RSS FeedSee-through body scanners are not as bad as they sound
According to media reports on Friday, the federal privacy commissioner approved the see-through airport body scanners. These machines show your naked body in Casper-the-ghost 3D on the security officer’s screen. Although the officer can easily see if you are a bikini model or a beer belly, the procedure is subject to restrictions and rules that create a good balance between security and privacy. Don’t be afraid of see-through scanners unless we hear some bad news about their health effects down the road.
The scanners are supposed to speed up and improve that irritating extra screening at the airport. So the first rule is they will scan you only if security officers select you for extra screening. The second rule is you still have the option of a physical pat-down. The scanners give travellers a choice between physical touching and having your x-ray nude body on the screen. If this is the case, then scanners don’t make your life more miserable. You are already in humiliating extra screening, where the officers had had the right to strip-search you even before the scanners were proposed.
The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority promised the privacy commissioner that the officer viewing your body on the screen will be in a separate room. That’s another restriction on security to protect your privacy. But it works only if that officer can’t learn your name or store the image of your body. Unless you have a gun on you or some plastic explosive in your shoes, the officers should not connect your personal information to the image or retain the image in their computers.
Airport see-through body scanners can speed up the humiliating extra screening. They give people who don’t like pat-downs a choice. And scanners seems to be an excellent security tool. As long as they are not required in addition to pat-downs and as long as officers can’t keep your personal information and images without probable cause, scanners seem to balance privacy with security well. Hopefully, you won’t need to go through extra screening, but if you do, the scanners may be just the way to breeze through it, especially if you are late for your flight.
Toronto Police Accuses SIU of Playing Politics
The push and pull of Ontario’s Police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, continues after Toronto Police Service Association Union President Mike McCormack suggests.
It was only last year that the Ontario Ombudsman’s Office headed by Andre Marin called the SIU a “toothless tiger.” Well that kitty is all grown up now and has grown a nice set of teeth, and the TPA is “barking back”.
Call it what you will, but politics should have no place in the determination of criminal charges. These are not only people’s lives that are being thrown around, but also careers. I understand the role that the Ombudsman must play in society, however, to criticize the SIU is simply playing politics.
The Ombudsman’s report, criticizes the SIU for delays in interviewing police and witnesses, as well as not having any teeth. Well Mr. Marin, should you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of being forced to take the life because yours or somebody else’s was threatened with “serious bodily harm or death,” and I’m sure the last thing on your mind would be where’s the SIU, I must give my statement. I personally know at least three people who during my time as a police officer who were forced to take a life, and as great of people they are as police officers and in general, the event changed them. Although I never asked them about the immediate aftermath, I could say with confidence that I’m sure talking to the SIU was not ranking very high.
To furthermore call the SIU a toothless tiger is ridiculous. How much more of an impact can they have into an officer’s life? They conduct their own separate investigation, free from the police, and they make the determination to lay charges. Yes, the SIU has the power to lay charges. Those dentally challenged little tigers apparently can inflict some damage (all sarcasm aside).
How in the wake of the September 2008 report, pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, and now the TPA is accusing the SIU of being too aggressive.
The union’s criticism of the SIU comes in a year that has so far seen six Toronto officers charged by the police watchdog compared to none last year.
“There’s an appearance that our members, based on the information that we have right now, that they’re being charged to fulfil a political agenda of the director, Ian Scott,” McCormack said.
“We’re concerned right now with the overcharging — that there are already some officers wrongfully charged,” union lawyer Peter Brauti said.
This is an understandable reaction from the union, whose primary function is to fight for its members. However, it seems that the numbers are concurring with McCormack is saying:
So far in 2009, 13 officers across the province have been charged by the SIU. That’s compared to three in 2008, six in 2007, two in 2006, three in 2005 and three in 2004.
Is it now time for Andre Marin to launch another investigation into the SIU, who under its new director Ian Scott, is charging four times the amount of people it did last year? Is it time for this little kitty to go to the proverbial dentist to have it’s teeth trimmed? I’m definitely wondering about that.
Under the Police Services Act officers are required to comply with the SIU, however, the perceived new tactics of the SIU are going to breed a new level of mistrust in officer who are going to tighten up their “blueline” which will result in are more prevalent “us vs. them” attitude.
The Toronto Sun went further by saying:
The SIU, a civilian law enforcement agency that reports to the attorney general, investigates cases involving police that have resulted in serious injury, sexual assault or death.
McCormack accused the SIU of laying charges against officers when there has been no civilian injury and no possibility of criminal wrongdoing.
He also said officers have had their charter rights violated, personal property seized without warrants, and investigators have entered homes without a search warrant or consent.
“We’re concerned about the erosion of officer’s rights because if you go from a starting point that an SIU investigation is a criminal investigation, then there’s no reason why those officers in those investigations deserve any less rights than anyone else,” Brauti said.
Both the TPA and Ontario Provincial Police Association said they respect the role of the SIU, although McCormack said Toronto cops are feeling “mistrust” and “frustration” toward the organization.
Canada’s cost of keeping Khadr in Guantanamo
Omar Khadr case cost Ottawa $1.3 million
Allan Woods and Michelle Shephard write:
Ottawa has spent more than $1.3-million fighting against Toronto-born captive Omar Khadr, who has been held at the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay detention centre for seven years, the government has revealed.
B.C. introduces law blasted by critics as means to hide homeless for Games
B.C. introduces law blasted by critics as means to hide homeless for Games
The B.C. government introduced a controversial law Thursday that will allow police to take homeless people to shelters in extreme weather, but won’t give officers the power to force them to stay.
[...]
A draft version of the law leaked earlier this fall revealed the government was considering allowing police to take the homeless to local jails, but that has been dropped.[Housing and Social Development Minister] Coleman said he expects the law could be the subject of a court challenge.
It will be the first of its kind in Canada.
Despite Coleman’s assurances that homeless people have the right to refuse entry to a shelter, the proposed law could backfire and result in the homeless hiding from police in extreme weather, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said.
Soldiering on? The human cost of war
With the war in Iraq still ongoing and the conflict in Afghanistan going from bad to worse, who is paying the price? Can success be measured by piling the dead up against a wall – ours and theirs? How high does the ladder to freedom and democracy have to be?
In Afghanistan:
-One hundred and thirty-two Canadians soldiers dead (also, one diplomat and two aid workers) since the 2002 invasion began. Twenty-six dead as of October 28, 2009 [1].
-As of July 7, the United Nations recorded [2] over 1,000 deaths in the first six months of 2009 — 24 per cent more than during the same period last year. Total number [3] of estimated civilian deaths — direct and indirect deaths from Coalition-led military operations since 2001 — are 8,436 – 28,028.
As another heavy November 11 approaches, how should we as a society reflect on the horror of war and its horrible consequences?
***
As the America government hides its military’s dead and abandoning its wounded, is Canada’s treatment of its dead and wounded soldiers any more honourable? Sure, we sometimes allow news broadcasts of ramp ceremonies and we do have public displays like the Highway of Heroes [4], but how are we as a society really honouring our heroes? Shouting “Support Our Troops!” during recruitment drives and yet not supporting them when they return home — dead or alive — is dishonourable, unpatriotic and a disgrace to any society.
Is a two minute pause one a year enough, if people even pause at all on November 11? Lest we forget?
Just yesterday, yet another Canadian forces member — Lt. Justin Garrett Boyes, 26, of 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, who was only 10 days into his second tour in Afghanistan — lost his life in Afghanistan, and two more were injured. Did anyone pause when they heard this news [5]?
For Canadian civilians the concepts of honour, duty and sacrifice act as a shield keeping people from recognizing that active duty, reserve and retired soldiers are also casualties of war. For the anti-war community, it’s a hatred of the whole military complex that clouds the eye. Either way, it’s the dead and walking wounded who suffer.
The formula the military uses to dehumanize the enemy blows back on its own recruits, and the first people really dehumanized are the soldiers themselves. If they don’t come home in a box, they often come home broken. How the anti-war movement treats these men and women is a direct reflection on our ability to show concern for the ‘other’ who – for whatever reason — chose to go to war.
The sooner we acknowledge and understand the true cost of war, the sooner we can take responsibility for our soldiers’ actions and our soldiers themselves.
Our peaceful Canadian society frankly does not want to truly acknowledge the impact and blow back combat has on all involved. Civilians and warriors alike. But this is the only way we as a society can truly heal from these scars and give peace to the victims of combat. Innocent and enlisted alike.
Hiding the dead
For all its love of military and patriotism, the United States is quick to hide its dead. There are no American Valkyries to gloriously carry dead soldiers to an anglo-Valhalla. Bodies are instead buried and forgotten under the dirt of censorship, with a state imposed silence like mist that hangs over the public and media.
Last month, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates had stern words for the Associated Press (AP) for publishing a photograph of a dying Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard [6], who was killed in southern Afghanistan from wounds received from a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush on August 14, 2009.
In defending its decision to circulate the photograph — an image of fellow Marines helping Bernard after he suffered severe leg injuries — Santiago Lyon, the Director of Photography for the Associated Press, said, “AP journalists document world events every day. Afghanistan is no exception. We feel it is our journalistic duty to show the reality of the war there, however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is.”
Writing for Common Dreams [7], Dave Lindorff chastized the U.S. government for its censorship. “Enough with the censorship! If we are going to be a warlike nation, if we are going to have a public that cheers everytime the government ships off men and women to fight and kill overseas in countries that most Americans cannot even locate on a globe, then let’s make sure that everyone at least gets to see the blood and gore in full, including our own, and of course, also the civilian casualties of our military.”
The Bush administration has an equally ugly legacy regarding how it treats its wounded. During the last presidential election, the Bush adminitration took a hit regarding the substandard care wounded soldiers were receiving at the Walter Reed Medical Centre. The scandal [8] resulted in the resignation of Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey and a call for a bipartisan commission to investigate.
Apparently, when an injured soldier salutes or an injured marine shouts “Semper Fi!,” the military doesn’t return the honour. The army marches on, leaving them behind. The wounded warrior project http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/ [9] describes the feeling in simple painful terms: “The Greatest Casualty is Being Forgotten.”
Honour and horror in Afghanistan
The situation isn’t looking much brighter for soldiers serving in Afghanistan. While foreign involvement in Afghanistan had been overshadowed by the war in Iraq, it is back now under the media’s glare.
Grievances concerning the current North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mission keep rising to the surface. Most recently, Senator Colin Kenny [10] stated he believes the war is doomed to fail unless NATO changes its tactics towards a more diplomatic and political angle. He also noted a Strategic Counsel poll taken July 13-16, 2009 showing that 56 per cent of Canadians opposed sending troops to Afghanistan.
Senator Kenny’s doubt concerning the Afghanistan mission mirrors concerns raised recently in the United States by the top U.S. and NATO commander, General McChrystal, who according to a 66-page document obtained by the Washington Post, which stated [11] that situation is Afghanistan is grim and that without more boots on the ground, the mission, “will likely end in failure.”
Unfortunately, redacting an occupying army into a diplomatic mission is as impossible as magically turning a knife into a spoon.
Casualties of shame and censorship
Canadians, while always quick to criticize the U.S. government, have nothing to be proud of in regards to how we treat our casualties of war.
In his recently published autobiography [12], Former Chief of Defense, General Rick Hillier, outs the current Harper government for its own shameful, unpatriotic handling of Captain Nicola Goddard’s repatriation ceremony. Goddard died from wounds received from a rocket propelled grenade on May 17, 2009 in the dusty Panjwaii district of Afghanistan.
Hillier had intended on a hero’s welcome for Goddard — the first Canadian female combat death since WW2 and the first woman to die in front line combat in Afghanistan. (Lest we forget the Major Michelle Mendes, who committed suicide in April 2009 while stationed in Kandahar; she should also be considered a casualty of war.)
But in his autobiography, Hillier leveled harsh charges against former Defense Minister, Gordon O’Connor (himself a former military commander, thus adding insult to injury) and the Harper government of disgracing Goddard by attempting to hide her repatriation ceremony from the media and public — at which the government had some success. This lead to a very public battle that pitted her grieving father against the governments’ recently enacted policy a month earlier of shielding the flag-draped coffins from public view by keeping journalists outside the fenced airfield at CFB Trenton.
He has gone on record, stating: “Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office ordered the military to hide the return to Canada of the first female soldier killed in combat because they didn’t want her flag-draped coffin seen on the news.”
Shame.
Criminalising Refugees
The arrival in Vancouver by boat two weeks ago of 76 refugees from Sri Lanka has triggered a predictable wave of paranoia and xenophobia, not the least of which has come from our own Ministry of Immigration. Alykhan Velshi, director of communications and parliamentary affairs, felt compelled to reassure the public that:
We won’t allow Canada to become a place of refuge for terrorists, thugs, snakeheads and other violent foreign criminals. Nor will we support those who want to create a two-tier immigration system: one tier for law-abiding immigrants who wait patiently in the queue, and a second, for-profit tier for criminals and terrorists who pay human smugglers to help them jump the queue.
Minister Jason Kenney, somewhat less flamboyantly, has said, “We don’t want to develop a reputation of having a two-tier immigration system – one tier for legal, law-abiding immigrants who patiently wait to come to the country, and a second tier who seek to come through the back door, typically through the asylum system.”
On the face of it, the preemptive criminalisation of the 76 men as terrorists and snakeheads aside, it seems like a fair thing to ask: that whatever system Canada have in place for immigration be respected.
The fact is, however, that Kenney is being willfully misleading. As Shauna Lubman, of UBC Law, notes:
[Kenney’s] statement belies the fact that Canada has a two-pronged system already – the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) that legislates the entrance of both immigrants and refugees. There is no “back door.” There is an immigration door and an asylum door. While there is a clear legal process for entering Canada as an immigrant, it is specifically acknowledged in the 1951 Refugee Convention, whose signatories include Canada, that asylum seekers cannot be penalized for illegal entry. [emphasis mine]
Moreover, she continues,
Minister Kenney’s two-tier concern is misleading and completely misses the point that the Sri Lankan men might be genuine refugees. There are legitimate concerns with the arrival of migrants by boat, be they false or genuine refugee claimants. Human smuggling is a corrupt and exploitative criminal enterprise that should not only be discouraged but prosecuted. However, it is the smugglers who are the criminals, not the vulnerable migrants who in desperation pay their way into the smugglers’ hands.
Unique photos of Omar Khadr may be evidence of his innocence
Omar Khadr Omar Khadr ‘innocent’ in death of U.S. soldier
Michelle Shephard writes for the Toronto Star:
Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr was buried face down under rubble, blinded by shrapnel and crippled, at the time the Pentagon alleges he threw a grenade that fatally wounded a U.S. soldier, according to classified photographs and defence documents obtained by the Star.
Sanctuary for war resister: Rodney Watson takes refuge in Vancouver church
By Krystalline Kraus, reproduced with permission
The battle to keep U.S. Iraq war resisters in Canada has been ongoing since January 2004 when Jeremy Hinzman first arrived in Canada and filed a refugee claim as a conscientious objector.
Hinzman was the first U.S. Iraq resister to seek sanctuary in Canada as he and others face punishment under a charge of being Absent Without Official Leave (“going AWOL”) or for desertion under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for refusing to participate in the Iraq war for moral reasons.
As of July 2009, there are at least 28 public cases of US Iraq War resisters in Canada, some of whom have either brought their families or started new ones in Canada. They live legally as refugee claimants awaiting legal decisions from Immigration Canada from, for example, Humanitarian and Compassionate Grounds (H + C) applications. An unknown number — the War Resister Support Campaign (WRSC) estimate the number to be around 200– have also come to Canada but have remained underground.
They have been embraced kindly by the Canadian public and the current opposition parties in Parliament, who have united twice on motions voting to support resisters, on both June 3, 2008 and March 30, 2009.
These motions were supported by the Canadian public, as proven through an Angus Reid Strategies poll taken on June 6 and 7, 2008 which showed that 64 per cent of Canadians agreed with the premise of the motion, which would allow soldiers of conscience objecting to any non-United Nation sanctioned war to seek refugee status here in Canada and to stop all pending deportation cases. While both motions passed, their recommendations were non-binding and never implemented by the minority Conservative government under the leadership of Stephen Harper.
Commenting on the resister’s immigration situation in Canada, on January 7, 2009, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney, referred to Iraq war resisters as, “bogus refugee claimants” and later commented that “war resistance is futile.”
Opposition to allowing U.S. war resisters to seek sanctuary in Canada has also come from the United States. For example, in 2004, the BBC analysis of the situation reported that U.S. political pundit commentators such as Bill O’Reilly of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News TV network, “… seized on the case [of Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey], even calling for a boycott of Canadian goods if the pair [were] not extradited quickly.”
It also reported on the types of comments resisters were receiving from their fellow Americans. “‘I’m coming for you,’ reads one threatening e-mail, laced with racism and obscenities. ‘Desserters [sic] should get shot in the back especially at war time,’ reads another.”
The case of Rodney Watson
The latest flashpoint in the battle has been the case of Rodney Watson who on Monday October 19, 2009, decided to seek sanctuary in a B.C. church rather than face deportation to the United States to face desertion charges. Watson, who is originally from Kansas City, Kansas, enlisted in the US Army in 2004 for a three-year contract with the intentions of becoming a cook since he wanted to serve the troops in a non-combat capacity.
In 2005, he was deployed to Iraq just north of Mosul, where he was put in charge of searching vehicles and Iraqi civilians for explosives, contraband and weapons before they entered the base. He was also expected to “keep the peace” by monitoring Iraqi civilians who worked on the base and fire his weapon at Iraqi children who approached the perimeter.
After his first tour was over, Watson was informed that he was instead being Stop-Lossed as the Army intended to have his serve beyond the date of his contractual obligation with the military. On two-week leave, he decided not to return to his base at Fort Hood, Texas, and instead fled to Vancouver, B.C. in 2006, where he lives with his Canadian born partner and their infant son.
In a September 2009 press conference, Watson — who is African-American — described his experience in Iraq, “I witnessed racism and the physical abuse from soldiers towards the civilians. On one occasion, a soldier was beating an Iraqi civilian, calling him a sand-nigger and threw his Qur’an on the ground and spit on it. The man was unarmed and he was just looking for work on the base. He posed no type of threat. He was beaten because soldiers brought their personal racist hatred to Iraq.”
It was experiences like these — plus coming to understand that the motivation behind going to war was based on lies — that led to his decision to come to Canada. He has been living in refuge at the First United Church in Vancouver, B.C., since September 18, 2009. He was welcomed with open arms and publicly declared sanctuary on Monday. Sarah Bjorknas from the Vancouver arm of the WRSC notes that Watson was issued his deportation order before his H + C case could be resolved through the courts.
Watson wishes to remain in Canada because of his objection to the Iraq War but his passion for his infant son remains the strongest pull — two heartbeats desperate to remain as one.
At the press conference, Watson’s voice trembled, “I don’t want to be torn away from him. I want to be there for him during his first steps, every waking moment, I want to be there. And I know if I’m deported, it is to prison and I will not be able to see any of those moments for who knows how long, for God knows how long.” If convicted of desertion as a felony charge he will not be able to cross the border to visit his son.
While Watson made the decision to seek sanctuary on his own, he has been receiving support from across the country. Bjorknas defended his choice. “Rodney was Stop-Lossed, he had served his time, he fulfilled his contractual obligation, and the fact that he is being sent back to the United States to stand trial is outrageous.”
‘Stop Loss’
In the U.S. military, the Stop Loss policy allows for the involuntary extension of a service member’s active duty service under their enlistment contract in order to retain them beyond their initial end of term of service date.
The policy remains in effect despite numerous court challenges from military service members challenging their extension and affects 12, 000 personnel, though in March 2009, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates ordered deep reductions in its enactment against service personnel by fifty per cent by June 2010.
In 2005 during the presidential election, Democrat John Kerry accused President Bush of creating a “backdoor draft” through the use of Stop Loss.
Commenting on Watson’s case of seeking sanctuary in Canada to resist a Stop Loss order, Michelle Robidoux from Toronto’s WRSC said, “Rodney’s case is a clear example of how the notion that the U.S. military is an all volunteer army is actually false. Rodney completed his contractual obligations and was facing redeployment to Iraq despite this and his objections to the war.”
Now Watson sits and waits in a B.C. Church, hoping the government will intervene or enact Parliament’s motion to stop him from being deported and separated from his partner and newborn son.
Muslim Group Seeks to Ban Woollen Socks
special contribution by Faraz Siddiqui
Toronto, Oct 28th: In what seems to be a rising fad, a Canadian Muslim organization has asked the federal government to ban woollen socks from public spaces.
According to a statement released yesterday by the Islamic Taskforce Against Oppression (ITAO, also known as the Taskforce Against Islamic Oppression), “mosques are full of the oppressive smell of woollen-clad feet, and the situation is expected to worsen with the arrival of snow.”
The authors of the petition argue that there is no religious basis of wearing wool. Tay Rick of Phaeta, ON who chaired the taskforce said, “The Koran does not say ‘Thou shalt wear wool to prayers.’ In fact, the practice of wearing socks made of wool is rooted in Arab culture.”
Woollen socks first became popular in the deserts of Arabia where there was no rain, snow, or—importantly—cotton. It is no surprise then, that wool is worn mostly by Canadians of Middle Eastern origins.
The cause has found support even outside Canada. This Friday, ITAO is launching an international Save the Sheep campaign, featuring Ban Di Wool, executive director of of Sockless Dojos, a non-profit organization based in Japan.
“Research shows that smelly feet further marginalizes those members of society that are already prejudiced against due to their poor hygiene and ultra-conservative sense of fashion,” Di Wool said. “The discrimination needs to be stopped.”
However, critics argue that foot hygiene and education can prevent pungent mosques, but Mr. Rick doesn’t agree. “Education? Why educate when we can eliminate.” Others believe the petition is just a publicity stunt by ITAO, who have recently had little work to do.
Moreover, a recent human rights group survey shows that 1 in 5 Canadians are allergic to cotton, the natural alternative to wool. Mohamed, a generic respondent for providing such quotes was worried. “I hope they don’t ban woollen underwear. Cotton undies give me rashes on my [buttocks],” he said. “What about my comfort?”
However, Mohamed confessed he will not be wearing wool when crossing a border or getting a passport picture taken. “I always have long delays and am asked to remove my shoes. Come on, my name is Mohamed!” His friend Ahmed agreed. “The foul smell might irritate Customs officers. My right to wear woollen socks end where your nose starts,” he said.
In other news: Terrorist caught trying to steal one sock out of all your laundry baskets
(It’s satire folks, we do that here occasionally, so you can stop freaking out – see the “Humour” tag)
CBC: UBC students tutored on Olympic security rights
I’ve already posted about PIVOT’s and the BC Civil Liberties Association’s mobilisation around Vancouver’s stringent (and possibly unconstitutional) anti-dissent Olympic laws. It now appears that UBC students (undergrads, I think) are now also taking it upon themselves to educate themselves on their rights with respect to the Olympics and how it’ll impact them (given UBC is where some of the games will be conducted, and thus site to both heightened security and protests).
Some University of British Columbia students will be getting extra tutoring to make sure they know their rights when the Integrated Security Unit arrives on campus for the 2010 Winter Olympics in February.
About 330 students are to be trained to staff a legal assistance hotline or act as observers of security operations during the Games. The Student Legal Fund Society has teamed up with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association to host the workshops.
Organizers of the workshops expect that some students will be involved in protests both on and off the campus, where UBC is hosting ice hockey events at the newly expanded Thunderbird Arena.
Emily Griffiths, president of the Student Legal Fund Society, said the group will put up more than $18,000 to train students, stressing that this isn’t about encouraging them to protest but about making sure their rights are protected.
“Because of the nature of the Olympics and the way that it affects students on campus and the ways that students on campus have been treated in the past by law enforcement, we are very nervous,” said Griffiths.
Memories of APEC
Griffiths was referring to the 1997 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation conference at UBC, when students protesting against several unelected national leaders were pepper-sprayed by the RCMP, and signs urging free speech and democracy were destroyed by police.
The police action led to the creation of the Student Legal Fund, to which each UBC student pays an annual fee, and to a public inquiry which found that police actions “did not meet an acceptable and expected standard of competence and professionalism and proficiency.”
B.C. Civil Liberties Association executive director David Eby said his organization also is putting up $18,000 to fund the student training.
“Our proposal is to provide know-your-rights workshops and legal observer training for students to do legal observing on campus during the Olympic period,” said Eby, “so that students are fully prepared during the Olympic period so we avoid another APEC-type situation.”
The Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit is headed by the RCMP and includes members of the Canadian Forces and municipal police departments.
Surviving street racer convicted
‘Brazen’ driver guilty in crash
Bob Mitchell writes for the Toronto Star:
On June 3, 2006, the Radmans were critically injured when their Pontiac Sunfire was hit by a Porsche which had gone out of control while racing a Mercedes. The Porsche’s driver, Peter Kippax, 31, was killed. Alan Kippax, 41, his cousin and driver of the Mercedes, was charged.
On Tuesday, Alan Kippax, the Mercedes driver, was convicted of dangerous driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
My Fourth Year of Law School
From the October 2009 issue of Amicus Curiae
Many law students find law school to be so painful that few can understand or relate when I say I actually enjoy the ordeal. They would probably understand even less if I told them that I enjoy it so much that I actually subjected myself to an extra semester of it voluntarily, and not for an LLM.
This is the story of my 2L summer.
I had the opportunity to work for a local law firm during my first year and through my first summer. I had a pleasant enough experience, but I learned all that I could as a law student in that context. For my next summer I decided to do something different.
Most of my time this summer was dedicated to consulting and writing projects. My work projects took me to several locations, including Calgary and B.C. While on the West Coast, I also managed to catch a federal political convention.
Some of my friends outside of law already joke that I do law school on the side. I figured I could probably pick up some legal experience this summer while I was running around. I checked out some summer law abroad programs, and registered for ABA-approved courses at UofT, Bar Ilan in Israel, and Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara in Mexico.
Before you get any smart ideas, keep in mind that Western doesn’t accept summer transfer credits, even though many other Canadian law schools do. I’m not saying that they should, but if they did I would have graduated before my January term even began. Yes, it was a pretty intense summer.
The trip to Israel had some personal reasons behind it, in addition to my other activities. During my last trip there about 10 years ago I stayed in (primarily Arab) East Jerusalem and the Territories. I enjoyed a rather privileged lifestyle in the primarily Jewish West Jerusalem, staying in Golan resorts overlooking the Galilee, driving through the Negev desert, floating
in the Dead Sea, and swimming on the beaches of Tel Aviv. The tensions within a very complicated country were highlighted with a visit to the assassination site of Yitzak Rabin.
My last summer destination was Mexico. After an unexpected stop in Monterrey when someone decided to have a baby mid-flight, I arrived at my destination in Guadalajara. I soaked up a lot of local culture during my stay including assorted local crafts, Mexican ballet (sans any sign of tutus), Lucha Libra wrestling, and horseback riding along Lake Chapala.
But it seems that politics and law is inescapable no matter where you go. Prime Minister Harper, President Obama, and President Calderon were in town for the North American Leaders’ Summit. Calderon was even staying a few doors down from me at my five-star hotel. One of the major issues on the agenda for them was the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was becoming increasingly contentious to citizens of all countries during the current economic turbulence.
So what exactly did I study while I was running around the world? Most law abroad programs focus on international legal issues, for obvious reasons, so there were courses on the International Criminal Court, environmental law, international economics and NAFTA, cyberspace law and human rights. But I also got some specialized training in Jewish law, holocaust law, and national security issues that I probably would not get anywhere else.
Some of the faculty I studied with included world-renowned rabbis, someone who worked on the Rome Statute through an NGO, and even the infamous Kenneth Starr from the Clinton-Lewinsky case. Starr held a special session to discuss his role in Proposition 8, the same-sex bill that was shot down in California last year.
There is one key lesson unrelated to my summer courses that I would like to impart and share with others. In the summer of your second year you will typically be applying for your articling position. I was extremely fortunate that it worked out for me, but I would not recommend taking your interview call on a Tel Aviv beach, actually doing the interview on a Mexican cell phone, and skipping the law firm reception entirely to tour a Spanish cathedral.
You’ll have a hard time making an impression and competing with candidates who actually bothered to be in the country to interview in person.
And no matter how many excuses you make, or how many times you show them this article, they’re just not going to buy that someone voluntarily subjected themselves to additional law school that they won’t get credit for.
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