and most people I know are either there or are likely to appear there.

However, their recent changes are just bloating the software, slowing it down, and making it increasingly complex for the novice user.

I can manage without a problem because I’m a Web and Software Developer.Many of my friends can’t and the instructions to perform what should be simple tasks are often lengthy.

The software is becoming increasingly poorly designed and the absurd complexity and unpredictability where some of the features are concerned is an indication of that very poor design.

In addition, some of their policies are just downright silly, unenforceable in actual fact, and focused on appeasing some government bureaucrat somewhere rather than enhancing the user experience and protecting user rights.

One example is their rather arbitrary dictates on the names used. If your name happens to be the same as some famous person who also has an account you have a problem.

Another is the issue of User privacy.

Yes, I get the fact that the point of a social networking site is so that your friends can find you. Anyone who really is a friend is going to know your alias.

I also get the fact that the site should be able to identify who you really are so that people can’t abuse their accounts to harass others. That doesn’t mean you have to be findable and identifiable to the entire world. There’s no reason why one can’t identify themselves to Facebook while using a public alias and not identify themselves publicly on the Internet. If abuse occurs and a complaint is made Facebook would still know who to go after. And that is the real point.

Aside from the fact that actually identifying someone on the Internet is not really enforceable without implementing draconian, privacy violating policies in the first place and even then there’s no guarantee.

Now, along comes Google+ and it’s a pleasure to use.

Top Feature: The interface is clean, simple, clear and well-designed.

Most Valuable Feature: The social Circles concept and the completely separate streams for different Circles.

One just clicks on the Circle you are posting to from  your Streams Column and posts. Your post will automatically only be visible to that Stream. You can view the posts that way too. This is, and should be the default.

Let’s face it, do you really want your 7 year old nephew to read a graphic Wall Post on the horrors of Catholic Priests raping children?

On Google+ this shouldn’t happen because even if your friend has shared it to the world, your response is only going to display in your social Circle stream by default.

You can now add other Circles, make it visible to the world, share it by email, etc.

On the other hand, on Facebook, if a friend posts it and you respond in Comments it goes on your Wall and becomes available to your 7 year old nephew. Yes I have pointed this out to Facebook. They don’t care.

The Circles concept is something I suggested to FB a long time ago and was ignored. They recently implemented a way of doing it but again it’s not obvious and the user has to remember to share each and every Wall Post according to the stream. By default everything is displayed together and when you respond to a Wall post it’s visible to all of your friends and not just those in a particular group.

Adding yourself to Google+ using an alias also doesn’t appear to be a problem. I created one such account as a test case and it was accepted.

However, given the way that the Circles are being done, it isn’t necessary to use an alias, so I’ll just use that alias account to see the results of my tests while I’m familiarizing myself with Google+ and eventually delete it.

Even the Circles I create are private from anyone not in those Circles. So cool!

In short the FB interface for doing the same thing is confusing, bloated and difficult to understand and the consequences are not easily predictable.

Google+ is the exact opposite.

I’m looking forward to the day when I can get all of my friends off of Facebook and on to Google+.

And here’s the downside of Google+. There doesn’t appear to be an easy way to invite your Friends from Facebook en masse to join Google+. You need to extract their email addresses manually from their pages and invite them manually.

I suspect this is temporary and is only a problem because Google+ is still in Beta and wants to control the number of people joining for now.

Here’s a suggestion to Google though: Write a FaceBook App using the FB API which allows us to invite our FaceBook Friends automatically and en masse to join Google+. (Joking … sort of)

Oh, the irony …. ;-D

LulzSec–I am amused (chuckles)

Honestly. LulzSec is hilarious and in the process of their amusing merry-making they also happen to be making a very serious and important point.

They’re doing this because they can.

And the point that they’re trying to get across is that our data isn’t secure which puts the public at serious risk.

It’s a message that should be taken seriously.

Note that they are White Hat hackers. They did nothing illegal with the information like selling it to unscrupulous third parties. They simply hacked, provided the evidence that they hacked, how far they got with the hack,  publicized the hack, and lastly publicized what could have happened to the data had they been Black Hat hackers.

Like Anonymous, LulzSec appears to be a socially responsible hacking group and one that’s trying to give the Information Technology industry the push it needs to deal seriously with the security of online data and computer systems.

It’s a message which hasn’t taken despite the recent criminal and black hat hacks of government and corporate systems within the last few years, some of which have threatened the national security of governments like Canada when our financial systems were hacked this year.

At least part of the problem is the fact that government and corporate entities don’t really understand how these violations occur thereby leaving themselves open and vulnerable, often without realizing it.

I’m not a hacker but being in IT, I understand the process of hacking. I have to in order to write software code which at least attempts to block it. 

Of course, I make no guarantees, because I can’t, and neither can any other software developer. If one does, they’re lying to you. There’s always going to be a hacker out there who is better at breaking our code than we are at writing it, no matter how good we are. In addition, we have to balance security requirements with ensuring that the functionality requirements are met, some of which, by their very nature make the code less secure.

The best that we can do is minimize the threat by writing code that is difficult to break.

Serious hacking (not Script Kiddies who pick up malware online and distribute it) requires two components:

1. A high degree of hardware and software knowledge. (Technical engineering)
2. A high degree of social knowledge of the target to be hacked (Social engineering).

Serious prevention must have strategies for managing both of the above processes.

Probably the most important security point to remember is that the biggest threat doesn’t come from outsiders but from insiders.

It’s insiders that have both the Technical and Social knowledge required by outsiders to perform a successful hack. Whether those insiders are innocent dupes, criminals who have been bribed, or part of the black hat hacker team is irrelevant to the fact that they will have contributed to the insecurity of the system. It would, of course, be relevant if they were caught in order to determine what kind of charges should be laid.

So, when a Government MP or Corporate CEO, for example, has been either knowingly or unknowingly comprised and hires an Employee Recruitment firm based on the wrong reasons, that MP or CEO, may well have just opened the door to allowing their government or corporate data to be compromised.

And the insiders aren’t always, or even usually, the IT people.

Receptionists and Cleaning Staff are lucrative targets because:

1. They are generally poorly paid.

2. Receptionists have Social Engineering knowledge that would be useful to hackers as well as a log in/password to the system.

3. Janitors have access to all of the physical areas of the building which could allow them to attach hardware to server and computer systems which could be used to compromise them as well as provide hardware information.

Other regular employees are not immune either. Employee groups like Customer Service (client information) or HR (employee information) have access to information that would be considered confidential. They can provide log ins, useful social engineering information, or in many cases the actual data, to the hacker group which could be used to compromise the rest of the system.

If IT people are compromised, there is generally no need to hack the system because it’s already completely compromised from within, since they have direct access to the data and can do pretty much whatever they want to do with it.

There are ethical technical and social solutions to all of these problems that do not involve violating civil rights and are not draconian in nature.

Unfortunately the tendency appears to be to go with the draconian solutions which almost always involve civil rights violations, making employees feel untrusted and targeted or requiring all kinds of high level (and frankly useless) security clearances. It’s really a shame but that tends to be the direction that those who continue to cling desperately to the old-fashioned and out-dated Security and Intelligence Cold War psychological model, appear to prefer.

In my opinion, none of the alert parameters that they apply or look for make one iota of difference in terms of preventing these types of  organizational compromises. They just make the “suits” feel like something is being done and gives them something to tell people, thereby creating a sense of false security which contributes to the worsening of the problem.

And as long as that is the model out there in the IT Security and Intelligence World, LulzSec, Anonymous, and other White Hat Hackers  will continue to have a lot a fun at your expense, and the Black Hat Hackers will continue to seriously compromise our systems.

Now that they've attacked Canadian Federal financial systems what's next? Do we even know if they've hacked other Federal systems like the RCMP or Provincial Government systems like Ontario's eHealth, OPP, Provincial Financial systems?

On a personal note, while I do take all of the important steps to protect my systems security, my focus isn’t really on preventing anyone from hacking my system but rather on catching them. I don’t have insiders on my system but if I did, that would apply to both insiders and outsiders.

More fun that way for me but then, unlike most users, I have the technical skills to do it ;-D.

And so does the IT world.

Just a thought ….
 

Another Take On The Election Debates

If you're thin-skinned and overly sensitive, I suggest you pass this one by.

If not, you might just find it as hilarious as I did .... especially given my previous post on the Federal Elections:

Canada's Federal Elections 2011

Help Harper ....

Canada’s Federal Elections 2011

Well here we are again facing yet another election and, in my opinion, another Minority Government.

At least I hope so…..

Frankly I don’t trust any of the current major Political Parties to do their jobs without close supervision right now. The best way to ensure there is close supervision is to have a Minority Government.

The reason that I feel this is way is that my biggest election concern in recent years has been Government, State, and Corporate Ethics.

I have seen way to many incidents of patronage, corruption, and abuse of power in recent years and at all levels of government and the state as well as in the corporate world.

In addition, these incidents are just the ones that we know about because they got exposed and the government, etc. wasn’t able to cover them up. Another all too common practice that is occurring these days.

I’m sure there are many more that haven’t seen the light of day.

These incidents which have occurred, have done so at all levels of government and span party lines. 

This is a sad indication that corruption, patronage, and abuse of power are an accepted norm in Canada. To blame this on one party alone simply doesn't wash.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Canada fares no better than any Third World country where corruption, patronage and abuse of power are concerned. Canada is just not as open about it; is very good at covering it’s tracks; and quite exceptional at maintaining the myth that we have ethical standards here.

The stark reality tells a very different story, a very ugly story, and one which demonstrates that Canada does not operate on ethical standards of any kind, in any shape or form.

Canada’s great at pretending it does though and like I said, exceptionally good at maintaining the myth.

Canada maintains the myth by deflection.

The argument basically goes like this:

“Canada is good because the US is bad".

In formal Argumentation this is a form of the Ad Hominem fallacy, a demagogic argument, and fails on those grounds alone, never mind the numerous other deceptions inherent in that claim.

An argument has to be able to stand on it’s own merits, so anyone who wants to make the claim that “Canada is good” has to be able to first define “good” and then list the specifics to support that claim independent of irrelevancies like comparing us to the US. This is what can't be done. There are no merits in reality to the claim that "Canada is good".

So, frankly, I find this Canadian self-righteousness towards the United States quite amusing.

At least the Americans have extremely strong laws in place to protect against corruption, patronage and abuse of power. Sure Canada has laws against this too. Wishy washy ones. Not to mention the fact that they are never, ever enforced. This fact is what really says it all.

The Americans, on the other hand, not only have strong laws but have been known to enforce their laws to the highest levels of government up to and including the President. Remember Nixon?

Can we say the same about Canada? No.

In fact, I challenge anyone to provide me with a single example of a conviction occurring as a result of a politician or civil servant engaging in corruption, patronage, or abuse of power in Canada.

Let’s include corporate corruption and criminal acts committed by the wealthy elite in this as well since government and corporate corruption, as well as corruption in the wealthy elite are usually bedfellows.

Can anyone out there provide me with one single example of a government politician, civil servant (including police, military and intelligence), or corporate officer/owner, or a member of Canada's wealthy elite, who has been charged with a criminal offense and convicted.

It has to have:

1. occurred in Canada
2. been the result of a criminal act, corruption, patronage or abuse of power
3. involved the top level person or a member of the wealthy elite responsible (no examples of scapegoats please)
4. occurred in the course of performing their duties, or in the case of wealthy elite, any crime will do. (Russell Williams doesn't count because he wasn't a member of the wealthy elite and he didn't commit his crimes in the course of performing his duties).

Yes, one can criticize the Americans on the grounds that they don’t always enforce those laws, and as a result a great deal of corruption, patronage and abuse of power still goes on.

However, for Canada and Canadians to be the ones to do it demonstrates a typically self-righteous and smug hypocrisy given the fact that we have a far worse record than the Americans.

As a result, I don’t care who wins the Canadian 2011 Federal Elections anymore.

I just want another Minority Government so that the incentive exists for the parties to  continue to self-righteously and smugly watch-dog each other.

Since my daughter threatened to ex-communicate me because I changed my support from Liberal to Conservative, maybe I’ll support the NDP this time or go back to supporting the Liberals. There's always the Green Party. 

Then again, I’m not sure the Conservatives have really been that bad….

My daughter is a typical Canadian and too wishy washy to actually go through with ex-communicating me.

Working For Myself!

This is a new adventure for me. I've worked either for various levels or government or private corporations for most of my life.

So far getting the business off the ground has been a lot of work but I look forward to the challenges ahead.

I've had one moment of panic so far, made some mistakes, and then got over it without committing any criminal acts, doing anything evil to anyone, while resolving the issue.

:-D

I'd say that's a good sign.

Now, I'm looking for clients so I'm going to shamelessly advertise it on my personal blog.

Check out my new Business site at Kitty Hundal Dot Com.

If you need someone to build your web site, web, software or phone application, or come up with a Cloud solution for a business problem you're having I'll be more than happy to help.

Stalked? Here's one solution ...

Most stalking victims are not only targeted in real life but in the virtual cyber world as well .

My own personal case demonstrates this reality quite well.

Companies like the following one are available to help for those who have the financial resources and would be well worth the price tag.

Unfortunately, I can't afford them, but for those of you who can, you should seriously consider this option.

With the kind of supportive evidence that they could provide it would become very difficult for the powers that be to ignore your case and very difficult for the stalkers to continue stalking,  maliciously persecuting, slandering and libeling you undetected and behind the scenes, as many do.

For obvious reasons they cannot take on pro bono cases so please don't contact them to ask them to do that.

Only contact them if you can afford to pay for their services.

Cyber Investigative Services, LLC

Anonymous Internet Attack Investigations (Worldwide), Internet Litigation & Defamation Support, Online Reputation Repair & Defense.

Licensed PI Agency # - A1000310,

Website: www.reputationdefenseonline.com (Investigative)

Website: www.netslander.com (educational)

Phone: (813) 344-1614

Our standard scenario is a client or their attorney faced with the daunting task of having to PROVE the identity of the person who is attacking them online. In 80%+ of our cases, everybody knows who is doing the attacks but frequently, that is not good enough to proceed. Many investigations are derailed by anonymous IP addresses, fake accounts and spoofed MAC addresses. Antagonists go to great lengths to hide their identity, so getting to the real information requires very specialized techniques.

HBGary and CyberSecurity

Ironically, HBGary, purportedly a "cyberdefense" firm, was compromised by a very basic SQL Injection attack by Anonymous.

This apparently occurred before the exposure of HBGary's lame attempt to attack Wikileaks recently (details in my previous blog post) and was the source of that revelation.

How seriously does HBGary take IT security if they don't protect against the basics?

And what does that tell us about their competence in this field? A lot.

They're certainly not a company I'd trust with the cybersecurity of my system.

It also calls their competence in the entire area of "cyberdefense" into question.

From their site: "Security is not an IT problem, it's an Intelligence problem".

Um. No. Security is both an IT and Intelligence problem.

With their approach to security, no wonder Anonymous had no problem hacking them, accessing  and taking over their entire system, downloading their data and releasing it to the public.

And their "infiltration" attempt of Anonymous appears to have fallen flat on it's face as well when they misidentified several people as "leaders" of Anonymous who basically just ran the AnonOps network. LOL.

Seriously, folks, if HBGary is representative of the quality of cybersecurity skills in the industry, we're all in trouble.

And the threat is not coming from WikiLeaks or Anonymous.

There are real threats out there that are a real danger to us from the likes of those who compromised Canada's government systems recently.

Maybe the US Government and HBGary should upgrade their security and cybersecurity skill sets, start working on those serious threats and leave Wikileaks and Anonymous alone.

There's a major difference between releasing information which exposes corruption and wrongdoing and stealing information for the purposes of compromising the security of a country, it government and it's citizens.

If countries like the US and companies like HBGary can't see that difference, then we have another huge problem on our hands.

One that I don't think I need to spell out for anyone.

Bank of America using Private Intel Firms to Attack Wikileaks

Copied from Original Source: Wikileaks

2011-02-09

In a document titled "The WikiLeaks Threat" three data intelligence companies, Plantir Technologies, HBGary Federal and Berico Technologies, outline a plan to attack Wikileaks. They are acting upon a request from Hunton and Williams, a law firm working for Bank of America. The Department of Justice recommended the law firm to Bank of America according to an article in The Tech Herald.

The proposed attacks on WikiLeaks according to the slides include these actions:

• Feed the fuel between the feuding groups. Disinformation. Create messages around actions of sabotage or discredit the opposing organizations. Submit fake documents and then call out the error.
• Create concern over the security of the infrastructure. Create exposure stories. If the process is believed not to be secure they are done.
• Cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project. Since the servers are now in Sweden and France putting a team together to get access is more straightforward.
• Media campaign to push the radial and reckless nature of WikiLeaks activities. Sustain pressure. Does nothing for the fanatics, but creates concern and doubt among moderates.
• Search for leaks. Use social media to profile and identify risky behavior of employees.

The WikiLeaks Threat: An Overview by Palanfir Technologies, HBGary Federal and Berico Technologies

Blogger's comment:

The first point sheds a whole new light on the recent misinformation published by most of Canada's traditional media incorrectly claiming that a Wikileaks document quoted ex-CSIS Director, Judd, as saying that "vigorous harassment" was occurring against Hezbollah in Canada. LOL.

I, and many others had the good sense to vet the quote against the original documents. It doesn't exist.

Round Table # 1 with Julian Assange

We will not be censored.

Round Table # 1 with Julian Assange

About Byron Sonne: Jessie Brown Interview with Jesse Hirsch on TVO

TVO Search Engine Show : Interview by Jessie Brown with Jesse Hirsch on the Byron Sonne case.

Sonne's trial begins January 26, 2011.

Merry ChristMyth And A Happy Monkey To All!

And Happy Nickmas, Punjabi-style :-)

All joking aside ... 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

I'm an atheist but this lovely Christmas Story touched me.

It was written and sent to me by a christian whom I like and respect, Kevin Annett.

I write christian and not Christian because his Christianity is non-denominational.

Kevin was a Reverend for the United Church in Canada and defrocked by the Church for exposing it's abuse of Aboriginal children in Residential Schools in Canada. After defrocking Kevin, the United Church went on a life long persecution campaign against him ensuring that he was unable to work and earn a living, organizing a personal smear campaign against him amongst other things.

Kevin describes himself as not being religious but still "walking with Christ".

This story is a bit long but I hope you'll take the time to read it.

Nativity

By Kevin D. Annett

The last Christmas we were all together hangs over memory like the fog did that year in the Alberni valley. It was a time of gathering, two years and more of labor summoning so many together where once there were but a few. And it was a time of ending.


The church stewards had warned me to expect an overflow crowd at the Christmas eve service, and like overgrown elves they had busied themselves around the building, stringing wires and sound systems in the cold auditorium kept that way to save money. The snows had come early, and our food bank was already depleted.


With my eldest daughter who was but five, I had walked to the church one morning in the week before yule, pondering the cold and the sermon, when I met the one who would pierce the fog that year for us. She stood patiently at the locked door, her brown eyes relaxing as we approached. Her bare hand gestured at me.


“You’re that minister, ain’t you?” she mumbled to me, as daughter Clare fell back and grabbed my hand.


Before I could answer, the stranger smiled and nodded, and uttered with noticeable pleasure at her double entendre,


“They say you give it out seven days a week!”.


I smiled too, gripping Clare’s hand reassuringly and replying,


“If you mean food, we’re a bit short, but you’re welcome to whatever’s left.”


She nodded again, and waited while I unlocked the door and picked up Clare, who was clinging to me by then.


The basement was even more frigid than the outside, but the woman doffed her torn overcoat and sighed loudly as we approached the food bank locker.


“For all the good it’ll do …” she said, as I unlocked the pantry and surveyed the few cans and bags lying there.


I turned and really looked at her for the first time. She was younger than she had sounded, but a dark, cancerous growth marred her upper lip, and a deep scar ran down her face and neck. Her eyes were kindness, and in that way, very aboriginal.


“I’m sorry there’s not more …” I began, since back then I still saw things in terms of giving. But she shook her head, and instead of saying anything, she looked at Clare, and the two of them exchanged a smile for the first time.


I stared, confused, at the cupboard so bare, and heard her finally utter,


“Them people in church, you know what they need?”


I set Clare down and shook my head.


“They need Him. They sing about Him, and pretend they know Him, but hell, they wouldn’t spot Him even if He came and bit ‘em on their ass.”


I smiled at that one, and even dared a mild chuckle.


“You doin’ a Christmas play for the kids?” she continued.


“Yeah”.


“I bet it’s the usual bullshit with angels and shepherds, right?”


I nodded.


“That don’t mean nuthin’ to those people. Why don’t you do a story about … well, like, if He came to Port Alberni to be born, right now.”


I finally laughed, feeling very happy. She smiled too, walked over to the cupboard and picked up a small bag of rice. Donning her coat, she nodded her thanks, and said,


“My bet is Him and Mary and Joseph, they’d end up in the Petrocan garage, down River road. The owner there lets us sleep in the back sometimes.”


And then she was gone.


I didn’t try explaining the stranger to anyone, ever, or what her words had done to me. All I did was lock the food cupboard and lead Clare up to my office, where I cranked up the heat and set her to drawing. And then I sat at my desk and I wrote for the rest of the day.


The kids in church were no problem at all. They got it, immediately. The Indians who dared to mingle in the pews that night with all the ponderous white people also took to the amateur performance like they had composed it themselves, and laughed with familiarity as the holy family was turned away first by the local cops, and then hotel owners, and finally by church after church after church.


It was mostly the official Christians who were shocked into open-mouthed incredulity at the coming to life of something they thought they knew all about. As the children spoke their lines, I swear I saw parishioners jump and writhe like there were tacks scattered on the pews.


“Joe, I’m getting ready to have this kid. You’d better find us a place real friggin' quick …”


I’m trying, Mary, but Jehovah! Nobody will answer their door! I guess it’s ‘cause we’re low lifes.”


Look! There’s a church up ahead. I bet they’ll help us!”


If you believe the Bible, whoever He was loved to poke fun at his listeners and shock them out of their fog, and our play would have made him proud. As the eight year old girl who played Mary pleaded fruitlessly for help from a kid adorned in oversized clerical garb, and was covered in scorn by the young “priest”, I heard a sad moan rise from the congregation.


But things took a turn when Mary and Joe came upon an Indian, played by one of the aboriginal kids.


Sir, will you help us? My wife’s going to have a baby …”


Sure!” replied the native kid with gusto. “I got a spot in a shed behind the gas station down the road. The owner lets us all sleep in there!”


And in a contrived scene of boxes and cans scattered where our communion table normally stood, Mary had her baby, as erstwhile homeless men with fake beards and a stray rez dog looked on, and one of the witnesses urged Mary to keep her newborn quiet lest the Mounties hear his cries and bust everyone for vagrancy.


Voices were subdued that night in the church hall over coffee, cookies and Christmas punch, and the normally dull gazes and banalities about the time of year were oddly absent. The Indians kept nodding and smiling at me, saying little, and not having to; and the kids were happy too, still in costume and playing with the local stray who had posed as the rez dog in the performance that would always be talked about. It was the white congregants who seemed most pregnant that night, but they couldn’t speak of it.


It was one of my last services with them, and somehow they all knew it, since we had all entered the story by then. For a churchly Herod had already heard a rumor, and dispatched assassins to stop a birth, and me, even though it was already too late.


My daughter Clare was not running and rolling with the other kids, but in her manner joined me quietly with her younger sister Elinor in tow. Our trio stood there, amidst the thoughtful looks and unspoken love, and person after person came to us and grasped our hands, or embraced us with glistening eyes. An aging Dutch woman named Omma van Beek struggled towards me in her walker and pressed her trembling lips on my cheek, and said something to me in her native tongue as the tears fell unashamedly from both of us.


Later, when we were scattered and lost, I would remember that moment like no other, as if something in Omma’s tears washed away all the filth and loss that were to follow. And perhaps that looming nightfall touched my heart just then, for I gave a shudder as I looked at my children, almost glimpsing the coming divorce, and I held my daughters close as if that would keep them safe and near to me forever.


The snow was falling again as we left the darkened building, kissing us gently like it had done years before when as a baby, Clare had struggled with me on a toboggan through the deep drifts of my first charge in Pierson, Manitoba, on another Christmas eve. The quiet flakes blessed us with memory, and settled in love on the whole of creation, even on the unmarked graves of children up at the old Indian residential school.


The old Byzantine icon depicts Jesus as a baby, hugging his worried mother while she stares ahead into his bloody future: her eyes turned in grief to the viewer, yet his loving eyes seeking her, past the moment, past even his own death.


The image may still hang in the basement of my church, where I left it.

Shooting The Messenger: The Persecution of Julian Assange

"We support a cause that is no more radical a proposition than the citizenry has a right to scrutinize the state." --Julian Assange

The traditions of Western Journalism run deep and strong in Wikileaks despite the attempts of some to divert, dodge and evade the real issues that Wikileaks actions have brought to light.

What are those real issues?

1. Some Governments engage in corrupt, illegal, immoral and/or unethical acts.

2. Some Governments would prefer to create scapegoats to take the blame, rather than take responsibility for their own failures.

Let's look at Issue 1.

The citizenry of most democratic countries elect their representatives. In order for us to elect them responsibly transparency in government is required. 

Too much secrecy takes away from that transparency and enables those who are corrupt. It enables those who wish to abuse their power by committing illegal acts against those they don't like or misappropriating government funds or any of the many other crimes that corrupt people in positions of power tend to commit.

As much transparency as possible is necessary to prevent this.

That's not to say there isn't such a thing as legitimate secrets. However, these should be few and far between and it's the Government's responsibility to protect them. No-one else.

Frankly, looking at some of the Wikileaks documents marked Secret I can only conclude that many  governments go way too far when it comes to identifying and defining what they think the population shouldn't know or see.

That said, let's look at Issue 2.

According to many Government Officials and Elected Representatives around the world Julian Assange is a criminal, a terrorist, a spy, has committed treason, should be assassinated (yes someone actually said that and it was a Canadian government official), etc.

And yet, what crime has Julian Assange actually committed? None. 

The only crime that was committed, was committed by the person who actually took the documents and gave them to Wikileaks.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks are doing nothing more than acting in the tradition of Western Journalism, creating a news feed of material they receive and releasing that material to other Journalists and the Traditional Media much like AP (Associated Press) does.

Do Journalists have any obligation or responsibility to keep Secret material obtained secret? No they don't. If they did, Watergate would never have happened and corrupt government officials would never have been held accountable for their crimes.

Do Journalists have any obligation or responsibility to protect their sources? Yes they do. If they didn't no-one would ever come forward to expose corruption, abuse of power, fraud, etc. from high places. We need them to be able to do that in order to protect, maintain and keep our democratic system strong.

This feature of traditional Western Journalism needs to be protected if we want to protect our democratic system. They work hand-in-hand.

For that reason, our democratic system has a duty and obligation to protect any Journalist who is acting in that tradition from persecution and abuse. Not doing so weakens our democracy and enables corruption.

And sadly, it's that very tradition that's been lost in the modern traditional Media. We can no longer count on that Media to do their job.

So, along comes Wikileaks to fill in that gap and perform the Public Service that the modern traditional Media abandoned.

And Governments around the world want to suppress them, scapegoat them, kill them. Corporations they do business with are withdrawing services they have legitimately paid and contracted for.

And Assange has been personally victimized with specious charges of "sexual assault", the timing of which make them appear to be more about discrediting and smearing him, than any actual criminal act on his part.

Why is all of this happening? Because Assange and Wikileaks are doing their job!

The end result of which is the potential embarrassment and exposure of abuse of power, corruption, immorality and unethical behavior at the highest levels of the government and corporate world.

In other words, this is what these Governments really consider a crime and "treasonous":

Free Speech and an Independent Media that acts as a Watch Dog over Government and Corporate corruption and crime.

In my opinion, the only real crimes here are Government incompetence at maintaining their own security and their shooting of the messenger by persecuting and scapegoating Julian Assange.

If you want to help Wikileaks and have a Unix box, mirror their site to ensure the material remains available.

Let's protect Free Speech and an Independent Media that acts as a Watch Dog over Government and Corporate corruption and crime!

WikiLeaks : The Truth Shall Set You Free

Wikileaks has done it again and this time amidst threats from various governments as well as massive DDOS attacks. 

Why is the truth so controversial?

We live in a world where our governments insist on secrecy under various rationales and justifications.

So, when we are faced with the truths of our governments actions, we are hungry for it. This is actually quite sad in democratic societies which bill themselves on their transparency and a media which claims to support the traditions of great journalists like Edward R. Murrows.

This illusion of democracy and an ethical media that we live under gets exposed when organizations like Wikileaks present us with the unvarnished truth.

And yet, how are we, the citizens supposed to shoulder our responsibility of ensuring that the state remain ethical and works in our best interests when we don't have the truth at our disposal?

This is the service that Wikileaks is providing to each and every one us and frankly, I don't see a downside to it.

Not for the citizen anyway.

I'm sure that those governments which may have engaged in unethical or illegal activities may have a problem with it. One usually does when one has something to hide.

Perhaps it's time that governments learned to trust the citizenry instead of treating us like a potential enemy?

We, are the people, after all. 

The ones that government is supposed to be acting in the service of. Not the other way around.

In my opinion, Wikileaks has adopted the best traditions of American journalism. Traditions that the modern media pay lip service to but in reality, abandoned a long time ago.

In this era of corruption at high levels, it's just what the Doctor ordered.

WikiLeaks : Cablegate

What Does Julian Fantino Have To Hide?

I'm guessing he has a lot to hide and cudos go to Liberal Leader Ignatieff for raising the question and demanding answers. 

Apparently the only G20 budget details now unaccounted for is the 100 million dollars spent by the OPP under Fantino's leadership as OPP Commissioner.

Since Fantino is running under the Conservative banner and has been endorsed personally by Harper, Ignatieff's concern that the Conservatives are supporting a cover up in order to ensure Fantino gets elected in the Vaughn Federal By-Election on November 29 is quite legitimate.

Why is Fantino so reluctant to have that information made public at this time if he has nothing to hide?

Why is the Conservative Party willing to risk their reputation to cover up for Fantino if he does have something to hide? 

Wouldn't it be better for the Conservatives to drop their support for Fantino before it causes them potentially major problems down the line?

This is the type of thing that could ensure that they lose the next Federal Election to the Liberals so they shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that this will blow over. 

Ignatieff is a smart man and he's not going to stop flogging this useful and timely horse. It's a gift horse for the Liberal Party.

And frankly, shouldn't the voters in Vaughn be aware of any possible corruption where taxpayers money is concerned before they elect Fantino to represent their community? Don't they have that right?

Toronto Police Services Chief Bill Blair, openly and honestly, handed over his budget and his was probably the only police service involved that came in under budget. 

He, apparently, didn't have anything to hide but then he's a police officer who is known for his integrity and honesty.

In addition to Fantino being required to hand over the details of the G20 OPP expenditures immediately, I would like the answers to the following questions:

Given the fact that the OPP under Julian Fantino's leadership infiltrated the Southern Ontario Anarchists:

1. Why was this most violent protest where vandalism was concerned, in the history of G20 protests around the world? 

2. How did these plans get past the OPP undercover officers or did they?

3. Did Fantino authorize agent provocateurs to incite Black Bloqists?

4. Did the undercover officers become Black Bloqists?

5. Where were the police when this vandalism was occurring?

Note that the old Red Squad style Dirty Tricks are now illegal in Canada.

If the OPP, under Fantino's leadership, did engage in this style of Dirty Tricks, then those who made these decisions as well as those who implemented these decisions, should be held accountable and charges laid.

And if this was done, don't the good people of Vaughn have the right to make an informed vote and not one based on a potentially serious deception?

Perhaps Fantino is afraid the budget might expose these types of expenditures?

Now I'm not a supporter or advocate of Anarchism. Frankly I don't understand it or care enough to try to understand it.

I am a defender of civil rights and am both shocked and outraged that such draconian abuses of power and  violations of citizen rights could occur in my city in 2010.

I want those responsible held accountable, no matter who they are. 

People like Fantino should not be above the law and should not be protected out of political expedience.

Not to mention the fact that if something serious is being hidden here it's going to come back to bite the Conservatives really hard.

So my question to the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Harper is:

Is Julian Fantino worth losing the next election over?

Lest We Forget

Terry Kelly - A Pittance of Time

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Atheists In Foxholes (United States)
Atheists in Foxholes

Atheists in foxholes, some say they are myths,
Creations of the mind who just don't exist.

Yet, they answered the call to defend, with great pride.
With reason their watchword, they bled and they died.

They took Saratoga from the British crown,
Secured America's freedom at the Battle of Yorktown.

From Sumter to Appomattox, fields flowed with their blood.
When the cannons grew silent, the flag proudly stood.

From the Marne to the Argonne, in trenches and tanks,
They defeated the Germans -- the whole world gave thanks.

They were bombed at Pearl Harbor, fought on to Berlin.
Many freethinking women served along with the men.

Still war keeps erupting -- Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
Where is the peace that eludes people so?

It is broken by tyrants who bear crosses and creeds,
That overshadow reason with hate and cruel deeds.

So atheists prevail until your work is complete.
Mothers mourn, children cry, and bigots plan your defeat.

By air, land, and sea, you answer freedom's call.
Without god or faith, you seek liberty for all.

Australia

CBCs The Confession : Russell Williams

View The Confession online, A Fifth Estate program.

Before I comment on this particular show, let me just say, that Fifth Estate has exceeded themselves this season. 

I haven't missed an episode. While I've enjoyed the show for years, I haven't watched more than three episodes a season in the past. Of course, we all have different levels of interest in different topics so I suppose it could simply mean that this season so far has covered topics I happen to be interested in and past seasons haven't. Or, it could be the fact that I have registered for their email notifications and am now more aware of the show topics. Or, it could just be that this is a particularly good season.

Whichever it is, I've been riveted, so thanks, Fifth Estate.

The Confession was a fascinating look at the Police Interrogation process as well as a very revealing, albeit brief, glimpse into the mind of Russell Williams. A mind which I believe is quite psychopathic.

It presented a one hour collage of the original 8 hour (I think) interrogation, avoiding sensationalism, and focusing the attention on both the Interrogation technique and Williams avoidance strategies.

Now, I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I have had the rather unpleasant experience of having to deal with psychopaths in my personal life. 

Some were relatives and one has been a life long stalker who continues to stalk me to this day.

I believe that direct personal experience, plus my own self-education, provides me with some unique qualifications and enough personal insight to talk about this topic in an informed way.

Key character traits of the psychopath are that they are pathological liars and narcissists. They have to be pathological liars. It's the only way that they can fly under the radar and maintain their mask of sanity. This mask of sanity is maintained in the same way that all narcissists do it. Through conscious and deliberate image building and image marketing. (While all psychopaths are narcissists, not all narcissists are psychopaths).

Since they are incapable of feeling empathy which is the foundation of most of our positive emotions like love, compassion, etc. they learn from a very young age to imitate those who can.

So, it was quite interesting when during the interview, the following occurred:

1. The interrogator asked Williams how he wanted to be seen and then casually dropped the phrase cold-blooded psychopath. 

If you watch the show, look for this and watch Williams expression. It's priceless.

2. Later on in the interview, Williams starts expressing concern for his wife and her feelings and in his letter to her deliberately presents an affectionate portrayal of his fondness for his cat.

Note that the McDonald Triad (childhood animal torture, pyromania, and bedwetting) for Serial Killers is now common knowledge as is the likely physiological characteristic of psychopathy, the inability to feel empathy. 

Since psychopaths are narcissists who work on image building, then it would matter more to them to carefully craft their image as a poor, misunderstood killer than be tagged with the image of a cold-blooded psychopath. This is assuming, of course, that they can't lie their way out of having committed the crime in the first place or successfully point the finger at someone else.

According to Martha Stout, in her book, The Sociopath Next Door, they need and want pity nor matter how evil their crimes.

So, Williams response of demonstrating concern for his wife's feelings and affection for his cat, to the Interrogators casual insertion of the phrase, cold-blooded psychopath, was, therefore, a classic and predictable  psychopathic response.

That is, it was nothing more than a typically narcissistic attempt to correct his image from that of cold-blooded psychopath to that of a poor, misunderstood serial killer. In other words, he does terrible things, he doesn't understand why does them, and needs help, sympathy and compassion. He will say or do anything to keep his mask firmly in place including the copious shedding of crocodile tears for his poor victims.

There was, of course, a lot more in that interview which leads one to the conclusion that Williams is a psychopath, but this was such an obvious example of his psychopathy that it was, in my opinion, worth extracting and pointing out.

Psychopaths in high, privileged positions, like both Williams and the one stalking me, pose a serious danger to our society.

Psychopaths in high, privileged positions who are also entrusted with Canada's Defense and Intelligence, like both Williams and the one stalking me, pose a much more serious danger to our National Security.

This is a serious problem which needs to be addressed by society.

Dr. Robert Hare, Professor Emeritus at UBC, is Canada's internationally renown and foremost expert in the field of Psychopathy and has written numerous books on this topic as well as created the PCL scale which can be used to determine psychopathy in individuals.

According to Dr. Hare, in his book, The Disturbing World of the Psychopath:

"If crime is the job description, the psychopath is the perfect applicant."

Psychopaths are found in every segment of society, and there is a good chance that eventually you will have a painful or humiliating encounter with one. Your best defense is to understand the nature of these human predators."

"Psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets. Completely lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret.

. . . psychopaths are generally well satisfied with themselves and with their inner landscape, bleak as it may seem to outside observers. They see nothing wrong with themselves, experience little personal distress, and find their behavior rational, rewarding, and satisfying; they never look back with regret or forward with concern. They perceive themselves as superior beings in a hostile, dog-eat-dog world in which others are competitors for power and resources. Psychopaths feel it is legitimate to manipulate and deceive others in order to obtain their “rights,” and their social interactions are planned to outmaneuver the malevolence they see in others."

Psychopaths Among Us / Suffering Souls

CBCs Above Suspicion : Colonel Russell Williams

View Above Suspicion online 

Colonel David Russell Williams was finally arrested on February 7, 2010. 

On February 8, 2010, he was formally charged with two counts of first degree murder, forcible confinement and sexual assault of Marie France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd. 

Up until that time he had also committed numerous break-ins and thefts of underwear and other personal items like photographs including those of a young 15 year old girl.

But, unfortunately for Larry Jones, not before his reputation and life were turned upside down by Williams' apparent and rather successful attempts to frame him.

Had it not been for one sole witness who just happened to be driving by Jessica Lloyd's home (the second murder/rape victim) with  his cousin, just happened to spot an SUV sitting in the middle of a field near the house, and decided to report the observation to the police, Larry Jones would likely have been the one arrested. 

All of Russ Williams friends were in shock including the Commanding Officer that promoted him.

There was absolutely no indication to anyone who knew him that he was even capable of such things. As a result he was entrusted with the command of the top secret base Camp Mirage in Dubai and later with the command of one of Canada's main military bases in Trenton, Ontario, CFB Trenton. He was also given the responsibility of flying the PM, the Queen, the Governor General and other top dignitaries around Canada and overseas.

In my personal opinion (I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist) Mr. Williams displays all of the characteristics of a Psychopath.

Without an understanding of the psychopathic mind, without any knowledge of psychopaths and how they operate, Mr. Williams' Commanding Officer and friends would have had no way of knowing what they were dealing with.

Psychopaths are experts at maintaining their masks of sanity and normalcy. They are also expert manipulators and pathological liars. While there may be some benefit to ruthlessness in certain security and intelligence fields, the risk of having a psychopath in these positions outweighs any potential benefit because their personal obsessions reign supreme and they are incapable of real loyalty or allegiance.

Now, imagine the story if Mr. Russell Williams was a multimillionaire with high level political, social, police, defence and intelligence connections. 

Imagine Mr. Russell Williams as a member of Canada's wealthy elite.

One who socialized with the Queen, the PM, the Governor General and other dignitaries.

One with the financial resources to:

1. bribe people to maintain their silence, 
2. hire people and unethical private investigation firms privately to perform the riskier criminal acts of break-ins, thefts, frame-ups, kidnapping, fraud, etc., 
3. influence-peddle the wealthy as well as  influence-peddle (and buy) politicians, judges, lawyers and other professionals, 
4. had the connections to misappropriate government funds, 
5. manipulate the media, 
6. ruin anyone who got in his way,  

amongst other things.

And was satisfied with gaining his thrills vicariously rather than directly.

The National security and social security implications of such a person existing are mind-boggling as is the potential risk.

Will he get caught? Or will he continue to be Above Suspicion?