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Canada Rejects Anti-Terror Laws
Coryoth writes "The Canadian parliament has voted against renewing anti-terror laws that had been introduced after September 11, 2001. The rejected laws included provisions to hold terror suspects indefinitely, and to compel witnesses to testify, and were in some sense Canada's version fo the Patriot Act. The laws were voted down in the face of claims from the minority Conservative government that the Liberal Party was soft on terror, and despite the fact that Canada has faced active terrorist cells in their own country. The anti-terror laws have never been used, and it was viewed that they are neither relevant, nor needed, in dealing with terrorist plots. Hopefully more countries will come to the same conclusion."
I'd like to say that, as a full red-blooded, maple syrup-sweating, moose riding Canuck, I've never been prouder of my country. These sorts of laws always seem good in the panic moments when they're pushed through, but cooler heads will prevail. We've said no to bad, kneejerk legislation, and I'm proud to be a voter.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
Negative, the cell that was arrested intended to attack Toronto.
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The anti-terror legislation was TEMPORARY to be evaluated every 5 years. So its 5 years was up, and the majority of opposition (not just liberal) voted against renewing the measures. These measures are CONTRARY to our charter of rights an freedoms, specifically to detain and search ANYONE WITHOUT EVIDENCE on SUSPICION of terrorist activity. And the caption here is WRONG. There are at least 5 individuals (I know of, not personally, just through the CBC) here in Canada that were placed in jail without arrest because of this legislation. SO...
Its a good thing this abhorent measure is gone, because it was a crutch to avoid the due dilligence in proving guilt before innocence.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Virtually every Canadian news agency that covered this event highlighted how the law was voted down purely for political reasons, not for morale ones. The law was originally introduced by the Liberal party which is the exact same party that voted against it this time. The Liberal party is simply trying to bring up the minority Conservative government for obvious political reasons. This has absolutely nothing to do with moral objection, as many Liberal members broke rank from their party and actually voted *for* the bill. You can be sure this bill will come back in one form or another introduced by the Liberals if not by the Conservatives. You can't close your eyes and pretend that bad people don't exist and those advocating such an approach are ignorant in my view.
How about the fact that Canada is the USA's #1 supplier of Oil? This information is at least two years out of date, but that's not very far out of date at all. If somebody has a more recent link, great, but it won't have changed a whole lot.
Lots of targets up here that WILL hurt you.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the US import most of its oil from Canada. Hitting Canada would have a dramatic effect on the US.
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- The Tao of Programming
Of course, it's *not* happening in the U.S. - so... same old crud here as usual. Sigh.
Sometimes I really wonder how long this country has at the rate we are going. Just take a look at Democracy Now or any alternative site - or better yet, just go to news.yahoo.ca/ for a slightly less baised mainstream news look at the U.S.(far less filtering than the stuf we get from Reuters/CNN/Fox/etc main newsfeeds). The sad thing is that it's the working class what will take the brunt of any retaliation for what we are doing - be it military, terrorist, economic, or otherwise.
Heh... true in a funny way. A good day for law-abiding Canadians who don't want to let the terrorists win by tricking them out of their civil liberties. And good news for terrorists who want to operate more effectively in Canada. Both groups win by their own measures of success.
Come now, I think calling Molson "beer" is being a bit generous. Sure, it has less resemblance to water than the mainstream US brands (Budweiser, Millers, etc.), but calling it "beer" is just taking things a bit too far.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
You're right, it doesn't make sense but not for the reason you're likely professing. Terrorism is not a threat. People need to see that in print more. Terrorism is not a threat. More people die from the use of non-prescription anti-inflammatory drugs such as Aspirin every year in the U.S. than have EVER died from terrorism on U.S. soil. Seriously, think about that for a minute: Aspirin kills more people than terrorism in this country. If the government has more powers to go after drug cartels than terrorists then the solution should be to trim the powers available to go after drug cartels, not grant more powers to after some other random type of criminal.
/Yes, I know that the drug cartels you were referring to have nothing to do with Aspirin. I merely used them as an example because Aspirin is generally considered 'harmless' by most people.
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This is one of those times where I am proud to actually be Canadian.
By the same token: If the powers granted by the legislation were never used, and civil liberties of Canadians were never effectively squashed, then that's a pretty shallow victory for citizens.
Really I think this is an insignificant victory in any sense if you're looking at real world impact. It's a victory of principle, and an important victory of principle. As a Canadian, I'm glad to see that many politicians are doing a good job in preventing civil liberties from sliding away. Admittedly the bill was defeated out of politics rather than principle, but nonetheless, principle did win a victory.
"The anti-terror laws have never been used"
I love when someone claims that a policy doesn't work. I don't know where the synopsis gets this but from the sound of it it was never used, that's called untested, not "doesn't work."
Why is it that there seems to be two responses from these anti-Bush/anti-patriot act groups? "Terror laws don't work" where as the last full scale terror attack on our country was 5 years ago. The second response is usually "Well the world hates us" and you look again and there hasn't been an attack on US soil since 9/11. So why hasn't terrorism reigned supreme here if everyone hates us and Homeland security isn't working? We aren't fighting the three stogies here.
They have been like that for decades, yet we have had president after president support them. Why change now? I guess when you create turmoil it creates inflated prices from products that come from the region and thus we artificially pay more for oil than what we should because of the risk involved.
Really, terrorists only mean something when you choose to give them that much credit. Your giving them power by recognizing them as something they're not.
Christians, Catholics and many other "mainstream" religions have all fought holy wars that killed millions of people. This is simply a situation we are doomed to repeat because it works well for a select few. Its all about power, politics and money and absolutely nothing to do with "terror" or "fear" unless your gullable enough to actually BELIEVE THAT
I would argue that, since the laws have never been used, they were unneeded, not untested. Furthermore, key provisions of the laws were recently struck down as unconstitutional by the Canadian courts.
So, not only were the laws not necessary, they contravened the highest law of the land. It's no wonder Parliament voted them down! I'm just surprised that the same hasn't happened yet to the blatantly unconstitutional laws that have been enacted since 9/11 south of the Canadian border!
"...that the Liberal Party was soft on terror"
How is it that everyone not willing to give up Civil Liberties is considered "Soft on Terror"? People are cowards if they don't vote for every anti-terrorist bill? If you ask me, the people who will so readily give up their freedoms, and even send a nation's youth to war, are the real cowards.
What irritated me about this was that people somehow think that these unproven laws are needed? WHY?? Let's review, to protect you Joe Canadian we are going to strip away a fundamental right or two and then remove the need for due-process or accountability. RIIIGHT. I agree with you completely these laws are unneeded, unconsitituional and unnecessary.
What makes matters worst is Mr. Harpers response to the opposition and declaring that they don't have Canada's security in mind. Talk about spreading FUD; our PM is good at it.
I feel for anyone who lost a loved one in 9/11 but this legislation was never a solution just a stop-gap knee-jerk response.
Oops, how did this get here?
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Heh, well don't go ahead making up differences between you and me. I think the U.S.'s entire approach to combating terrorism is pathetic and ridiculous. Capturing data on citizens, as you put it, is a tremendous waste of energy and needless invasion of privacy. We know where terrorists are funded from, we know where they go for training. And instead of acting on that knowledge, our government agencies spy on us. WTF. When all we're left to deal with is secrets, then I can maybe understand doing some more snooping around. But we are a LONG way from resorting to anything of the sort.
... well, Aspirin may be "more deadly" than terrorism but that's a bit of a skewed way to look at things. Hippos might be "more deadly" than terrorism for all I know, but that doesn't mean ANYTHING because surely no-one is going to send U.S. troops into the Nile river to bring about democracy to hippos and/or kill them good. You know, whatever awesome strategy our government would come up with :-) The point is, it's in my personal power to prevent death by hippo/Aspirin, but it can't do anything about terrorism. That's where the government (and our troops) comes in. I just wish they'd be more competent and focus on some better solutions.
The War on Drugs is also dumb as heck, I totally agree. I think your point is really about how wasteful our government is, yeah?
As for the Aspirin comment
I once made a comment.. maybe on Slashdot but I forget: if terrorists really want to piss us off, all they have to do is "leak" a "plot" to blow up an airplane using explosive undergarments. Instantly we'd all have to fly "commando" for the next couple of months. Yay for security personnel being too rubbish to do their job and instead trying to cover their asses.
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Oh, that's an easy one. Those two positions are not contradictory at all.
Invasive, authoritarian laws like the PATRIOT Act do greatly increase the risk of terrorism (in addition to having many more deleterious effects). But terrorism is a trivial problem in the first place: something that happens with negligible frequency, and harms (on a national scale) a miniscule number of people.
So, yes, the Bush administration is actively working to destroy the Bill of Rights in order to make a trivial problem slightly worse. I do have kind of a problem with that.
Well, blame the poster, not the editors. I don't think they changed the original post one bit, although I would like to replace("fo", "of"). Spell checkers people, if your browser doesn't have them, well, it sucks.
Because the US suffered huge amounts of terrorist attacks before the PATRIOT act and the Homeland Security bureaucracy came into being.
I've never been attacked by lions, I guess it's because I have this lucky anti-lion rock in my backyard.
Once your knee has finished jerking around, perhaps you should read a bit about what really happened.
There are plenty of laws on the books to combat crime. I don't believe for a moment that the police need to detain people for any significant length of time without charging them. If someone has committed (or is planning to commit) a crime, let the state press the appropriate charges and make the case for a conviction in a court of law.
Honestly, if the war on terror needs gulags and kangaroo courts, we deserve to lose because our values of peace, order and good government are less than worthless platitudes.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Beer contains alcohol and is thus haraam. Hence, your pro-Canadian comments are Islamophobic (pbuh).
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
we've all lost the right of habeas corpus along with many others
1) We "all" haven't lost the "right" of Habeas Corpus. The Nov 13th 2001 Presidential Order made it legal to detain non-citizens suspected of connection to terrorists or terrorism indefinitely without charges being filed against him or her, without a court hearing, and without entitlement to a legal consultant. So unless you're a non-citizen suspected of connection to terrorists or terrorism, you haven't lost anything.
2) Habeas Corpus isn't a fundamental right - it's a procedural privilege. (before you respond to this point, make sure you understand what a fundamental right is, and is not, and please read a little about procedural (derived) rights, too.
3) You (or anyone else, for that matter) hasn't even names "many other" rights that we've lost. So what are they?
Why is it that there seems to be two responses from these anti-Bush/anti-patriot act groups? "Terror laws don't work" where as the last full scale terror attack on our country was 5 years ago. The second response is usually "Well the world hates us" and you look again and there hasn't been an attack on US soil since 9/11. So why hasn't terrorism reigned supreme here if everyone hates us and Homeland security isn't working? We aren't fighting the three stogies here.
Well the last attack by foreign terrorists on US soil before 9/11 was in 1993, so eight years. Clearly the policies initiated after 9/11 were not necessary to provide 8 years of no attacks. Arguing that 5 years of no attacks since in any way validates those policies is the most falacious of reasoning.
And why have attacks not been more frequent? Well first there is the planning involved -- again, 8 years between the failed WTC bombing and 9/11. And more importantly, since 9/11 there has been no need to attack the US on its own soil!
Let me make this as clear as possible: Afghanistan and Iraq have caused more harm to the United States that a hundred attacks like 9/11. In response to 9/11, the U.S. did to itself more than al Qaeda could ever dream of doing just on its own capacities. Not only in material costs but in the all-important propaganda war. The credibility the US has lost in the last 5 years is a huge boon to our enemies. Our status as world leader is
It's a classic strategy, and the same one used by Hezbollah against Israel. You can't effectively attack the giant on its home turf, so you poke at it to enrage it and lure it into your home turf where the giant is at a disadvantage. In their attempts to stomp you out, the giant innevitably stomps on the innocent and thus further increases resentment of the giant. Two wins, military and PR, from one strategy.
The whole purpose of terrorism is to make your enemy crazy-stupid with fear. The U.S. is still behaving crazy-stupid, and paying for it. Why attack again? It would be a waste of resources; they are still getting everything from the one attack 5 years ago that they could hope to get from a new one. If we ever get our heads out of our asses, if we ever get people to think longer than "well no attacks it the last 5 years, so USAPATRIOT must work!", THEN maybe they'll see a need to attack us again.
The enemies of Democracy are
There are three answers:
(1)They don't have to strike on our home territory to hurt us- in fact, they can hurt us a lot more easily, and more effectively, by attacking us abroad. If I were a fanatical Saudi Arabian suicide bomber, I could bomb a Starbucks in Topeka, but it would cost a lot of money and take a lot of time to plan, and it would have a low probability of succeeding. On the other hand, I could just head to Iraq. It's a lot easier to get across the unsecured Iraqi border than through American customs, and once I'm there I look like everyone else and speak the local language, so it's much easier to operate and blend in. And the Americans have done me the favor of shipping to my front door- at the cost of billions of dollars- their young men and women. Praise Allah!
(2) They are busy attacking our allies -as they did in Madrid and London- to isolate us. And quite effectively. Notice how small the "coalition of the willing" is these days?
(3) America is pretty good at integrating its immigrants, so Al Qaeda has very few sympathizers in the United States. Muslim immigrants to the United States tend to like America, identify as Americans, and to pick up our values, and their kids are very well integrated into the culture. They may not like the government but they like the country. However, Muslims in Europe much more often end up isolated, economically disenfranchised, and pissed off at their host countries. That makes them more likely to look to radical Islam and hatch bomb plots, as in London. The way we treat our immigrants, and not the Patriot Act, is probably our strongest defense against domestic terrorism.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Let's ignore the attacks on the USS Cole, and the bombing of the Embassy in Kenya and Tanzania, those don't count because they were under the Clinton Administration? Or are we just forgetting them because they happened more then 6 years ago? Terrorism has always been a problem in the world yet now we are looking for it and it's just not there.
The fact is we have had terrorism all along, just because it's dropped off after 9/11 doesn't mean there wasn't attacks before. And from the sound of their own recordings they'd like nothing more to strike us again on American soil. So if it is so easy to get across the borders like everyone says... what gives? Apparently Homeland security IS working at some level.
The simple answer is to claim the lions rock idea, which does make sense, but you probably don't live next door to a zoo, do you? Statistically you can predict that we should have been attacked in the last six years if we took no precaution, so that means in all likely hood the DHS works.
Allow me to make an alternate example. Assume I live in a city with another person called Joe. Joe is a murderer and a thief. I own a lot of expensive items, however I also am careful and carry a handgun on me at all time, and have a security system at home that can't be broken into. So one day after 10 years of peaceful living, I think to myself, well I've never been murdered or robbed, why don't I get rid of my gun and security system? Joe finds this out. Do you think I'm going to be safe the next day?
This doesn't mean I SHOULD have a gun and a security system, or that it's the best way to handle this. However it was effective in avoiding the problems with Joe, just as the DHS is one solution to solving terrorism.
Yeah, cause there's nothing inflammatory or trollish in this post, or this one.
(Actually, the second one is kinda funny but that's not the point).
Seriously, quit whining Mr. Coward. There are good mods and bad mods, just like there are good posts and bad posts. Put away your conspiracy theories, dazzle us with your insightful commentary and let the meta-mods do their job.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Yeah, really - there almost ought to be a law against passing any new laws for 30 days after a disaster. Politicians always want to jump n some kind of bandwagon after something like 9/11, pass garbage legislation and then we live with it forever (except in Canada, apparently).
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
They don't work? Was there a terrorist act in Canada that the laws failed to prevent?
No. We prevented the terrorist act without using laws that destroy freedom.