(1) Hey CSIS, we can see your underwear!
From the Ottawa Citizen: Canada oblivious to terror danger: CSIS boss
New director takes aim at critics in first public speech
Talk about yer tantrums! The only thing that could top it would be rolling on the floor, flailing with fists and feet. This guy Fadden is really ticked that Canadians are refusing to live in constant fear, and won't be cowed into placing complete trust in government and "intelligence" agencies.
He's spitting mad that we expect our justice system to be open and transparent, the hallmark of a free society. It irks him considerably that we're not so dumb as to think the term "national security" can't be used to hide a dearth of supportable evidence.
But I also think he's covering embarrassment (not to be confused with shame). Some folks try to distract from being caught out in mischief by throwing hissy fits. Fadden is obviously a graduate of the "best defence is an offence" school, and boy is he offensive!
There is no acknowledgment here, and certainly no apology for CSIS's long and chronic history of lying and cover-ups (as recently re-demonstrated in the Harkat case). In one spasm of pique he claims CSIS is guarding our freedoms; in the next he blurts out a curse on those very freedoms:
Fadden said Canada’s “turbulent legal environment,” with increased emphasis in individual rights and freedoms through legislation, legal trends and evolving jurisprudence was changing the way CSIS operated.One can only hope that how CSIS operates will be changed for the better. Unfortunately what it really means is that the taxpayer is now footing the bill for a bigger CSIS with the installation of a bevy of shysters who spend all their time figuring out how to skirt the law while still looking legal, teaching CSIS to no longer lie from the gut out of sheer innate tendency - which can come back to haunt - but strictly from the book.
“The legal ground has shifted under our feet, and this tenuous new environment has had profound implications on how we work at every level.” ...
Somebody needs to clue Fadden in on what motivates a "terrorist". He whines that “Terror is downgraded to a form of dissent ..." ignorant of the fact that what is called terrorism, violent political acts carried out by individuals, has always been a form of dissent.
State terrorism, however, is quite another animal, and when whole identifiable communities in Canada are harrassed by secret police, that's totalitarianism. Any fool can see that CSIS has not been working to guarantee freedoms for individual Canadians, but for the power of the state and thereby for CSIS itself.
This comment below the Citizen article, from someone with the handle "Good Job", provides a little comic relief while pointing up the real, personal danger to Canadians of a secret agencies like CSIS:
Since CSIS is probably monitoring this...You're doing a great job! I'm behind you 100%. Lets have more Star Chambers, trials without witnesses, evidence gained from Torture. If those damn civil libertarians, with their 'due process' and 'no torture', get in the way, draw up certificates on them too. As Sir Thomas Becket said 'if you cut down all the laws to get to the devil, where will you hide when the devil turns 'round and looks YOU in the eye?=====
(2) Pig scare, FOX scare, and Obama's miff
Email from reader Ted in Newfoundland:
Some really great info on yesterday's blog [here and here]. With this H1N1, I believe the government is really doing a number on us. Here's the way I see it for what it's worth.
First they create fear from what so far is a non-pandemic. They get some people so wound up they're running off to see the Dr. from the first sneeze. Then they say they're running out of vaccine. More panic created right on target.
I'll go out on a limb here and predict as more people start screaming about no vaccine, the government mysteriously finds more and the sheeple stampede to roll up their sleeves, believing the government has saved them from pending doom. Exit stage right. Neocons 1 People 0.
Like I said just a thought.
And while Obama may well be visiting soldiers killed in combat,there are those he will never visit or even write the grieving families.
The war condolences Obama hasn't sent
And what about Rick Salutin take on the new CBC Fox news format.The CBC execs are beside themselves with the thrill of it. Their endless in-house memos rely heavily on triple exclamation marks as punctuation: "The energy in the building is palpable ... The torch has been passed ... We have moved from a Buick to a Ferrari ...!!!" (Oddly dated images, by the way, and insulting.)
YYC: I agree; both the US and Canadian government want to induce abject reliance on government for solutions, and Obama does not want to confront the human consequences of war.
The Rick Salutin link is an interesting indication of how the Canadian inferiority complex is sucking us into a North American Union. It's also a bit odd in light of the current (pretend?) war between the Obama administration and FOX news. Jon Stewart does a take-off on that.
Obama's complaint is a lot like that of CSIS - talking freedom while despising how it gets in the way of selective snow jobs. "The One" clearly expects the media's undivided attention and support - he's got a flu panic to orchestrate, wars to escalate, and a dubious health care plan to instigate.
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