Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The not so friendly RCMP!

Scandals surrounding the RCMP

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While the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has a history dating back to 1873, it has been involved in a number of high-profile scandals particularly in the 1970s.

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[edit] Early controversies

Until 1920, the RCMP and its forerunner, the Royal North West Mounted Police, operated only in Western Canada and the North. The new organization was created by an amalgamation with the Dominion Police, giving the RCMP a national security mandate as a departure from its earlier role as a frontier police force. Early controversies grew from its preoccupation with Communism and the labour movement. Following from its operations in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, the RCMP intervened in labour disputes, not as an impartial law enforcement agency, but to assist with breaking strikes. In one incident, RCMP officers clashed with striking coal miners for 45 minutes in Estevan, Saskatchewan in 1933 and killed three miners during the melee (see Estevan Riot). Part of its strategy against labour organizing included extensive use of spies for surveillance of suspected Communists, which was revealed at the court trial that convicted the leadership of the Communist Party under Section 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada in 1932. Political surveillance activities were conducted out of its Criminal Investigation Department until a separate branch, the RCMP Security Service, was established in 1950. The RCMP was also the force used to stop the On-to-Ottawa Trek by precipitating another bloody clash that left one Regina city police officer and one protester dead in the 1935 Regina Riot. The Mounties were frequently criticized for these activities by labour and the left, including one of its most prominent surveillance targets, Member of Parliament J. S. Woodsworth. A dispute with the Government of Alberta over prohibition led to the creation of a separate Alberta Provincial Police from 1917 to 1932.[1]

[edit] Killing of Inuit sled dogs

There have been many Inuit accounts related to the alleged killings of sled dogs during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, as well as the impact of the federal government's efforts during that time to relocate Inuit into modern settlements.[1]

[edit] Inquiries

In 1977, the Quebec provincial government launched the Keable Inquiry into Illegal Police Activities, which resulted in 17 members of the RCMP being charged with 44 offences.

In the same year, a Royal Commission was formed by Justice David McDonald entitled Inquiry Into Certain Activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate allegations of vast wrongdoing by the national police force. The inquiry's 1981 recommendation was to limit the RCMP's role in intelligence operations, and resulted in the formation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service three years later.

[edit] Theft of dynamite

In April 1971, a team of RCMP officers broke into the storage facilities of Richelieu Explosives, and stole an unspecified amount of dynamite. A year later, in April 1972, officers hid four cases of dynamite in Mont Saint-Grégoire, in an attempt to link the explosives with the FLQ. This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 31 1977.

[edit] Break-ins

A series of more than 400 illegal break-ins by the RCMP were revealed by Vancouver Sun reporter John Sawatsky in his front-page exposé headline "Trail of break-in leads to RCMP cover-up" on December 7, 1976. The story won the Vancouver Sun the Michener Award that year.[2]

It wasn't until the following year that it was uncovered that the October 6, 1972 break-in at the Agence de Presse Libre du Quebec office, had been the work of an RCMP investigation dubbed Operation Bricole, not right-wing militants as previously believed.[3] The small leftist Quebec group had reported more than a thousand significant files missing or damaged following the break-in.[4] One RCMP, one SQ and one SPVM officer pleaded guilty on June 16, 1977, but were given unconditional discharges.

A similar break-in occurred at the same time, at the office of the Mouvement pour la Défense des Prisonniers Politiques Québécois.

In 1974, RCMP Security Service Corporal Robert Samson was arrested trying to independently plant explosives at the house of Sam Steinberg, founder of Steinberg Foods in Montreal. While this bombing was not sanctioned by the RCMP, at trial he announced that he had done "much worse" on behalf of the RCMP, and admitted he had been involved in the APLQ break-in.[3]

On April 19, 1978, the Director of the RCMP criminal operations branch, admitted that the RCMP had entered more than 400 premises without warrant since 1970.

[edit] Barn-burning scandal

Perhaps the best-remembered scandal, on the night of May 6 1972, the RCMP Security Service burned down a barn owned by Paul Rose's mother in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Rochelle, Quebec. They suspected that separatists were planning to meet with members of the Black Panthers from the United States.[5] The arson came after they failed to convince a judge to allow them to wiretap the alleged meeting place. This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 31 1977.

Staff Sergeant Donald McCleery was involved in the operation,[3] and today runs his own "investigation and surveillance" company [6].

[edit] Theft of PQ members list

In 1973, more than thirty members of the RCMP Security Service committed a break-in to steal a computerized members list of Parti Québécois members, in an investigation dubbed Operation Ham.[7] This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 28 1977. John Starnes, head of the RCMP Security Service, claimed that the purpose of this operation was to investigate allegations that the PQ had funneled $200,000 worth of donations through a Swiss banking account.[8]

[edit] False FLQ Manifesto

In 1971, the RCMP chief superintendent Donald Cobb oversaw the infiltration of FLQ cells with federal agents, and the releasing of a fraudulent "Manifesto" on behalf of the La Minerve cell, calling for increased violence.

[edit] Intelligence mole

In 1972, it was suspected that there was a Soviet infiltrator in the ranks of Canadian intelligence. Suspicion initially fell upon Leslie James Bennett. In the 1980s it was discovered that the mole had been RCMP Sergeant Gilles Brunet, the son of an RCMP assistant commissioner. [3]

[edit] Death of Leo LaChance

On January 1991 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Leo LaChance, a Cree from Whitefish reserve near Big River, was shot and killed by Carney Milton Nerland. Leo LaChance entered the Prince Albert Northern Pawn and Gun Shop. Carney Nerland was in the shop with two other men. While LaChance was in the shop, Nerland shot into the floor twice. Then, a few moments later, as he was leaving, LaChance was shot.

Nerland was charged with manslaughter and in May 1991 was sentenced to a four-year prison term with eligibility for statutory release after serving two-thirds of the time. After Nerland's trial and sentencing, there was an outpouring of public concern, particularly from the Aboriginal community, over how the affair was handled.

The decision to charge Nerland with manslaughter and not murder was made after only a day and a half investigation.[citation needed] The investigation relied heavily on the sworn statements of Nerland and his friends Brownbridge and Yungwirth who stated the shooting was an accident: Nerland did not know the rifle was loaded when, while putting it away, he pulled the trigger, shooting LaChance who was standing outside the door. It was concluded there was not enough evidence to show intent to kill.

Nerland, a self-confessed fascist, was also the Saskatchewan leader of the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations, but during the trial, Nerland's racial political ideology was dismissed as irrelevant to the shooting as well, despite Nerland's statement to a police officer "if I am convicted of killing that Indian, they should give me a medal and you should pin it on me."[9][10] The sentencing judge stated that if there had been evidence linking Nerland's political views to the shooting, it would have justified a longer sentence. He was later sentenced to the federal penitentiary at Stony Mountain in Manitoba. [11]

On December 15, 1993 Nerland was released from Stony Mountain penitentiary and placed under a witness-protection program as an informant to the RCMP.

[edit] Excessive use of force at the 1997 APEC Summit

In 1997, the APEC summit was held in Vancouver. Controversy arose after officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used pepper spray and strip searches against protesters, who were objecting to the presence of several autocratic leaders such as Indonesian president Suharto. A subsequent public inquiry concluded that the RCMP was at fault, showing a lack of professionalism a failure of planning. The report also charged that the Canadian government interfered with police operations, possibly in an effort to shield certain leaders from being publicly embarrassed by the protests. [12]

[edit] Killing of Darren Varley

In 1999 RCMP Constable Michael Ferguson fatally shot local resident Darren Varley to death after being attacked inside the holding cells at a Pincher Creek police station. After two hung juries, Ferguson was convicted at a third trial of the killing and found guilty of manslaughter.

[edit] Torture Scandal: The stories of Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Maher Arar

On September 26, 2002, during a stopover in New York City en route from a family vacation in Tunisia to Montreal, Maher Arar was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, acting upon information supplied by the RCMP. Arar was sent to Syria where he was imprisoned for more than 10 months, tortured and forced to sign a false confession that he had trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. A public campaign ended in his release and won a public inquiry into his case, which found that he had no ties to terrorism.

Like Arar, Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin are Canadian Muslim men who were detained and tortured overseas while under investigation by Canadian investigators. They were all detained when they arrived in Syria and taken to the same Syrian detention centre — the Far' Falastin, or Palestine Branch — of the Syrian Military Intelligence. All were tortured. All were interrogated by the same Syrian interrogation team, who accused them all of links to terrorism using information and questions that could only have originated with Canadian agencies. The Arar Inquiry has already determined that the RCMP sent questions for Abdullah Almalki to his Syrian interrogators. As in the case of Arar, unnamed Canadian officials used the media to publicly accuse El Maati and Almalki of having ties to al-Qaeda. No Canadian official has admitted to making these accusations in the media, and many years later, no evidence has ever been produced to back their claims. Like Arar, El Maati and Nureddin were eventually released without charge. Almalki was cleared, acquitted and released. When they returned to Canada, they all called for a process which would expose the truth about the role of Canadian agencies in what happened to them, and which would help them clear their names and rebuild their lives.[13] Their stories and the story of the RCMP investigation likely responsible for what happened to at least three of them are told in a new book by Kerry Pither called Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror.

On September 28, 2006, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli issued a carefully-worded public apology to Arar and his family during the House of Commons committee on public safety and national security:

Mr. Arar, I wish to take this opportunity to express publicly to you and to your wife and to your children how truly sorry I am for whatever part the actions of the RCMP may have contributed to the terrible injustices that you experienced and the pain that you and your family endured.

In a subsequent December 2006 appearance in front of the Commons committee, Zaccardelli said the timeline -- regarding what he knew at the time and what he told government ministers -- given in his first appearance in September was inaccurate. He resigned the following day.

On January 26, 2007, after months of negotiations between the Canadian government and Arar's Canadian legal counsel, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology "for any role Canadian officials may have played in what happened to Mr. Arar, Monia Mazigh and their family in 2002 and 2003" and announced that Arar would receive $10.5 million settlement for his ordeal and an additional $1 million for legal costs. Ahmad El Maati and Abdullah Almalki, meanwhile, still await answers in their cases from the secretive Iacobucci Inquiry into the RCMP and other Canadian agencies' alleged role in their overseas detention and torture.

[edit] Pension fund scandal

In 2004, Andrew McIntosh, an investigative journalist at The National Post, revealed a secret audit that detailed misuse of millions of dollars by the RCMP of its own members' pension fund. He also revealed that several people had been forced from their jobs because of the scandal, but that there had not been a proper probe into the irregularities. The same day his story was published, Commissioner Zaccardelli announced the force would pay back to the pension fund the millions misused and he called for a police probe by Ottawa Police Force, though Zaccardelli somehow managed to maintain control over the probe[citation needed] and nobody was subsequently charged.

After Zaccardelli's resignation in 2007, a public accounts committee heard several testimonies from former and serving RCMP officers alleging serious fraud and nepotism at the upper management level under Zaccardelli. The fraud allegations go back to 2002 and are related to RCMP pension and insurance plans for members of the force. Zaccardelli launched and then two days later cancelled a criminal investigation into the matter, which was resumed by the Ottawa Police Service after his resignation. That investigation found serious nepotism and wasteful spending. A follow-up investigation by the Auditor-General found millions of dollars inappropriately charged to the pension and insurance plans.[14]

A subsequent investigation conducted by a former head of the Ontario Securities Commission strongly criticized the management style of Zaccardelli, which he said was responsible for "a fundamental breach of trust" and called for a major shake-up of the force. Specifically, RCMP members and employees who attempted to address the pension fund issue suffered "career damage" for doing so, according to the investigators findings.[15] Interim RCMP Commissioner Beverley Busson concurred with the recommendations and promised that individuals who the upper ranks attempted to silence would be thanked and recognized.[16]

[edit] Const. Justin Harris and the Prince George RCMP

Following the 2002 case of a Prince George judge, David Ramsay, who pled guilty to misconduct with young prostitutes, similar allegations were made against Constable Justin Harris and other RCMP officers. Harris was accused of having touched an underage prostitute, paying a prostitute for sex, and refusing to pay at all, between 1993 and 2001.[17]

The RCMP Act forbids a hearing to take place more than one year after a senior officer has been made aware of such allegations, but because the allegations had been made against nine officers with little evidence, the RCMP did not launch a criminal investigation against Harris, and did not launch a misconduct hearing until 2005.[17] On October 4, 2006, the RCMP disciplinary board decided to stop all proceedings against Harris because the investigation conflicted with the RCMP Act. (This decision has since been appealed by the senior RCMP officer in B.C.)[18] Public outcry from people like Daisy Kler of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter criticized the RCMP's internal investigation policies.[18]

[edit] Ian Bush Incident

On October 29, 2005, Ian Bush, 22 was arrested in Houston, British Columbia. At the RCMP detachment office, Bush died due to a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.[19][20]

Koester and Bush were alone in the interrogation room.[21] Koester claimed that he was being choked from behind to unconsciousness and acted in self defence.[20] An investigation was conducted by an RCMP team brought in from another region.[20] That investigation was reviewed by several agencies including the Ministry of the Attorney General of BC,[20] by Crown Counsel,[citation needed] and the federal RCMP Public Complaints Commission.[21] Koester was cleared of any wrongdoing.[19] The Coroner's Inquest into the death reached the same conclusion.[21]

Conflicting evidence was given at the inquest.[19] The analyses of the blood splatter evidence by an RCMP forensics officer, Jim Hignell, and Edmonton police constable, Joseph Slemko, differed; the former supporting Koester's account, the latter contradicting it.[22]

[edit] Robert Dziekański Taser incident

Robert Dziekański was a Polish immigrant who arrived at the Vancouver International Airport on 14 October 2007 where he died after being tasered a total of five times by RCMP officers after waiting 10 hours at the airport. Police have been heavily criticized for their handling of the incident, and the incident has revived debate concerning police use of tasers in Canada.[23] As of March 2008, a public iquiry of the events is underway.

[edit] Royal Inland Hospital Taser Incident

In May 2008, at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, an RCMP officer used a taser on Frank Lasser while he was in his hospital bed. He was reportedly "delirious" and wielding a knife.[24][25]

[edit] Allegation of political bias against Insite

In October 2008, it was revealed that the RCMP had used taxpayer money to pay individuals to write negative, politically biased reports about the the Vancouver safe injection site, Insite. In addition to this, memos were distributed referring to British Columbia's Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS - a nationally renowned repository of some of the top AIDS research in the world - as the "Centre for Excrements", and suggesting stacking radio shows with callers against Insite.[26]

[edit] Impaired driving causing death

In October 2008, Constable Benjamin Robinson of the RCMP, who was one of the four officers involved in the Robert Dziekański Taser incident, drove while intoxicated and collided with motorcyclist Orion Hutchinson, who died from the incident. Delta Police detained the suspect and conducted a breathalyser test, which he failed. He was released under the condition to appear at Surrey Provincial Court on Jan 19, 2009, when the Crown may charge him with driving while intoxicated (DWI). At the time, police refused to release the name of the officer, saying the investigation is still ongoing.[27][28]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Steven Roy Hewitt (1997) (PDF). Old Myths Die Hard: The Transformation of the Mounted Police in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1914-1939. PhD thesis. University of Saskatchewan. http://library2.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-10202004-235919/unrestricted/nq23937.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-01-13.
  2. ^ The Michener Awards Foundation
  3. ^ a b c d Twenty years since the Air India bombings-Part 2 Why is the Canadian government resisting a public inquiry?
  4. ^ http://www.sirc-csars.gc.ca/reflections/sec2a_e.html#10
  5. ^ The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (84-27e)
  6. ^ Donald McCleery and Associates Inc. - Company Profile
  7. ^ http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/8427-e.pdf
  8. ^ Chronology of the October Crisis, 1970, and its Aftermath - Quebec History
  9. ^ Elizabeth Fry Society - Response to the Department of Justice re: Reforming Criminal Code Defences: Provocation, Self-Defence and Defence of Property - Page 9
  10. ^ The Killing Of Leo Lachance
  11. ^ The Killing Of Leo Lechance By Ron Bourgeault, Canadian Dimension, Mar/Apr94, Vol. 28 Issue 2, p21
  12. ^ http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2001/08/07/apec010807.html RCMP slammed in APEC report CBC News, August 7, 2001
  13. ^ www.kerrypither.com
  14. ^ "RCMP officers accuse top ranks of coverup". CBC. 28 March 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/03/28/rcmp-allegations.html. Retrieved on 2007-06-17.
  15. ^ "RCMP needs major shakeup: federal investigator's report". CBC. 15 June 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/06/15/rcmp-pension-070615.html. Retrieved on 2007-06-17.
  16. ^ "RCMP commissioner promises to do right by abused employees". CBC. 16 June 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/06/16/busson-rcmp.html. Retrieved on 2007-06-17.
  17. ^ a b Accused RCMP officer says force acted too late against him, CBC, Tuesday, October 3, 2006.
  18. ^ a b Hearing dismissed for Mountie accused of having sex with teen prostitutes CBC, Wednesday, October 4, 2006
  19. ^ a b c "Inquiry clears RCMP officer in death of Ian Bush". National Post. 2007-11-30. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=132730. Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
  20. ^ a b c d "Officer who shot Ian Bush to testify". National Post. 2007-11-29. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=132738. Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
  21. ^ a b c "Lethal force necessary in Ian Bush's death: ruling". CTV. 2007-11-29. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071129/bush_ruling_071129/20071129?hub=Canada. Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
  22. ^ "Findings did not receive fair analysis: blood expert". National Post. 2007-11-30. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=135891. Retrieved on 2007-12-08.
  23. ^ Inquiry into Dziekanski's Taser-related death resumes Monday CBC.ca March 22, 2009
  24. ^ DigitalJournal.com
  25. ^ CBC.ca 8 May 2008
  26. ^ globeandmail.com: Insite revelation proves RCMP needs watching
  27. ^ "Taser Mountie faces drunk driving charge". Vancouver Sun. 2008-10-25. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=a6f64f90-f0b8-44b0-8053-a6afa7e831f3. Retrieved on 2008-10-30.
  28. ^ "Airport death not caused by tasers, B.C. says". Globe & Mail. 2008-12-28. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081212.wtasers12/BNStory/National/home. Retrieved on 2009-03-24.

[edit] External links

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Canada violates a few UN convictions Indirectly!!

Canada’s spy agency says it will use information extracted through torture when lives are at stake.

Geoffrey O’Brian, a lawyer for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, says the spy agency will do so in the rare instance where it can prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack.

He told the Commons public safety committee there will be “almost once-in-a-lifetime” situations where such information — even if gathered through coercion — can be useful for national security.

Many human-rights advocates say security officials should make no use whatsoever of information from torture.

The committee is looking at the government response to a federal inquiry into the Maher Arar affair and a more recent inquiry into the imprisonment of three other Arab-Canadian men.

Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, was detained in New York in September 2002 and subsequently shipped abroad by U.S. authorities — ending up in a grave-like Damascus cell where he gave false confessions about terrorist ties.

The other inquiry found Canadian officials had a hand in the torture of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin in Syria through the sharing of information with foreign intelligence and police agencies.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Prime Minister Stephen Harper may want to start working for the RNC!

Harper skips Canada in favour of American pre-summit media interviews




OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper will travel to the United States this weekend for another series of American media interviews, including one with the Fox News network that disparaged Canadian soldiers last week.

No government-to-government business or meetings are planned Sunday in Washington and Monday in New York, said his spokesman, and the full list of media outlets Harper will speak to is not being released.

"The prime minister will be in these cities in his capacity as the prime minister of Canada, but with the purpose of speaking with international media about Canada's position going into the G20 and NATO summits," Kory Teneycke said Friday during a briefing on Harper's pending trip to London, Germany and France.

"I don't want to give out a full list of interviews that we're doing," said Teneycke.

Harper did provide Radio-Canada with a rare interview on Thursday evening and is scheduled to give another Sunday to CTV.

Canadian correspondents were told not to bother trying to track Harper in Washington or New York. "You will likely be disappointed," said Teneycke.

The prime minister's latest round of media shopping comes just a month after he was last in New York.

It's part of a strategy to limit Harper's Canadian interrogations - where the questions tilt toward the specifics of Canada's troubled domestic economy - in favour of foreign media who can be expected to compare this country favourably to its international partners.

The only detail provided by the Prime Minister's Office was that Harper will be doing a live interview on Fox News on Sunday morning and a CNN interview on Monday.

The Fox interview comes less than a week after some Conservatives called on Canadians to boycott the network because of an offensive late-night talk show that disparaged Canadian military efforts in Afghanistan.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay called the Fox program "disgusting" and "crass" and a Conservative strategist said he hoped Canadians would cancel their Fox News subscriptions and that Canadian advertisers would stop doing business with the network.

Teneycke downplayed the controversy Friday, noting Harper's interview is with a prominent Fox News personality.

"There is a big difference between an interview with Chris Wallace - one of the most respected journalists in the Washington gallery who is a very substantive and tough interviewer - and a comedian, so-called comedian, with a show at 3 a.m. on a cable channel. It's different."

Harper will return to Ottawa on Monday and depart early Tuesday for London.

Canadian journalists, who are paying $4,200 each to travel with the prime minister to the G20 and NATO summits in Europe next week, were told Friday they would be limited to two media availabilities with Harper over five days - each one comprised of two questions in French and two in English.

The limitation on the number of questions is a marked departure from Harper's recent past practice, when all Canadian media travelling with the prime minister were invited to ask questions.

The prime minister's peekaboo strategy with Canadian reporters stands in stark contrast to that of President Barack Obama, who is raising eyebrows in Washington for what some consider over-exposure.

American media watchers, however, have also noted that Obama has adopted a more controlling stance to reporters' questions, establishing his own list of media outlets in advance of his news conferences.

Teneycke defended the decision to have the prime minister take his message outside Canadian borders.

"It is in Canada's interest - especially at a time of global recession where we have things like trade protections as a fundamental risk to our economic prosperity and our economic recovery - to not just simply talk to other Canadians," said Harper's spokesman.

"We need to engage the world, which means talking to foreign media as well as domestic media."

It will be Harper's second interview with both Fox and CNN in a month. He has not granted an interview to The Canadian Press, Canada's national news service, since December 2007.

Harper on Fox News channel oh my

Harper speaks on Afghanistan, economy, in U.S. TV interview


WASHINGTON - Prime Minister Stephen Harper has elaborated on his remark that the Taliban in Afghanistan cannot be defeated on the battlefield.

Asked about it on the Fox News channel in Washington today, Harper said he meant there will always be some kind of insurgency in that country.

"I do believe you'll see some level of insurgency in Afghanistan for some time to come," Harper said.

" But we certainly want to see a situation where the Afghan government can handle that security situation on a day-to-day basis... where the insurgency is of a nature that it doesn't threaten the wider global community."

Harper also talked about the economy, saying the global downturn cannot be fixed without the major U.S. economic problems being solved.

"We have to fix the mess in the American and global financial sector, we cannot have recovery until we fix that," he said.

The Fox interview came as Harper is preparing to attend the G20 group of nations summit later this week in London.

He is then scheduled to attend a NATO meeting in Germany.

I am glad i don't have to do deep level code scanning!

Canadian research uncovers cyber espionage network

Malware-spreading computers based mainly in China

Last Updated: Sunday, March 29, 2009 | 10:03 AM ET

Canadian researchers have uncovered an internet spy network, based almost exclusively in China, that has hacked into computers owned by governments and private organizations in 103 countries.

The findings follow a 10-month investigation by researchers from the Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.

The group was initially asked to look into allegations that the Chinese were hacking into computers set up by the Tibetan exile community, but their work eventually led them to a much wider network of compromised computers.

Once the hackers infiltrated the systems, they installed malware — software that sends and receives data. By doing this, they were able to gain control of the electronic mail server computers of the Dalai Lama’s organization, the group said.

The researchers said the spy network, dubbed GhostNet, infiltrated at least 1,295 computers, many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centres in India, Brussels, London and New York.

"Significantly, close to 30 per cent of the infected computers can be considered high-value and include the ministries of foreign affairs in Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan," the researchers said.

Other compromised computers were discovered at embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan.

The list continues with the network infiltrating economic organizations in Southeast Asia, news organizations, and an unclassified computer located at NATO headquarters. Although almost all the hackers were based in China, the researchers could not say if they are working for the government.

A spokesman for the Chinese consulate in New York dismissed the idea that China was involved.

The spokesman, Wenqi Gao, told the New York Times these are "old stories" and "nonsense."

Friday, March 27, 2009

Canada demands Fox apology for 'despicable' comments >Becuse of this!!!!

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090323/national/fox_news_cda_1

Canada demands Fox apology for 'despicable' comments

Because of this!!!!







By By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - The Canadian government has demanded an apology from Fox News for "dispicable" comments made on one of its late-night programs.

The government was incensed by a recent talk-show segment on the American conservative cable network that poked fun at Canada and the Canadian military. A group of pundits took turns ridiculing Canada and its reliability as an ally in fighting terrorism last week as four more Canadian soldiers were killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan.

"These are despicable, hurtful and ignorant comments," Dan Dugas, a spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay, said Monday.

"No one is laughing and they owe Canada - and, more importantly, the families of each one of our fallen heroes - an apology for their ill-informed mistakes."

Canadian soldiers have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001 and have spent the last four years in the country's most violent region.

Canada has lost 116 soldiers in Afghanistan.

The country says it will pull out most of its 2,500 troops in Kandahar when its current combat mission expires in 2011.

News of that impending withdrawal, and the army chief's comments that the military would need a year's hiatus to regroup and refurbish, served as a launching pad for members of the Fox panel to mock Canada.

The five-minute Fox News segment aired last week on the late-night program "Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld" and it was later posted on YouTube.

The segment features American panelists suggesting Canadian soldiers need time off for "manicures and pedicures."

The item aired after Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, the Canadian Forces Chief of Land Staff, said the military would need a one-year break from operations after the difficult mission in Afghanistan winds down.

"The Canadian military wants to take a breather to do some yoga, paint landscapes, run on the beach in gorgeous white capri pants," Gutfeld said with a sneer, adding: "Isn't this the perfect time to invade this ridiculous country? They have no army."

Another panelist, Doug Benson, said he was unaware Canadian troops were on the ground in Afghanistan.

"I didn't even know they were in the war. I thought that's where you go if you don't want to fight - you go chill in Canada," he said.

The segment was posted online (http://www.youtube.com/watch?vtcJn5XlbSFk) under the title, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate Countries."

So far, more than 3,000 people have posted responses to the clip, which also makes fun of RCMP officers and their traditional red uniforms.