Time to go, Billy . . .

THE TORONTO POLICE ARE MORALLY CORRUPT — and Chief Bill Blair is responsible. On his watch, the police have committed the most egregious of acts: conspiracy to violate the Police Act. Starting with the G20 debacle, where officers conspired to remove any identification to link them to the crimes they gleefully committed on the citizens of Toronto.

Const. James "Killer" Forcillo

Now, Sammy Yatim is dead, shot by Const. James "Killer" Forcillo. In a masterful exercise of intelligence and training, "Killer" Forcillo blows poor Sammy away, but that's not enough for Toronto's Finest Fascists: after riddling Sammy with 10mm slugs, they Tazer the poor boy.

Well, Billy and "Killer" will have to look in the mirror some day. I sure hope they are proud of themselves. But the shirking and evasion will probably triumph, because this is Ontario, and with the McGuinty legacy, nobody's responsible for anything. 

Billy: you are an odious apparatchik. Do us all a favor and resign. Compare yourself to a real, honest hard-case policeman, like William Fairbairn. He was the man you and your henchmen like "Killer" can never be. Unlike your "finest", this Billy didn't need a 10mm Glock or a Tazer — and he patrolled the Shanghai docks back in 1910. That's a lot tougher than blasting some teenager cornered on a streetcar.

During his service with the International Police in Shanghai, Fairbairn reportedly engaged in hundreds of street fights in the course of his duties over a twenty-year career, where he organised and headed a special anti-riot squad.

Eddie checks in . . .

THANKS TO WIKILEAKS, this latest from Edward Snowden. The man is pissed. To him, the Oval Office and a toilet have the same shape and function, but judge for yourself:

Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow
Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.

Edward Joseph Snowden

Monday 1st July 2013

Bradley vs the Beast . . .

THE AMERICAN STATE has become a mutant, vicious beast, beyond its own laws. Julian Assange posted a letter on Wikileaks, commenting about the persecution of Bradley Manning:

Statement by Julian Assange

As I type these lines, on June 3, 2013, Private First Class Bradley Edward Manning is being tried in a sequestered room at Fort Meade, Maryland, for the alleged crime of telling the truth. The court martial of the most prominent political prisoner in modern US history has now, finally, begun.

It has been three years. Bradley Manning, then 22 years old, was arrested in Baghdad on May 26, 2010. He was shipped to Kuwait, placed into a cage, and kept in the sweltering heat of Camp Arifjan.

"For me, I stopped keeping track," he told the court last November. "I didn’t know whether night was day or day was night. And my world became very, very small. It became these cages... I remember thinking I’m going to die."

After protests from his lawyers, Bradley Manning was then transferred to a brig at a US Marine Corps Base in Quantico, VA, where - infamously - he was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment at the hands of his captors - a formal finding by the UN. Isolated in a tiny cell for twenty-three out of twenty-four hours a day, he was deprived of his glasses, sleep, blankets and clothes, and prevented from exercising. All of this - it has been determined by a military judge - "punished" him before he had even stood trial.

"Brad’s treatment at Quantico will forever be etched, I believe, in our nation’s history, as a disgraceful moment in time" said his lawyer, David Coombs. "Not only was it stupid and counterproductive, it was criminal."

The United States was, in theory, a nation of laws.
But it is no longer a nation of laws for Bradley Manning.

Do click on the link to read the rest. The meanness of spirit reminds me of a similar persecution, 109 years ago, in 1894, when poor Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent, was charged with treason and wound up on Devil's Island. Like today's "I am Bradley Manning", concerned citizens protested for the captain.

Gopper gynecology . . .

TOM THE DANCING BUG checks in on Todd's ignorance, for our edification.

Comparisons . . .

Putin prevails . . .

PUTIN PREVAILS . . . for now. Great picture. Here's a couple of posters, too.

Big Brother IS watching . . .

ACCORDING TO WIKILEAKS, the organs of state security have started wiring all the CCTV surveillance cameras in areas of interest. So says David Seaman at BUSINESS INSIDER, in his article, "WIKILEAKS: Surveillance Cameras Around The Country Are Being Used In A Huge Spy Network".

"Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology—and have installed it across the U.S. under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by Anonymous.

Every few seconds, data picked up at surveillance points in major cities and landmarks across the United States are recorded digitally on the spot, then encrypted and instantaneously delivered to a fortified central database center at an undisclosed location to be aggregated with other intelligence. It’s part of a program called TrapWire and it's the brainchild of the Abraxas, a Northern Virginia company staffed with elite from America’s intelligence community.

What to do? My advice is, "sheep, look up". What do you see? CCTV cameras? Take a roll of electrical tape or even some PostIt notes and cover the lens. That way, it's useless, but you have not destroyed property, and Candid Camera is thwarted. Then there's disguises, and useful items like reversible coats and hats and all that Lon Chaney stuff. Nothing like a good gorilla mask to keep 'em wondering who it is that enjoys target practice on CCTV cameras . . . high-quality .177 air pistols are so delightfully accurate, and they're not firearms.

Now, what are the chances that Big Vickie's Gestapo is either already part of this, or is about to put Canada under Big Brother's surveillance?