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'G20 Geek' Byron Sonne Cleared of Explosives Charges
New submitter davegravy writes "Byron Sonne, the Toronto-based security consultant, chemistry hobbyist, and geek who was arrested leading up to the Toronto G-20 for alleged plans to bomb the event, has been found not guilty of all charges. Sonne was held in prison for 11 months without receiving bail, and the ruling comes two years after his arrest. Sonne is considered by many in the Toronto security community as a champion of civil rights and a sharp critic of security theatre."
Those who oppose security theater are often it's first victims.
At least he got a trial.
Yeah. In Canada. Meanwhile, next door...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
He lost 11 months of freedom and overall two years of his life fighting bullshit charges. He had to move in with his parents, his girlfriend left him (she got arrested too), I presume he's no longer employed, and two years later he has nothing to show for it but a hollow victory in court. The government got what they wanted out of him: He's a warning to others of what they can do to you even if you've done nothing wrong.
bah.
The prosecutors weren't inept. They knew exactly what they were doing and have managed to pull it off brilliantly.
They wanted to make an example of him and scare anyone else from even thinking about talking against the government.
They didn't need to win, they just needed to drag things out and hurt the guy as much as possible. The more inept the acted the better off they could do that.
Oh, don't worry - even the guys in Gitmo get trials. If they're found guilty, they're either executed or locked up forever. If they're found not guilty, they go back into prison until the prosecution finds something else to charge them with. It's completely fair!
I am officially gone from
The Crown alleged he had all the necessary ingredients to build a homemade bomb
I don't know anyone that DOESN'T.
If someone keeps you working for them 24/7 for two years, that should be one hell of an overtime bonus.
I figured Canadians would have inherited a British sensibility for paying people who were unfairly imprisoned without fighting it. Of course, the news stories I've read like that from England may have given me an overly sunny impression of their approach. It just always made sense to me that if the government should fuck up your life for any significant period of time, that they compensate you for it as best they can.
it would certainly make railroading a lot less interesting for the prosecution
I think you would find just the opposite. If the prosecutor faced jail time for losing a case, he or she would probably go to more extreme lengths to insure a conviction.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Either they're civilians or they're POWs either way there are rules that we need to be following. This "they're enemy combatants" is basically a way of saying "they have no rights, not even the ones what we all got together and agreed that everyone has. We will do whatever we want with them; torture, endless imprisonment, sexual and religious humiliation, it doesn't matter because we have declared that the rules don't apply to them. It's bullshit. It's the kind of thing that America (home of the free) is supposed to be better than and it makes me personally ashamed of how my nation is treating human beings.
Poking the cage is not illegal. Pissing off those in power should not land you in prison for 2 years. His behavior is not smart and the outcome might be predictable, but that does not make the outcome right.
The mere fact of innocence doesn't reduce the civic lesson value of this entire episode: You can be imprisoned for nearly a year, held almost incommunicado, and lose your most important personal relationships, simply because you're loudly opposed to the mechanisms of state security. Your "acquittal" does nothing to ameliorate that. Even if you win, you will still have lost, and nothing will change.
Well, we can hope the police spokeman was wrong about the last part.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Prisoners of War (soldiers) get released at the end of the war, not these guys. Civilians get charged in a civilian court with civilian rules and lawyers, not these guys. If you want to criticize China and Iran for this sort of horror you should avoid doing it yourself.
Everyone has human rights. That's why they are called human rights, all humans have them.
You can call them "unlawful combatants" but they are either civilian criminals or POWs. Not giving them any rights, torturing and treating them as sub human just shames yourselves.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So what is he supposed to do?
Transform gitmo into something worthy of human habitation and at least stop treating those who would be released as prisoners.
It's funny how the US set up gitmo, breaking go knows how many laws, international treaties and human rights, but when it comes to dismantling the place, all of a sudden they can't because of the rules. Actually it's not funny at all.
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That's why the 11 months, that's why the easily refuted charges, the pointless lying by the security forces. They aren't punishing him as much as they are demonstrating what they can do to YOU or YOU or YOU, if you get lippy.
It's working. People are shutting up. You can't meter what ain't there, but public disagreement with the established police state is muted by these endless arrests. People don't want to go into debt for the rest of their lives, lose their jobs and their families, just to say "I disagree."
Stay tuned for Rahm Emmanuel's series of lessons in Chicago later this week. It's Tuesday, and already the security forces are running helicopters overhead. We have LDAPs! Let the schoolin' begin.
“Unlawful combatants” is political speak, an attempt to create a new category that does not exist, so that the government can say that these people have no rights.
The Geneva Conventions have many different categories: enemy soldiers, enemy civilians, enemy civilians who have taken up weapons, enemy spies, criminals. The categories may not be mutually exclusive, but they are exhaustive. And all of them have rights. Their treatment will vary depending upon their category. But none of them are to be tortured. None of them are to be starved. None of them are to be treated unfairly. All are to receive appropriate medical care. And once the war is over (remember “Mission Accomplished”?), they are not to be detained indefinitely.
Your own Declaration of Independence affirms that these people have rights, because all people have rights:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, ...
Emphasis mine. Your Declaration of Independence, and your Constitution, apply not just to US citizens, but to all people, everywhere. Go read your country’s founding documents. They are things of beauty. It is a shame that people like you do not understand the noble ideals that your country was founded upon, and that US citizens do not force their government to uphold those ideals.
And if a woman goes out at night after 9pm in a sexy outfit, not even carrying a firearm, well she is practically asking to be raped and tortured. She wouldn't be a victim. She would be doing it to herself. People can be so self-destructive. If you give a cop the finger and he beats you to death or shoots you until has Glock is out of bullets it is something you have done to yourself. The angry cop cannot be held responsible. And if you publicly criticize the government...well you know what to expect. The government cannot be held responsible for what they are forced to do to you. They would rather not ruin the life of an innocent person, but they were left with no choice. Victims have no one to blame but themselves. I think I am starting to understand now.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.