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Canadian Arrested Over Plans to Test G20 Security
epiphani writes "Byron Sonne, of Toronto, was arrested today by a task force of around 50 police officers associated with the G20 summit taking place this week. An independent contractor, IT security specialist and private investigator, he had notable ties to the Toronto technology and security communities. According to friends and associates, he had been purchasing goods online and speaking with security groups about building devices to collect unencrypted police broadcasts and relay them through Twitter, as well as other activities designed to test the security of the G20 summit. By all accounts, it would appear that Mr. Sonne had no actual malicious intent. In Canada, the summit has been garnering significant press for the cost and invasive nature of the security measures taken." "By all accounts" may not be quite right; the charges against Sonne, exaggerated or not, involve weapons, explosives, and intimidation.
...leave him alone, eh? After all, if people can be sued because someone else downloaded torrents using their unsecured Wi-Fi connections...
Living With a Nerd
Here in Canada that translates to a rusty fork, vinegar and baking soda, and not saying 'please'.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
His biggest mistake was telling people beforehand.
It's been awhile since I got my Canadian Ham license, but I seem to remember learning that it was illegal to rebroadcast, (or talk about, publish, whatever) anything that you heard on the airwaves. I.e. cop, fire, air control, taxi, etc chatter.
Innocent or malicious, the guy was an idiot. How would he ensure nobody with malicious intent took advantage of what he did?
I'm glad this prick was arrested.
There isn't anything illegal about listening to any unencrypted broadcast of any type whatsoever in Canada. Period. Now, recording it, that can be illegal. But listening? Hell no. The only exception is that if you are involved in a crime and are listening to the police at the same time, then it becomes illegal. So don't use your scanner while speeding, for example. Not that they work that easily anymore, anyways...
It doesn't matter if he had malicious intent or not. The police had no way of knowing for sure what his real goals were. He appeared to be gearing up to do something naughty, and they caught on and stopped him.
All they knew was that some lone wolf out there not associated with the government was trying to crack through G20 security, for *whatever* reason.
Oblig. car analogy: If I was arrested trying to break into someone's car, would the police let me go if I told them I was just moving it so the nice chap who owns it doesn't get towed for parking in a fire lane?
Listening to unencrypted public safety comms won't get you busted (in most places) but:
"Friends say Sonne had talked about sending messages with trigger words or buying up fertilizer during the summit to test security measures."
What a stupid thing to do but they got wind of it didn't they? I'd say he has his answer - security, at least the intelligence component of it, is pretty decent.
Friends say Sonne had talked about sending messages with trigger words or buying up fertilizer during the summit to test security measures.
This is a meeting of some of the most powerful people in the world, bringing fertilizer to "test security. This isn't about scanning. It's about possibly building a fucking bomb.
I heard about this guy on the news yesterday.
While I don't know the details on what all is is alleged to have done -- he did set a goal to deliberately try to see if they would detect his behavior. He was planning on sending emails with words that would get him flagged by any hypothetical electronic searches they were running, and generally trying to look suspicious to see if they've noticed him. All in the name of seeing what kind of security they had in place, and how well it works.
He may well be completely innocent, a crack-pot, or just some misguided hacker who thinks it's his job to "take on the man". But, it's kind of like trying to get the bull to chase you -- you might not like it when he does. I'm pretty sure they've made trying to identify/breach their security procedures illegal.
The geek and hacker in me applauds such a balsy move. The pragmatist in me thinks he might have tried just a little too hard to get noticed. I mean, antagonizing an already skittish security apparatus ... not the smartest move you can make. :-P
I'm looking to actually hearing more facts as they become available.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The had to spend their $1,000,000,000 somewhere. Might as well arrest someone!! That's more money than hiring the entire Canadian Army and ALL the police forces in the country for 3 days!
Hell, they've spent over $100 MILLION on office space for 3 days. That's enough money to build a fucking office tower! Over $10 MILLION ON FOOD FFS!!! Are they eating golden nuggets of unicorns?
People need to be arrested over the fraud that has happened. Some of these people are providing the "so called" security.
Cryptography is classified as munitions. Trying to export the wrong stuff without a license is like trying to export a tank or a missile.
Not sure if Canada has similar laws, but if so, maybe he was in possession of "munitions" or other "weapons" of that nature.
I Guess it costs a "Buck O' Five" there aswell....
and since I'm a narcissistic American... I will.
That was what I felt too. It's like testing the security of your house by posting an add on craigslist telling people when I'm leaving, and when I'll be back. Not really a good idea, epsecially since every 100th craigslist reader has a brain, and that one guy might be a robber who would bring a pair of cable cutters to drop the phone / power lines.
Even if security WAS good enough, damage still occurs to the house. The "telcom integrity" gets degraded... the cost of repairing that can be high... lastly a bump key,a rock, or a swift kick, and a masked smash and grab is still possible w/or w/o security.
I think doing that to a major summit is not just irresponsible, there is no way someone in his field can claim they couldn't see the consequences, meaning it can only be formulated w/ malicious intenet. There is no good reason to "test" it's security unless you were hired to do so, and still you wouldn't do it this way.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Enough said!
'Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes, aaarrrrrrrr!' -- Minsc
Hello sir/madame, are the owner of this establishment?
I must say this is a fine operation you run here. However, I believe your security seems to be lacking. What's to stop an armed man, such as myself carrying these concealed sidearms, from wreaking havoc on your customers and property? Hacking your wi-fi to access and broadcast transaction data to twitter was also a cake walk. Did you honestly think I couldn't get past such simple passwords? Also, I think you could of easily prevented me from rigging your exits with explosives, made from cheap fertilizer I bought and are set to blow should anyone try to escape.
Therefore, I would like to offer you my security consulting services. I think my demonstration speaks for itself but here are some references.
Need to use the phone? Oh I guess its just to call my references.
That's strange, I don't think any of them had numbers that start with 911...
*Scene*
Test passed, I guess.
He is a friend of a friend. I am told he is a white hat type and does this stuff as a hobby. Don't know much about the explosives bit, but all accounts are that the guy is harmless.
I assume they will hold him through the weekend and release him on Monday after the conference is over. I wish him luck in getting (most of?) the charges dropped afterward.
Did he have an agreement with the G20 meeting organizers to test their security? You don't get to "test" people's security against their will.
I guess their security works
...or else it will look like that $1B in security was wasted Can't have that.
If he, and enough other people, did this there would be a lot of resources being tied up running down these "tests". This may allow a real threat to slip in and people be killed because all the resources are tied up. It is along the same line as to why it is illegal to call in a false fire report. The real fire across town burns while the truck is responding to the false call. Sorry but "I was just testing the response time" is not a valid excuse.
Really a great car.
is the G20 itself.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
"By all accounts" may not be quite right; the charges against Sonne, exaggerated or not, involve weapons, explosives and intimidation.
and that's only what the cops were using!
Googling his name and filtering out (as best I can) the plethora of reprints of this article, it looks like the "explosives" were deliberate acquisition of ingredients to see what it would take to provoke a response. I guess he found out.
As far as "weapons" was concerned, I don't know enough about Canadian law -- what is and is not classed as a "weapon" -- to speculate. But his linkedin says he's a licensed private investigator, and in many areas where it's otherwise impossible, a valid PI license sometimes allows a person to carry concealed. So, he could have legally owned a firearm.
I suspect that to a certain extent this is another example of the "kitchen sink" approach to high-profile arrests, and some of these charges will be dropped in plea negotiations.
Or, I dunno, he could really be a nut. But I don't think so. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
He acts suspicious and gets caught, just as he did.
He convinces the police it was just a "test". They laugh and go away.
He continues and security ignores him as he is just "testing".
He does commit a terrorist attack which get through because the police were ignoring him since that was his objective in the first place.
Would you want to be the head of security to try to explain this?
So he wanted to test security and was caught. Sounds like his test worked great. He should be very please with himself. When he gets out he should test US government security by pulling a gun during on the POTUS during a speech.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
In Texas, you can carry rifles while you protest outside a Republican state convention where Laura Bush is speaking and no one questions you.
Interesting contrast.
Here are a couple of links.
This guy had a theory, that a person acting very suspiciously may not be noticed by government intelligence agencies in a timely manner during an international gathering of heads.
To test his theory, he began taking suspicious actions in an attempt to get noticed. One would assume that the longer his suspicious acts went unnoticed, the more suspicious acts he partook in.
Eventually, his actions were noticed and he was detained.
The conclusion of his test will be in the summary of what suspicious actions he managed to take BEFORE he was detained.
It sure seems like the goal all along was to get caught. The question was to determine the amount of suspicious actions he could take prior to being caught.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Ever since the APEC summit in Australia, police have been extra careful about Canadians trying to sneak in: The Chaser APEC pranks.
I wouldn't be surprised really. These cops have to do SOMETHING to whittle away the time.
I had to walk from one building to another ~5 min walk today. There are literally more police than civilians mulling about. Furthermore, as I was about to cross the street at a green, a police vehicle cut me off to turn right (on his red). The next car behind him then honked at a guy on his bike despite the fact that said bike had the same green I had and the vehicle was turning on a red. Not a big deal in either case, but it's like a mini-police state here, and I'm certainly not used to such an overwhelming display of authority.
There are literally crowds of police officers doing F all, just standing on corners/walking around in groups, and the downtown core is deserted by Toronto standards.
I'm pretty sure if you littered you'd have 50 officers on you at this point.
...the charges against Sonne, exaggerated or not, involve weapons, explosives and intimidation...
Because no one has ever been arrested on false charges before.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
How about 50 people to arrest one person because of it. I figured one RCMP dealing with an upset Mule would be enough.
Many hackers seem to have this ethos of "If I CAN do it then it is ok for me to do." If they can break in to a system, it is ok for them to do in their mind. They figure the person who owns it should have secured it better. Something tells me they would not be nearly so amused if I applied the same thing to their house. "Oh hey! Ya I've been sleeping on your couch watching TV. Well it was really your problem after all, your lock wasn't very good, I picked it easily and your alarm was defeated by just cutting the power and battery cable in it. Don't get made at ME, if you don't want me here YOU should have secured your house better!"
I think hacker types need to remember basic kindergarten etiquette: Don't touch what isn't your without asking first. If you want to learn how to break in to computers that is wonderful, but do it on your own. Don't go and try to get in to other's stuff.
Same shit here.
Arrested with 3 gas cans, an axe handle, baseball bat, sticks, a chainsaw, a crossbow, and various other items in his trunk.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
There are reports of various weapons and other items found in his car. Regardless of his true intentions, this guy acted pretty stupidly.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman Sgt. Marc LaPorte said the 53-year-old driver had pellet guns, a crossbow, gas tanks and chemical products in his car, and couldn't explain why those items were there.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/06/24/canada.g20.arrest/index.html?hpt=T1
Inside the car they found five blue and red fuel canisters, some only partially full, a half-empty soft drink bottle, a bundle of arrows with red and yellow tips, as well as a large chainsaw, the homemade orange steel crossbow and a baseball bat.
Three medium-sized suitcases were found to be stuffed with batteries, scribbled notebooks, and a copy of "100 ways to Make Money on the Internet."
There was also a tall, oversized wooden paddle, a bottle of cleaning fluid, and a dirty sleeping bag stuffed in the trunk. The arrested man showed "some disorientation in answering questions," Smith said, adding: "We are not up north, or deer hunting so these weapons were a matter of concern."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hirhQOwLiZuLY52DsqXQvCh0NTtQ
I feel no sympathy here. There are many world leaders attending and their security forces don't fuck around. There are very real threats to these people. So you go and test them, perhaps you find the answer is "Yep, security is good." Don't be surprised if the other part of the answer is "And we are going to arrest you."
Given that world leaders are attending, their security forces are likely helping out not only on the physical side, but on the intelligence side as well. In and of themselves they usually have good intelligence support, but also some of them are backed by the best in the world. The USSS gets intelligence backing from the NSA and CIA. The Russian FPS is the old Ninth Directorate of the KGB, and you can bet they are still backed by the SVR (formerly the First Chief Directorate) and whatever they call the Sixteenth Directorate (signals intelligence) these days.
So it isn't like you are just playing with local cops for something like this. While they are still a major part of security over all, keeping order int eh city and such, there are some extremely heavy hitters dealing with the conference itself. I'm quite sure if they notice a potential problem, they'll let the local police know.
So even if you think the local cops and the RCMP are stupid (hint: they aren't) you are dealing with a much higher level of intelligence gathering for something like this.
Arrested with 3 gas cans, an axe handle, baseball bat, sticks, a chainsaw, a crossbow, and various other items in his trunk.
Those items sound like something a person would bring if they were going camping. It's hard to get firewood without a chainsaw, some fuel for that chainsaw, and an axe. (Well it was an axe handle but the axe head could have worked loose or was broken off.) The sticks could have been for starting the campfire. The baseball bat could be for, you know, playing baseball. The crossbow could either be used for more idle amusement, as in some target practice, or for use against animals for protection or food.
When I go camping I tend to bring things much more deadly, such as rifles and knives. But this is Canada we're talking about. A rifle would be completely out of the question so people have to fall back to a less effective means to protect themselves, such as a crossbow.
"The law is the law -- it hasn't changed under these circumstances," he said.
"But quite clearly if an individual comes down into the area, is engaged in protest activity and is carrying things that could be used as a weapon, that matter's going to be investigated by the police and those items can be removed from that individual in the interests of maintaining a safe environment for everybody."
So anything that could be used as a weapon? "I'm sorry sir, you cannot bring that picket sign into this area as it could be used as a weapon. Also, you will need to leave your belts and shoelaces behind. Can't allow you to go strangling people."
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
So anything that could be used as a weapon?
Yep. They would still have to prove he intended to use those items as weapons, but anything at all can become a weapon when it comes to charging someone.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
Unlike Americans, most Canadians have had some level of military training, and have easy access to explosives and hunting rifles - in point of fact, Canadians have twice as many guns per person than Americans do, they just don't use them to kill people in civilian life.
Thus, it's not that unusual for any Canadian to have both experience and training in these things.
That said, it's more likely CSIS or the RCMP are trying to justify their budgets and just plain hate Canadians legal rights to privacy as enshrined in the Canadian Constitution.
(caveat - I used to be on the other side of riots when I was in the Canadian Army)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
....by all accounts, "Inflamed (1156277)" showed no malicious intent....
THL phish sticks
insert penetration testing joke here
Winkey shortcut mapping for 64bit windows. WinKeyPlus
the intel was provided by the americans, again.
Arrested by "a task force of around 50 police officers"?
Can you picture a force of 50 officers coming to arrest one person? The need for "security" has become so overdone since 911 it's beyond ridiculous. 50 officers is not a "task force". It's a fucking ARMY. No bloody wonder that Canada has spent over a BILLION DOLLARS on security for the G20 summit. What an incredible waste.
"You are free of all charges but marked potentially dangerous to the event. A police officer (a security expert) will accompany you at all times until after the summit, and will report all your moves. Do not avoid said officer nor try to conceal your activity from them. You are welcome to continue testing the security like you did so far, in fact we specifically request you to do so. Of course, if any of your routes appears to have a chance to succeed, we will stop you, but you will suffer no consequences. After all, what good is finding security flaws for if they are not reported to the maintainer and given a chance to be patched? So keep poking at our security, please, just don't keep us in the dark about what you find, and don't be surprised if you trigger some traps and alarms we set up."
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
His whole point is that we could get the desired security for a whole lot less money if we didn't put it smack in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the country.
We could have held it on a military base, or on a cruise ship, or in a 5-star hunting lodge up north. All of those would have been way cheaper.
Heck...they could have *built* a 5-star hunting lodge up north for the event, and then given it to a local community to operate for profit afterwards.
The reason the man was arrested is because, without obtaining proper authority he decided to do the equivalent of make bomb jokes at the goddamn airport. it was there job to find potential threats and they found one, the man painted a target on himself and, because that's what security is supposed to do, they nabbed him. That being said, I think 50+ officers is overdoing it, and the security for the G20 was overkill. The man should face charges of 'mischief' or otherwise, be given a slap on the wrist, and everyone should make a big deal about it. They have to scare off people like him, the ones who want to dick around with security(for good intentions or bad). It causes a huge waste everyone's time and resources.
How much time in advance did the Canadians have to put this together in, was it enough to build a hotel or whatever? Besides, it is irrelevant what you build if you still have to secure it, and securing a totally new structure from scratch is probably much more difficult than an existing one.
I don't really know what went into the 1 Billion, I am interested to see, but to put a blank statement that the fraud perpetrated by the former government is the same thing as spending a billion or whatever on security for a meeting for a bunch of world-leaders, their stuff, to make it all work... it's not a fair comparison.
Whether there was any money wasted or not on this event (and government always wastes money) does NOT change the fact of the liberals' government behavior.
You can't handle the truth.
You'd know that security is relative to economic 3 way scale
The Monetary cost of providing it
against the dysfunction it creates
and the value of what you are protectiong.
The standard, you can have good, cheap, or fast, pick any 2. You'll never find a good quality, fast car for cheap. (sorry /. I had too).
The main thing though is you test in test systems... you don't test in production (unless it's a last resort, but it's highly frowned upon). Do this during a drill, not when real lives are at stake. This wasn't a security audit, this was a security exposition. An audit keeps things in a report, not expose intimate details to the world...
Security is ALLWAYS through obscurity at least a little bit. It'd be like taking a windows box, you open your IP address to the world and see who can get in after disclosing exactly what software / services you use too.
Now you just paid all this money for fancy schmancy security, then you want to also expose any potential flaws to the public, still expect security, and all for the same price?
I think maybe you just didn't see it the same way I did...
Or maybe you have a house at 1313 mockingbird lane in Beverly Hills CA, 90210 with a specific alarm package,
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
The goal is to make it hard to take out the G20 delegates cleanly in a decapitation strike - the g20 are evil and know it, and know good people who might justly want to assassinate the G20 delegates en masse with a bomb or biological agent have qualms about killing innocents. So the centre of a major city is a good place for them, as it means any attack on them is also an attack on innocent bystanders.
It's not unheard of to bring a loaded assault rifle or a few to townhall meeting while angrily denouncing the president in the USA. And apparently, you aren't arrested or anything from it.
I hope he didn't have a flashlight.
It isn't wise to play with the bacon up here in Canukistan.
A "Weapons Dangerous" charge refers to weapons that aren't a gun or knife. There are different charges for them.
Could be a crossbow, could be baseball bat, a spiked club, a catapult, a battering ram, brass knuckles, a taser, pretty much anything that isn't a firearm or a bladed weapon.
Harper has been learning from the Bush years and US Republicans it seems. This is a good attempt to ensure all of their corporate "supporters" get paid back for previous election support before the "Conservatives" get kicked out on their ass in the next vote of non-confidence. Its either criminal behaviour or gross miss-management by Harper's government, take your pick - because nothing on earth can possibly justify this big an expenditure for a 4 day event.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Not long ago, Toronto Police towed an illegally parked van; when the upset university student owner informed them that it was modified to run on Hydrogen (IIRC), the coppers shut down a huge area around the Williams Towing impound yard where the vehicle had been taken and called in the bomb squad to pick apart the van. Lots of cops and firefighters tied up for hours over nothing. No charges filed, as I recall. Very typical up here these days.
Uh, they actually did that. The G8 is up in Huntsville, and new buildings were constructed for that purpose. IIRC, I read that the G20 was originally supposed to be up there as well, but Huntsville isn't large enough to house all the delegations.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Wrong arrest.
Ahhh. The desciption seemed to fit. Thanks for the correction.
So anything that could be used as a weapon?
Yep. They would still have to prove he intended to use those items as weapons, but anything at all can become a weapon when it comes to charging someone.
I AM going camping tomorrow. Going almost all the way to Canada to do it. Thankfully, not exiting the U.S., else I'd be in trouble with all my "weapons." :-)
When I go camping I tend to bring things much more deadly, such as rifles and knives. But this is Canada we're talking about. A rifle would be completely out of the question so people have to fall back to a less effective means to protect themselves, such as a crossbow.
Why would a rifle be out of the question? If you want to protect yourself from a grizzly, a cross bow is not a very good option. And of course lots of people combine camping and hunting.
Owning a rifle is quite legal as long as you also have a firearms acquisition certificate, meaning you took a short course on safely handling a firearm. (Actually I think the law is that it is illegal to sell a firearm to someone unless they can show you the F.A.C.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
It would be interesting for a group to host an axe handle rally where everyone shows up with blocks of hickory and makes axe handles. They could get 2000 or more people to walk in with wooden logs and walk out with axe handled just to overwhelm the police for stupid things like this.
If a guy going about his day can be arrested in Canada for possessing things that aren't illegal to posses- even when all possessed together, then I think they need a lesson in how bad of an idea that really is.
Most US cities the size of Toronto have been on digital trunking for some time now; I'm surprised to hear they're just now switching.
They want your fear and obedience. They want you to conform to their dictates. They don't want any form of effective resistance, nowadays even a lot of speech is questionable. They want you to be satisfied with "voting" for one of their approved major corrupt parties, and that you then accept that corruption as legal and proper, and that you stay in your place as a good subject or serf, and just keep self indoctrinating that "there's nothing you can do about it", just accept. Mild grumbling is tolerated, more than that, the slave overseers bust heads. It's that simple and that obvious.
The aristocracy and feudal-type system never went away, they just changed costume and titles around a little, to give you their chattel the illusion of some sort of effective vote or say in your own future, and put you into lifelong economic, political and social peonage to them. If you become a nail head sticking up, they will hammer you eventually one way or several ways. And of course they give their mercenaries a lot of "job perqs" like knowing they are almost entirely immune from the slaves laws.
That's the system, and trusting them or their hired guns has nothing to do with it, it is not even a consideration, they want, demand and receive fear and obedience.
Cops are the domestic mercenaries for the system, the muscle, the enforcers, the plantation overseers, the military is for mostly external use in a similar but slightly more violent manner, except that distinction is rather blurred now. It's the same in obvious third world hellholes, and is in serious transition stage in allegedly first world soon to be hellholes right now. Examples like this aristocrat meeting are right there in your face, examples like that drunk mercenary walking on charges that would put a slave away for decades are quite common, this isn't unusual at all.
That's why they can spend a billion dollars on their own whims and pleasures, stick you the serfs with the bill, keep telling you and getting to believe that this debt is yours, get at least half of you to believe that so strongly that they willingly will ask to be put into debt even further, and those elites laugh about it later.
*That's how they want it to be* and they know the serfs in the so called civilized first world will never do anything about it, because they have spent the last two generations deliberately dumbing down and neutering the populations, getting them conditioned to accept all authority, one step at a time. Overnight, they can't do it, they can't chance a revolt, that would be too obvious, even the stupidest slaves would see it, but one step at a time, easy peasey for them to accomplish the same task.
You don't really think they spent all that psych money and NLP research and so on just trying to "sell" soapflakes and shiny cars and gadgets do you? Mass brainwashing is such a science now that they have the bulk of the populations firmly inside their cult, the cult of obedience to their lords and masters and to meekly accept every insult, injury or outrage. They maintain the monopoly on the use of force, because that is what a slavemaster needs and uses. They get their slaves to willingly disarm themselves, to willingly accept shackles, to demand to pay for fancier shackles, to be meek, to not ever question their lords, like airline flying, or at some traffic stop, or even at some big protest, now they don't want their pictures taken at all, while they don black hoods and conduct raids where people get "detained", sometimes forever. But oh, this is "civilized" and acceptable, because the lords can still point to north korea as being worse. Why yes it is, just that the rest of the world is catching up to them, that's all. Speeds may differ, but not the eventual outcome, and it is half way there already and most people refuse to see it.
Propaganda works, brainwashing works. The ad business wouldn't be so huge if it didn't work. Political and social brainwashing works just as well, at least on enough people so the outliers
8 years... The location of the G8 rotates among the members.
It's G8 followed by G20 in the same country.
You can't handle the truth.
I'd guess the venue is as much about schmoozing the media as anything else - make them traipse out into the middle of nowhere (and probably end up sleeping in camper vans if they're lucky, since the politicos have the only accommodation in the area) and you're not going to get favourable news reports. Of course there's also the logistics of getting all these diplomats safely from international airports out to the middle of nowhere and back, although hiring a fleet of helicopters would probably still come in much cheaper.
Why even meet at all in that case? Teleconferencing, hell even some kind of virtual reality system so you get the feeling of being there, would probably be a cheaper option (certainly long term and likely even short term depending on how sophisticated it needs to be). I don't understand why, when everyone's being told to tighten their belts and save money, we persist in flying these people all over the world - and then they tend not to even reach any agreements.
Christ, what an Asshole!
No malicious intent? Yet he planned to take encrypted police communication and broadcast it via Twitter? What an idiot. Throw him in jail. That is not "testing" security.
Isn't it a war crime to put targets of military value in the middle of a civilian population? That's what we're always bitching about Hamas doing.
I guess it's "okay" here because the leaders never recognize themselves as legitimate targets. They think commanding a war while dressed as a civilian separates them from the responsibility.
It's the G20, not G20K, it only needs to have a few hundred people at it, tops. If the bill for a three-day meeting comes to a significant fraction of the GDP perhaps you should cancel it and buy some video-phones.
A billion dollars is being thrown away, against objections, on something we don't need. If you don't think that's fraud you're harping on technicalities.
Just get some ham from the deli and cut it in a circle! Hope this post doesn't get taken down for violating the DMCA...
It's all the same shit, just in different piles
Was he acting on his own or did he have help from the inside, I wonder if this was a test set up independently by the gov. but without affiliation so as to test its own weaknesses, or maybe have no ties in case something went wrong???
"Hi Mr. Business Owner. I see you've spent a lot of money on your guards, scanners, etc and you're probably wondering how well it's all working. Here is an SD card with a movie I recorded of me walking into your production areas carrying banned items without being properly screened or questioned."
"Hi Mr. Politician, here is a simple metal blank the same size and rough shape as a gun that I just passed through airport security onto this flight - what else might they have missed."
Yes, I can see people getting mad in both cases, but not justifiably.
If the question is what proportion of the population has military experience, your sample set of the people you met while working in the military just might not be representative of the Canadian population as a whole...
No, at various times I saw DND stats on how many people in age ranges in Canada had some military training or experience. It's a lot higher than in the US - training-wise.
It's totally possible it decreased dramatically since when I was CC for PMA and Acting SecO for PMA. Kind of doubt it, however. Especially with so much military being in Afghanistan (higher per capita than US) for almost 10 years now.
Mind you, I was in back when all the missions were peacekeeping or local counter-terrorism or dealing with riots.
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How do you figure that Canada has a higher per capita military presence in Afghanistan than does the US? Official ISAF troop contribution statisics are 2830 from Canada and 62415 from the United States. The total populations of the two countries differ only by about a factor of ten.
for quite a few years there, Canada was in Afghanistan and there were no US military forces. Well, not counting CIA/etc.
You don't get to make up stats using this years figures, after we've been fighting for longer than WW II, you have to use them for the total duration.
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