William Berardino, or how biased and corrupt can a British Columbia Special Prosecutor be?

Anyone else outraged about the Basi & Virk BC Rail corruption scandal?

In the latest twist Bill Berardino, the Special Prosecutor of the case (who is in many ways `special`), brokered a deal that would have the accused Dave Basi and Bob Virk plead guilty to charges of corruption, and then foot the bill ($18 million and counting) to us, the taxpayer.

Does that pass the smell test to you?

Not to Getting It Right!

This Bill whose idea it was to send us the $18 million dollar bill, Mr. William Berardino, why doesn't he have these two criminals pay for it, or at least a big part of it?

Perhaps there's a better explanation of why Bill's ruling has sent Basi and Virk home smiling:

Rumour has it (it`s actually all over the internet) that Mr William Berardino isn't exactly that "free from any political interference whatsoever," as some would have us believe. William Berardino is exceptionally well connected with the BC Liberals government, especially for someone who is supposed to be impartial:

• For many years Mr. Berardino was buddy-buddy with Geoff Plant, yes, indeed, the Attorney General and BC Liberal Geoff Plant.
• Allan Seckel was buddy-buddy with Geoff Plant too (working at the same law firm Fasken Martineau), before he was hired by Gordon Campbell (no further details available on Mr. Campbell at this point) to become head of BC Public Service.
• Mr. Berardino was appointed by the Ministry of the Attorney General, of which Geoff Plant was the  Attorney General (in 2005, bc rail corruption case dates back to 2004), and Allan Seckel, Deputy Attorney General (since 2003).

Weird, eh? Sorry for repeating myself here, but the main reason for hiring an independent Special Prosecutor is his independence. Now this guy is clearly not independent, far from it. Mr. William Berardino has been buddies with the BC Liberals political elite for years. And those BC Liberals are exactly the same club of people that Basi and Virk were working for!

You would think that a not-so-independent Special Prosecutor would at least try to act as carefully as possible to not (cough) appear biased, right?

Not this joker.

In May 2005, about 1.5 years after being asked for the case, William Berardino's own firm Berardino's & Harris donated $500 to BC Liberal candidate and future Attorney General Wally Opal.

Berardino [said] he was asked to attend a fundraising breakfast for [Oppal]. He said the donation has no impact on his handling of the case.

That might well be true, but spending meals with and giving donations to a BC Liberal and future Attorney General while being a prosecutor on such a massive corruption scandal involving BC Liberal aids, let's just say such blatant mingling with BC Liberals doesn't look good for any prosecutor, and definitely not for a Special Prosecutor.

An investigation by the BC Law Society (not particularly independent themselves, and known for whitewashing the misconduct of their own members) concluded (surprise, surprise) no (legal) misconduct had taken place. But on the real issue here, conflict of interest, the BC Law Society was silent and never commented.

Let me repeat it again: obviously, donating moneys to one of the parties (yes, the BC Liberal Party had hired Basi and Virk) under investigation is a serious conflict of interest (apparent or otherwise).

Wait, there's more:

The latest blunder happened only days ago. William Berardino was caught informing the BC Liberal government about a possible plea deal:

Read the Times Colonist (before they covered up this detail):

"But when special prosecutor Bill Berardino made the B.C. government aware on Oct. 5 that he had proposed to let the two men plead guilty, it fell to the deputy minister of finance, Graham Whitmarsh, and Loukidelis to figure out whether they would actually have to come up with the money, Loukidelis's statement read."

Paul Willcocks has excellent comment on the above (emphases mine):

Why would the special prosecutor "make the government aware" of his plea offer?

[If] the special prosecutor is briefing the government of his plans, he is no longer independent. 

Telling the government of plans to seek a plea bargain, for example, invites interference. Either by proposing a different strategy or, as in this case, offering financial inducements to encourage a guilty plea.

Well said, Paul.

So how biased and corrupt is William Berardino, this Special Prosecutor of the BC Rail corruption case? Hard to say, but let's just say William Berardino did very little to avoid the (cough) appearance of bias, which is supposed to be the main reason for hiring a Special Prosecutor.

No doubt in my mind that some other, more sinister reasons have played its part in hiring William Berardino as a Special Prosecutor.

What idiot did make the decision to hire Berardino, someone that is so well connected to the BC Liberals? What? Geoff Plant, the former Attorney General and BC Liberal? Oh, now I see why this is called the BC Rail corruption trial.

I rest my case.

Recall in the fall? You bet ya!

Read more:

• The ever-ethical William Berardino does all kind of lovely jobs; defending Big Tabacco was one of them. At least we know what side Berardino is on; on the other side of the interests of healthy British Columbians. 
• How Gary Collins (BC Liberal, minister of finance) and Judith Reid (BC Liberal, minister of transportation) got out of their irky situation;
• Even the (BC Liberal supporter first, journalist second) Les Leyne wants answers...quite amazing, isn't it?
• Lots more here to: BC Rail Corruption case. 
• Fight HST and give yourself a break from Liberals lies.

Doug Lacombe is Getting it Right's very first Demagogue of the Week!

We love Doug Lacombe!

What two little words can do. Could be is what's at issue here. It's exactly those two words (and their variations, such as may be) that have been fundamental when deciding upon GIR's first "Demagogue! of the Week".

We have a nominee: it is Doug Lacombe for his article "Wikileaks lacks checks and balances"

About the nomination
Doug Lacombe uses a copy and paste trick (wonderful, no pain) for his amazing deed:

" . . . those who are tempted to publish classified information in the name of press freedoms should be aware that their naivete and their blind devotion to 'the public's right to know' could be rightly termed aiding and abetting the enemy by endangering the safety of Canadian soldiers abroad. A little forethought and a large dose of loyalty to our side of the war can literally mean the difference between life and death for our soldiers, and also Afghan civilians."

You see? Could be. Totally and absolutely useful. Suddenly Wikileaks is not only exposing war abuses, oh no, THEY ARE KILLING CANADIANS! Well, could be, anyways. No explanation of course HOW this information would "endanger the safety" of Canadian troops (that's too much detail to ask, I suppose), no, a simple "could kill Canadian troops" is all that is needed.

Congratulations!
Doug Lacombe, you've done a great job! It's perfect. With a simple sentence (that you didn't have to even write yourself) you have been nominated for demagogue of the week: you've effectively turned Wikileaks from a idealistic whistleblower organization into an Canadian troops killing war propaganda machine, and therefore you have been nominated "Demagogue! of the Week".

Well done!

Footnotes:
1) Some more craftsmanship from his article below:
- "Sadly Assange, a convicted Australian computer hacker according to the Los Angeles Times
                 (not bad, Doug, and again no pain to produce it, or was there?)
- The self-righteous "we know what's best" attitude that seems to characterize Assange's various public responses concerns me. Isn't that the very definition of a despot?
                (could well be the very definition, touche!)
2) Great title too! Of course Wikileaks has checks and balances, but there's no harm in adding a little lie here and there if you want to be nominated!

Related Article:
- Doug Lacombe: "Wikileaks lacks checks and balances"

Why Doug Lacombe may be a demagogue

In response to Doug Laccombe:
"Wikileaks lacks checks and balances"

http://communicatto.com/2010/07/31/wikileaks-lacks-checks-and-balances/

Original post below this response

Did you know that Wikileaks HAS a proper process in place to vet the incoming materials and an error free trackrecord of vetting out bogus submissions?

Just because you're not aware of the checks and balances Wikileaks uses to vet their sources doesn't mean they don't have policies to deal with vetting.

But whistleblowers need to be protected, and wikileaks does so in two ways:
1) By not revealing their sources (secretive by nature)
2) By assisting with legal funds to those that are accused of being the source

What's troublesome in your post is that you accuse Wikileaks of being too secretive about their own sources, a moral judgement, while not making the same kind of judgement about the use of informants (talk about secretive, and possible abuse) by the coalition forces.

Your hypocritic stand is further amplified by:
1) Calling Assange a despot; to what purpose may I ask?
2) The amount of articles you've written on the secretive nature of coalition forces warfare intelligence vetting as presented by the media, in particular now abuses have become apparent after the wikileaks;

In short, your article is nothing short of a "shoot the messenger" bias, and why, just because the vetting process isn't public?

Lest we forget, we all know who is responsible for the killings of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Afghanistan, and it wasn't wikileaks.

Wikileaks' record on harm done to innocent people is zero. If the US Army acts responsibly with their own sources (just like wikileaks does with theirs) then they would now do everything possible to protect their informants. But if we can learn anything from the Afghan War Leaks, then it is that US forces have no trouble killing innocent Afghans and then cover up the evidence.

But you knew all that right? That's why your post is so repulsive. Isn't such writing the work of a demagogue?


-------------------------------

Social media is increasingly becoming implicated in moments of crisis and significant world events. The 2009 Iranian election is a great example.


Thanks to a variety of technical manoeuvres, the Iranian government could not throttle the protesters' use of Twitter to report on those events. Where traditional media could not tread, the citizenry and Twitter stepped in.


This year's catastrophic earthquake in Haiti was another example where Twitter reporting reigned supreme.


Depth of reporting was improved at this year's G20 protests in Toronto by tweets from many, including TV Ontario's Steve Paikin (@spaikin on Twitter).


The common thread is people voluntarily reporting what they see. In other words, they choose to share the information or events unfolding in front of them, even as others attempt to deny them a voice. This is good.


A whole new genre of social reporting, if it can be called that, came to the fore this week. Website WikiLeaks.org dumped classified documents about the war in Afghanistan onto the web and into the hands of three newspapers.


From Wikipedia: "WikiLeaks released to The Guardian, The New York Times, and Der Spiegel over 92,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009. The logs detail individual incidents including friendly fire and civilian casualties. The scale of leak was described by (WikiLeaks spokesperson) Julian Assange as comparable to that of the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s. On July 25, 2010, the logs were released to the public."


The Pentagon Papers, you may recall, were brought to the attention of the American public in 1971 via the New York Times, essentially demonstrating that the Johnson administration had lied to the public about Vietnam.


Trained, professional journalists and their editors reviewed the leaked materials and, with utmost care and due diligence, weighed issues of national security and the public's right to know.


WikiLeaks has no such filter, no checks and balances, or none we can see. It's just a raw data dump with spotty redaction for everyone to pore over and draw our own conclusions. Oh yes, and for the Taliban/al-Qaida gang to pore over and target informants for retribution. This is not good.


Roy Greenslade, professor of journalism at City University in London, writes on CNN.com "The posting of 92,000 documents on WikiLeaks about the war in Afghanistan represents a triumph for what I like to call 'data journalism.' . . . However, the posting of the material on the Internet is not in itself an act of journalism. It is merely the beginning of a journalistic process, requiring analysis, context and, in this particular instance, a form of necessary censorship in order to protect individuals identified in the documents."


Necessary censorship. WikiLeaks didn't quite get the hang of redacting names or identifying circumstances in their haste to let the public know.


A recent editorial in the Calgary Herald put it succinctly: " . . . those who are tempted to publish classified information in the name of press freedoms should be aware that their naivete and their blind devotion to 'the public's right to know' could be rightly termed aiding and abetting the enemy by endangering the safety of Canadian soldiers abroad. A little forethought and a large dose of loyalty to our side of the war can literally mean the difference between life and death for our soldiers, and also Afghan civilians."


If WikiLeaks truly believed in the public's right to know, they would become transparent themselves. Doing so earns our trust in their intentions. Sadly Assange, a convicted Australian computer hacker according to the Los Angeles Times, and his horde of info-dumpers seem to feel they are exempt from such inconveniences.


The self-righteous "we know what's best" attitude that seems to characterize Assange's various public responses concerns me. Isn't that the very definition of a despot?


As usual, send me your feedback on Twitter at:


@dblacombe or via e-mail doug@communicatto.com.


Doug Lacombe is president of Calgary


social media agency communicatto.
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