Thursday 22 September 2011

This was not what I had in mind on the issue of border security

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Canada+cross+border+policing+tested/5410532/story.html

How does this even sound like a good idea? Police with authority on both sides of the border? So now Canadians can be dissapeared to Guantanamo and summarily tortured into false confessions? Or is it the fact that the RIAA/MPAA has no reach here, and now we can expect riot police and FBI busting down the door for 'allegedly' reproducing and redistributing copyrighted material?

Not that our own police forces have been upstanding models of 'serve and protect' in the last several years; in Quebec and in Ontario. Sure the G20/G8 conferences are a loaded topic to begin with, and emotions run high, but that does not excuse them of wrong-doing.

I have already read a horror story where 'sharing' with them hurts us. Attempted suicide is now reason enough to be denied entry into the U.S. I thought our medical files were supposed to be private. Maybe I was wrong (admittedly, it would appear that I am, since border crossing guards have access). In fact, 9.6 million RCMP records are shared for the purpose of 'stemming the flow of narcotics, weapons and other criminal activities'... 9.6 million? In 2009 there were 33,894,000 people in Canada, so is nearly a third of our population peopled with drug and weapon smugglers, terrorists and human traffickers? Does it even sound reasonable to assume 1 in 3 people in Canada are criminals of the lowest morals?

With those kinds of statistics everybody else would have to be a drug user or victim. Obviously this 9.6 million records would have to be everything down to speeding tickets, stealing a pack of gum, disturbing the peace, public drunkenness, and exposing one's self in public. But what happens to that data once Canada is no longer in control of it? The only obvious answer is: we don't know, and we'll never find out, and WE do not have any authority or jurisdiction to inquire anyway. How do we call that privacy when foreigners are given unrestricted access to verify whether or not I clean up after my dog in a public park?

Politicians and media are trying to claim they will protect Canadian interests, but have already failed to prove that with these 9.6 million records that U.S. Homeland Security already has access to.

They have yet to unveil any bills or information regarding this 'NextGen' police force that has been in negotiations for years, but when the Attorney General of the United States is quoted as saying: "We will not abandon the values that have always defined the United States, and aligned it with great nations like Canada, and we will never jeopardize every American’s — and every Canadian’s — guaranteed right to privacy.", and I've already discussed 'thin thread and the NSA's secret rooms in the Telco's central offices' I can't see this leading anywhere good in terms of Canadian's right to privacy, and proven that Americans already have no such right to jeopardize. Not to mention there has already been a study published by the Rideau Institute which states, well, I am not sure actually... They required my email address to send me this report... I am still waiting.

I've already mentioned how I feel about border security to our south: stop letting them in already. I've also mentioned that 'having more security' is not equal to 'being more secure' (see scenario 2), in fact it is almost the opposite: more security reduces individual freedoms and liberty, and before we know it we need a license to leave the house after dark. Blindly we march toward the Orwellian 1984 in the name of 'security'.

I don't trust our government, they do stupid things like spend $90k a day to a consulting firm that will tell them how to reduce expenses... For one third of that (I am a simple man, $900,000 a month would surely suffice) I would start by telling them to fire the $2.7 million a month consultants saving them 1.8 million a month right there, then I'd fire people who use rescue helicopters as a personal taxi service and ask him to return some of that wasted money. Let's face it, is there any good reason to trust the misguided bureaucracy any more?

-DIrtyKID©

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