Nearly 100 Toronto officers to be disciplined over summit conduct : Nearly 100 Toronto police officers will be disciplined for removing their name tags at the G20 summit.

Nearly 100 Toronto officers to be disciplined over summit conduct


Increase text size Nearly 100 Toronto police officers will be disciplined for removing their name tags at the G20 summit, says the city’s police chief who also admitted charges were thrown out against roughly 100 people because the force failed to obtain appropriate arrest warrants.



Police Chief Bill Blair was called before the Commons public safety committee on Wednesday to explain his officers’ actions during the June summit which resulted in the arrest of more than 1,000 people.



Many of the people who confronted police over the tumultuous three-days of protests that closed down Toronto’s core said officers were not wearing badge numbers or name tags on their uniforms – allegations that were bolstered by photographs in the media.



“I have a rule in the Toronto Police Service, it’s my rule, it’s in accordance with the policy of my police services board, that our officers will wear their names displayed on their uniforms,” Chief Blair told the committee.



Faced with numerous complaints, the force launched an investigation and pored over 22,000 hours of closed-circuit videotape to identify “approximately 90” officers who were not wearing their name tags, said the Chief.



“Disciplinary processes have been initiated,” he said. When asked what kind of punishment would be handed out, Chief Blair said that has yet to be determined “but the discussion, I believe, is the loss of a day’s pay.” That would amount to about $300 for a first-class constable.



Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack said no G20-related disciplinary action has yet been taken.



“That’s currently being investigated right now, so discipline hasn’t been handed out ,” he said. “I’m aware that some of our officers – I can’t confirm the number – have been notified of an investigation in regards to the name-tag issue, so the officers are in the process of responding to that right now.”



When asked why an officer would remove his or her badge, the Chief said some of the name tags could have come off during scuffles with protesters but other officers were likely trying to hide their identities.



The chief spent the better part of two hours before the committee defending his officers’ actions to opposition MPs who said they have heard repeated stories from protesters who say they were treated inhumanely while in police custody.



One of them, a Quebec student named Kevin Gagnon, appeared before the committee at the same time as Chief Blair. He said he was among a group of about 100 protesters who were roused from their sleep in a University of Toronto gymnasium and hauled off to a makeshift detention centre.



Mr. Gagnon told a harrowing tale of being held for more than 60 hours. He said he was denied adequate food and water. The toilet, he said, was in the open and there was no toilet paper.



Those who were arrested sat handcuffed without access to a lawyer for more than 30 hours, said Mr. Gagnon, adding that police taunted them as they shivered through the night without blankets. And later, at a detention centre, there were strip searches, he said.



In the end, the charges against Mr. Gagnon were thrown out just as they were against all of the students arrested at the gymnasium.



“There were reasonable and probable grounds,” to make the arrests, said Chief Blair.



But “a decision was subsequently made for reasons I do not question, by a Crown attorney not to proceed with those charges .... It was because the police did not have the appropriate warrant for the apprehension of those individuals.”



The raid, one of the weekend’s largest, resulted in 70 people being arrested for wielding “street-type weaponry,” police said. Officers seized black clothing, bricks, bats, sharpened sticks and bottles containing fluid – “items you don’t need for a weekend in Toronto,” Constable Rob McDonald said at the time. About 50 of those people were from a Quebec group called Anti-Capitalist Convergence, which later accused police of profiling anyone from the province.



The police raid on the University of Toronto building near the corner of Russell Street and Spadina Avenue was one of several pre-emptive police raids over the weekend – an attempt by police to head off further riotous protests Sunday after the Black Bloc violence of the day before.



In addition to the Toronto Police Services’ internal review, the Toronto Police Services Board has commissioned its own independent review led by John Morden – a former Associate Chief Justice of Ontario; Ontario’s Office of the Independent Police Review Director is conducting a formal inquiry of policing over the weekend, and the provincial government has launched two reviews of the public works protection act after an order in council gave police added powers they misrepresented to the public over the weekend. The Special Investigations Unit, an arm’s-length police watchdog, is looking into five incidents of serious injury to civilians and involving police over the summit weekend.



Toronto lawyer Eric Gillespie, who’s heading up one of two class actions related to the G20 (both are awaiting certification) said it’s encouraging to see police taking internal actions to discipline their own officers for not wearing badges. But the fact that obscured badges were so common at the high-profile event is a bad sign when it comes to police accountability.



“The entire system of police accountability turns in large measure on individuals who believe they have legitimate concerns having an ability to address those concerns with some certainty that if there was a problem the officer or officers involved will be held accountable,” he said. “If police or anyone in a position of authority has the ability to not disclose their identity, it raises a concern a series of concerns both for the individual involved but also on a broader, societal level.”

Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act .

Backgrounder: Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act From distributing child pornography to enabling criminals to coordinate and plan a wide range of traditional crimes, the Internet has changed the way crimes are committed. Many of today's crimes involve the use of mobile cell phones or computers to send messages through the Internet, making some crimes easier to commit and more difficult to detect.




Unlike forensic evidence found at the scene of a crime, digital evidence is scattered across dozens of devices and computer networks. These are often located in different cities throughout Canada, and all over the world. Moreover, the data often has a very short life span making the need to obtain evidence in a timely manner crucial to the outcome of an investigation.



Police are currently investigating crime in Canada with investigative powers that are not up to speed with new technologies. In order to keep pace with modern communications technology and give investigators the tools they need to perform complex investigations in today's high-tech world, legislation must be modernized.



Using the results of consultations that took place over the last few years with stakeholders including provincial and territorial partners, law enforcement officers, privacy advocates and industry, the Government is proposing amendments to the Criminal Code, the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act (MLACMA) and the Competition Act. These amendments respond to the ever-evolving technological environment, while protecting the human rights of persons in Canada, including their right to a reasonable expectation of privacy.



Issues addressed by this proposed legislation include:



Child sexual exploitation



The Criminal Code currently prohibits anyone from using the Internet to communicate directly with a child for the purpose of facilitating child sexual exploitation (for example, to arrange an in-person meeting with the child, referred to as the "luring offence"). However, it does not prohibit people from agreeing or making arrangements with another person to sexually exploit a child.



A new offence, carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment, would be created to prohibit anyone from using a computer system, such as the Internet, to agree or make arrangements with another person for the purpose of sexually exploiting a child. Like the luring offence, this new "communication" offence could also be used in the context of undercover investigations.



Obtaining transmission data



The Criminal Code currently allows police to obtain telephone numbers dialled to and from a target's telephone. The proposed amendments (particularly s. 492.2 of the Criminal Code) would be updated to allow police to obtain data from the telephone and the Internet, by creating a new concept called "transmission data." Transmission data, which does not include the content of a private communication, would be subject to the same threshold of "reasonable grounds to suspect" as the former Criminal Code provision, which only covered telephone data. Such data could be obtained under two different types of judicial orders: a warrant (when the data is acquired in real-time), or a production order for historical data.



Another measure to ensure that a communication can be traced back to the initial service provider is the expedited partial disclosure of transmission data. This measure would allow police to request the disclosure of enough transmission data to trace all the service providers involved in the transmission of specific data. It would not only help trace domestic cybercrime when criminals attempt to hide their tracks, but also enhance international cooperation in this respect. Telecommunications generally pass through many jurisdictions, and it is necessary that all partner states have the ability to quickly determine the origin of a particular transmission during investigations.



Preservation order



The amendments would create a preservation order that would require a telecommunication service provider (TSP) to safeguard and not delete its data related to a specific communication or a subscriber when police believe the data will assist in an investigation. A preservation order is a "quick-freeze", temporary order, and would only be in effect for as long as it takes law enforcement to return with a search warrant or production order to obtain the data. This is not data retention. Contrary to what is the case in some other countries, the amendments would not require custodians of data to collect and store data for a prescribed period of time for all subscribers, regardless of whether or not they are subject to an investigation. A preservation order is restricted to the data that would assist in a specific investigation.



Tracking warrants



Amendments would allow police to remotely activate existing tracking devices that are found in certain types of technologies (such as cell phones and tracking devices in some cars) and would also continue to permit the police to install a separate device that would allow for tracking. A new provision would also be added to allow peace and public officers to obtain the tracking information through a production order.



Possession of a computer virus for the purpose of mischief



Finally, the amendments would update the Criminal Code (s. 342.2) to make it illegal to possess a computer virus for the purpose of committing an offence of mischief. Currently, only the actual or attempted mischief created by the spread of a computer virus is punishable.



Modernizing the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act and the Competition Act



The proposed modifications to the Criminal Code would also be reflected in the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act (MLACMA) and the Competition Act to provide police and the Competition Bureau with the proper tools to investigate computer and computer-related crimes while ensuring that the rights of Canadians are protected. The proposed amendments to the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act would widen the scope of assistance that Canada could provide to its treaty partners in fighting serious crimes, including computer and computer-related crime, at an international level. Amendments to the Competition Act would allow the Competition Bureau to better address significant technology-related challenges that affect its ability to obtain evidence, especially for the violations of deceptive marketing practices and false or misleading representation provisions.



International considerations



The global reach of cybercrime and the transnational nature of organized criminal activity in this area reveal that international cooperation is a necessity in many investigations. The proposed legislative amendments would also create the legislative framework necessary for Canada to ratify the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime and the Additional Protocol to the Convention on cybercrime, concerning the criminalisation of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems.



These important multilateral treaties, which were signed by Canada in November 2001 and July 2005 respectively, are the only instruments that provide for broad-based international cooperation to help in the investigation and prosecution of computer-related crimes. Increasing and strengthening the tools available will assist in obtaining evidence to advance criminal investigations and prosecutions. This reflects the recognition that effective and evolving international assistance mechanisms are vital in combating the ever-growing threat of international criminality.



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Canada to 'implement' Khadr plea deal : Cannon: Canada didn't participate in plea discussions???.

Canada will "implement" a plea deal between the U.S. government and Omar Khadr to allow the convicted war criminal to return to Canada after serving one year at Guantanamo Bay, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon says.



Under fire from opposition MPs during Monday's question period in the House of Commons, Cannon insisted the Canadian government was not involved in plea negotiations, despite a U.S. State Department memorandum that reveals the Conservative government was aware of the Toronto-born Khadr's plea agreement.



Responding to a question from Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, Cannon said in French that Canada did not participate in the discussions on Khadr's sentence.



Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh accused Cannon of deliberately misleading Canadians on the government's involvement. "Obviously they were talking to the U.S. government all the time," Dosanjh told the House.



Shortly before Cannon spoke, a State Department spokesman in Washington said an exchange of diplomatic notes on Oct. 23 "helped pave the way" for the plea bargain. But Cannon quoted the chief prosecutor at the tribunals, navy Capt. John F. Murphy, as saying the plea deal was solely between the U.S. and Khadr's lawyers.



'Perfectly clear' Canada made deal: Ignatieff

NDP MP Wayne Marston said the memorandum shows that either Cannon doesn't know what's going on in his own department or was disingenuous in his statements to the Commons.



"The documents lay out the fact that his department was aware of what was going on with Khadr and agreed with the plea deal, and he said in the House that wasn't the case," Marston told CBC News on Monday on Parliament Hill.



Speaking on Monday during a visit to Gaspésie, Que., Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said it's "perfectly clear" the Canadian government reached a deal with the U.S. on Khadr.



"Why wasn't the government of Canada willing to say so in the House of Commons?" Ignatieff told reporters.



"This kind of behaviour makes Canadians ask themselves, 'Well, if they can't tell us the truth about the Khadr affair, can they tell us the truth about anything else?' "



8-year sentence cap

Khadr, now 24, was sentenced Sunday to 40 years in prison for war crimes, including the murder of U.S. soldier in Afghanistan in 2002.



But the decision by a U.S. military panel was largely symbolic, as a pretrial plea deal capped Khadr's sentence at eight years, with the first year to be served at the American naval base detention centre.



According to the State Department memorandum, Canada and the United States exchanged two diplomatic notes on Oct. 23, two days before Khadr pleaded guilty to five charges including the murder of Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer during a battle in Afghanistan in July 2002, when Khadr was 15 years old.



The Canadian Embassy in Washington said in a memo dated Oct. 23 that the Canadian government "is inclined to favourably consider" a request for a transfer to Canada for Khadr to serve the rest of his sentence after another year at Guantanamo, where he has been in custody since 2002.







Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/11/01/khadr-plea-politics-hill-reax.html#ixzz145qkVMsE

Former UN ambassador ‘shocked’ by young-voter apathy!.

Former UN ambassador ‘shocked’ by young-voter apathy in Canada



“The civic and political literacy of young Canadians is appallingly low,” the former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations told a group of University of Ottawa graduates Sunday. “Your age group’s involvement in the political process, at all levels of government, stretches any reasonable definition of apathy.”



Fowler, who spent 130 days as a hostage of al-Qaida in Africa in 2008 and 2009, made the remarks after receiving an honourary doctorate — his first — at the university’s fall convocation.



Fowler, 66, said it was “intellectually dishonest” for those who’ve “collectively ignored their civic responsibilities” to moan about the abysmal standards of political leadership in Canada.



Just 54 per cent of adult Canadians voted in the 2008 federal election, which ranked Canada 16th out of 17 “peer countries” in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. And barely one in five of those eligible to vote for the first time in 2000 chose to do so.



“You seem to be enthusiastically disqualifying yourselves from any right to demand good government in your own country, and effective Canadian engagement abroad,” Fowler said. “Surely you are going to fix that.”



In an interview, Fowler said he finds the low voting rate among younger Canadians “shocking.”



Despite that, when he speaks to his adult children’s friends, he said, “They feel perfectly free to bitch and scream about the state of governance in our cities or our province or our country.”



But, he adds, “They do nothing about it. What I’m really saying is, they don’t deserve bitching rights.”



There’s a tendency to a “narrower view” of the world among many young Canadians, Fowler said, a sense they’d rather just “hunker down here and hope the world doesn’t get in my way.” But in his view, that’s no longer an option.



“They can’t decide whether to go out there and engage or not, because the world out there is part of their world. And that world will get back at them, whether they like it or not. It’s going to impact them,” he said. “It makes sense for them to want to influence it and change it in a way that will make that impact positive rather than negative.”





In his speech, Fowler — who also served as a foreign-policy adviser to three prime ministers — said the gap between rich and poor continues to grow. The “exploding population” will only make that worse, he said.



“Yours is a world that will necessarily impact everything you do, everything you hope to achieve, and if you allow it to get much sicker, it will threaten your potential successes and diminish your prospects.”



When he was kidnapped by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in December 2008, along with his colleague, Louis Guay, Fowler was acting as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy to Niger. The pair were held hostage in the Sahara desert until their release in April 2009.



Fowler said he’s fully recovered from the ordeal, and is just wrapping up a book about the experience that should be published next fall.





As Canada’s longest-serving UN ambassador, Fowler sat on the Security Council a decade ago, the last time Canada was elected to the UN’s governing body.



He said Canada’s historic failure last month to win election to the Security Council — the first time its candidacy has been rejected — should prompt “a little soul-searching.”



“It’s an election of our peers, and we didn’t measure up,” he said. “Canada can’t run on fumes. It’s nice to say the world needs more Canada, but it’s mostly Canadians who say that.”





Fowler made headlines last spring when he slammed the Harper government’s approach to foreign policy, saying the world was becoming increasingly distrustful of Canada and that the country didn’t deserve a seat on the Security Council.



He described the government’s response to Canada’s rejection — which was to disparage the UN — as “small-minded.”



“The UN matters. The security council takes decisions which have the force of law in Canada instantaneously,” he said. “There’s no other place in the world where that happens.”





Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Former+ambassador+shocked+young+voter+apathy+Canada/3755071/story.html#ixzz140TfG91l

Rob Ford's campaign team created a fake Twitter account and wrote more than 150 messages under the guise of being a George Smitherman supporter

This May not be legal at all!

Ford team uses fake Twitter account in campaign





Rob Ford's campaign team created a fake Twitter account and wrote more than 150 messages under the guise of being a George Smitherman supporter during the Toronto mayoral campaign.






The news came to light this week in and extensive profile by The Globe and Mail that a deputy communications director set up the fake account to flush out a potentially damaging audio tape.





Fraser Macdonald, 24, created a fake profile for a fictional woman named Karen Philby.





Through the account, the user appealed to a man who had an audio tape of Rob Ford seemingly promising to buy him OxyContin off the street, in order to do damage control.





But Philby's profile remained active, smearing mayoral candidates throughout the campaign, including Smitherman and Ford, all while posing as a Smitherman supporter.





According to her Twitter profile, which included a Smitherman banner, Philby was a "Downtown gal who likes politics, my cat Mittens, and a good book."





The @QueensQuayKaren account has since been removed from Twitter but the Torontoist blog has posted a history of messages it sent out.





"I can see Ford's appeal. I don't agree with him on everything, but the man speaks the truth," reads one message posted six days before the election. "George needs to improve on that."





Other posts call former candidate Sarah Thomson a "village idiot," suggests someone, presumably Rocco Rossi, "looks like Mr. Potato head with only eyes and a mouth," and refers to Smitherman as the "takes it up the middle candidate … in that he is centrist."



In a message from his personal Twitter account on Saturday, Macdonald refers to the account as "one of the many ways the Ford campaign outsmarted the competition."

McAfee Now shipping Network Access Control (NAC),

McAfee strengthens Network Access Control solution






28 October, 2010





McAfee has announced that the McAfee Network Access Control solution is now shipping with unique integrations to the McAfee Network Security Platform which, for the first time, unifies McAfee Network Access Control (NAC), McAfee Network IPS and McAfee Network Threat Behavior Analysis capabilities. This integration provides complete internal network visibility and access control managed from one console.

Additionally, McAfee Network Access Control has received several recent industry accolades that validate the company's unique approach to solving the toughest challenges in network security. The integration of NAC, Network IPS and behavioural analysis tools provides enhanced visibility across the network, to enable unprecedented security through the pre-admission assessment of devices and user identity as well as post-admission monitoring of activity.



A November 2009 report by Forrester Research, Inc. entitled, "Market Overview: Network Access Control (NAC)," studied 18 different NAC vendors and at the time McAfee offered the widest variety of features and functions that was looked for. In addition, Forrester named McAfee one of the NAC "Vendors to Watch," saying that the combination of NAC, IPS and behavioural analysis technology will be "a strong complement to its client security suite."



"Customers have come to rely on McAfee for the best network protection available, and our commitment to them is to continue to innovate and break the moulds of traditional network access control capabilities," said Rees Johnson, senior vice president and general manager, Network Security at McAfee. "We believe the accolades we've received over the past year validate our product strategy and traction in the market. We will continue to deliver on customer demand by providing powerful new tools that extend visibility into the vast unprotected areas of the network."

Harper trips nearly $7 million in 2009-10.

OTTAWA — He travelled to foreign destinations ranging from New Delhi to Copenhagen — 15 trips in one year. So just how much did it cost Canadian taxpayers to send Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his aides abroad?





Nearly $7 million in 2009-10, according to documents tabled in Parliament Thursday.





To be exact — $6,904,790.





It was a busy year for Harper. With the global recession raging, there were international conferences with other politicians in the G20 to plot an economic strategy. Then there were the routine gatherings of world leaders in the G8, NATO, APEC and the Commonwealth.





Not to mention foreign trips to China and India, the two emerging economic powerhouses Canada wants to do more trade with.





Harper's press secretary, Andrew MacDougall, said Thursday that the prime minister aims to get results when he travels abroad.





"It's important that Canada's voice is heard," said MacDougall.





"Yes, these things do cost money but we do remember that we are at the service of the taxpayer and that we bring back results that we can point to and say, 'This is what we accomplished on behalf of all Canadians.'"





MacDougall said it was critical for Harper to meet other leaders as they met "to keep the global economy on track," and that his trip to China led to a new Chinese policy that will see more tourists from that country visiting Canada.





On his foreign trips, Harper is accompanied by a crew of aides that varies in size. There is always a core group from the Prime Minister's Office and Privy Council Office, as well as more bureaucrats from key departments, particularly Foreign Affairs. Sometimes, Harper brings MPs on the journey.





Here are the trips from 2009-10:





- Strasbourg, France, to attend the NATO summit. ($129,769)





- Port of Spain and Jamaica to attend the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago and then visit to Jamaica. ($446,419)





- London, England, to attend the G20 Summit. ($247,770)





- Aquila, Italy, to attend the G8 summit and visit Rome. ($769,325)





- Singapore, Mumbai, New Delhi and Amritsar to attend the APEC summit in Singapore and make visits to India. ($1,365,920)





- Prague to attend the Canada-European Union Summit. ($249,752)





- Guadalajara, Mexico and Panama City to attend the North American Leaders Summit and visit Panama. ($320,738)





- Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. ($531,278)





- New York City and Pittsburgh to attend the G20 summit. ($298,136)





- Normandy, France, to attend the D-Day anniversary. ($275,224)





- Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum. ($606,959)





- New York City to attend a session of the United Nations General Assembly. ($181,291)





- Washington and New York City for meetings and media interviews. ($225,054)





- Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul for meetings with foreign leaders. ($856,737)





- Copenhagen to attend a climate change conference in Denmark. ($400,418)







Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Harper+trips+cost+taxpayers+nearly+million/3742951/story.html#ixzz13iUExXW5