Canada Taser Update: An interview with the videographer who's sueing the RCMP (rush transcript; includes audio)

From CBC's "As it happens" (audio from this interview can be found here)

For the Mounties, there is mounting pressure -- over a few minutes of videotape. The RCMP now faces a lawsuit over video that was shot at the Vancouver International Airport about two weeks ago -- when police tasered Robert Dziekanski, who was visiting Canada from Poland. He later died. The RCMP convinced the owner of the tape to hand it over, and they promised to give it right back. They have not.

Paul Pritchard is the man who shot the tape and launched the lawsuit [against the RCMP], and we reached him in Victoria.

(rush transcript follows)

- Mr Pritchard, can you tell us what you actually captured on film at the [Vancouver] airport when mister Dziekanski died.

I was filming, I was sleeping at the airport actually, I had missed a connecting flight so I was right in the international arrival lobby there. I woke up to the sound of banging on glass, that's what kind of startled me and I woke up.

There was a man there obviously kind of confused trying to get back into the international airport [section], yet he had all his suitcases with him which was kind of strange to see.

We stood up and watched this happen for twenty-five minutes and called security a couple of times. Nobody came.

People kept trying to talk to him, trying to get him out of there, trying to calm him down, and that's what brought the agitation-level so high.

Two security guys showed up, I thought it was the police, I have them.. the camera is rolling at this point.

- Why did you take out your camera at this point?

That's funny, I had totally forgotten that I had the camera with me, I had all my bags with me. Once [Robert Dziekanski] got into the isolated area, he just stood at the doors and barricaded all the suitcases at the doors [..]. He would open the glass door and yell something out [..] one word in Polish and kept saying this one word and sticking out his arm. [...]

I said to the guy next to me, "why am I not filming this?" He said "you got a camera" and I said "yes" and I grabbed my bag and started taping everything.

- At what point did the RCMP arrive?

Right after security, within a minute after security [had arrived].

- And what happened?

Security ran up to the door and stopped when they saw [Robert Dziekanski]. He had a chair in his hand and put it down, he had a keyboard in his hand and he put it down, and security didn't know what to do.

Police right away ran in, three big cops ran in right after.

I heard one of the policeman say "Can I Taser him?" or "Should I Taser him?" .
The reply was "yes"

He hopped over the gates into the passage way, through the doors, the three of them, kind of made a triangle toward him. There was a desk behind the door. [Robert Dziekanski] tried to move behind it. He made no threat that I saw, toward [the police]. One [RCMP officer] followed [Robert Dziekanski] behind the desk; the other two [RCMP officers] followed the other way and then they just tasered him.

-How long after the RCMP arrived did they taser Mr. Dziekanski?

Right away, within ten seconds of entering the same room as him. Right away.

- And all of this you've got on tape?

All of this is on tape, yes.

- When did the RCMP approach you to get your tape?

Quite a while afterwards. A security [guard] saw me filming, told me to stop, tried to get me to stop. I refused of course.

- Why did he tell you to stop?

I don't know, he just [wanted me to] stop taping, he made these gestures for me to quit. Obviously I know my right and I kept the camera going. After the police tasered him there was a struggle on the floor and they handcuffed him and then he was laying there, what we thought unconscious for quite a while. This is when I stopped filming him. Nothing was happening, they were just laying beside him. He was just kind of laying there, with no movement coming from him. [...]

At this point one of the RCMP officers jumped up and ran out of the room and I heard "code red" being jelled. The officer left the airport, and it was a good 8 minutes, 5 to 10 minutes anyway, before medical help arrived. As soon as they came in they started to give him CPR right away. This made me wonder why CPR wasn't administered earlier.

-You had stopped filming earlier then this...

I had stopped filming a few minuted after he had stopped moving. I didn't resume filming when CPR was administered, for respect.

- When did the RCMP ask for the tape?

I was dealing with a couple of different detectives. They told we are going to need a copy, and this was no problem [for me]; I was fully cooperating with them. At first they told us that we were going down to the station to get a copy made. I was going to go with them, and I would get my footage back [right after]. That was the plan. Then he comes back saying, "what if we just take it - we don't have the computers necessary to [make the copy], it's going to take us a day or two to do it - what if we just take it from you and we will get it back from you within 48 hours?" [..]

I said "Yes, if I'm getting it back, that's no problem. I'm here to help, I'm on the good side here." So [I] had a verbal agreement [with Constable Mulhall] that within 48 hours [the video] was going to be returned to me. It was until the next day that I got the phone call [from Constable Mulhall] saying "Sorry, we're going to return your camera but were going to [withhold your] footage: You're are not getting [the footage] back for 1.5 to 2.5 years. "

- Did they tell you why they wouldn't be giving [your footage] back?

They just said that it would interfere with the investigation. It didn't really made any sense to me.

- Were you compelled to give the tape over to [the RCMP]?

No. I knew I didn't have to, I know my right[s]. I knew it was my camera and that I didn't have to. As I said, I was trying to help out the situation. I wasn't against [the RCMP] in this; we're all trying to do the right thing. With the promise that I would get the video back I had no problem helping him out. If I had know that I would not be getting the tape back, I wouldn't have given it to them, and that's the bottom line.

- So you regret doing it now?

Of course I regret doing it, yes.

- Do you think the police want to prevent the public from seeing the incident on tape?

At first the RCMP called back and I sought legal advice as my right as a Canadian citizen. They've got my possession, and what can I do? I talked to Paul Pierson, my lawyer, about it. He said "they can't do that".

We wrote a formal letter saying that we want [the footage] back. The RCMP said "OK, no problem, we're going to give it back". So [my lawyer and I] thought this was all done. Then we received a call saying "Sorry, we're retracting our statements. We are going back on what we said (again), and we can't just give it back to you".

- So what do you make of the RCMP's concerns that you might compromise their investigation if witnesses saw this tape.

This is what I don't understand. They're saying they don't want to taint witness's stories and they don't want to taint other people's opinion on what happened, but, what is on tape IS what happened. Maybe [this tape] will change witness's [opinion] who got it wrong, but it's all on tape, it's all there, crystal clear zoom in zoom out footage, it is what happened. [..] The speculation and guesswork will all be over as soon as everybody sees it.

- And because it is not edited but all in real time, you can actually see how long after the police arrived that he was actually tasered. [This] is the issue at question right now, how long [the RCMP] actually tried to help things before they actually used there tasers.

That part is crystal clear, yes.

- Would you consider to make the commitment to not make the tape public until the investigation is over?

I don't know. Once it comes back, I want to give it to Mr. Dziekanski mother and his lawyer. Obviously they want a copy. My first thing is to get it out to the media, but if it is comprimising other situation then...

- Have you met Mr. Dziekanski mother?

I haven't met her, I've only seen her on television and my lawyer and her lawyer have been in contact.

- How distressed was it when you saw her statement that she was trying for 18 hours to get to see her son and then....

That's kind of what made me feel compelled to do this as my duty [..]

- Listen to the whole conversation at the CBC website: As it happens
- More at G&M: Taser Photographer sues RCMP

Canada Taser Update: Taser photographer sues RCMP to get his video of Vancouver's Taser killing back

Yes, I know, the police is our friend and wants the best for all of us. But how do you explain the following?

Paul Pritchard says he took high-quality video of the Oct. 14 "incident" (emphasis mine) where police confronted 40-year-old Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport and just minutes later was dead.

The Victoria lawyer [Paul Pearson], acting for Mr. Pritchard, says the video is an excellent version of events, clearly indicating what happened in the minutes before police arrived, the use of the taser [...].

[The Victoria lawyer] says his client willingly surrendered the video to RCMP and was assured it would be returned, but was contacted the next day and told investigators would not hand it back.

I'm sure we can trust the RCMP when they'll say it's in the best public interest to withhold the video (wink wink), but what about the photographer, doesn't he have any "rights"?

“Mr. Pritchard has no difficulty whatsoever with the police having a copy of the footage that he took,” Mr. Pearson said. “The difference here is police have taken the original and aren't giving it back.”

(from CBC)Pritchard's lawyer, Paul Pearson, has filed documents in B.C. Supreme Court demanding that at least a copy of the video be given to his client.

"It's not the subject, as I understand it, currently of a criminal investigation. It's not a court exhibit. There is in fact very old law that says if you have somebody else's property in your possession and they ask for it back, you have to give it back to them."

The guy shot the video, handed it over to the police (indeed, in the best public interest), and now he wants back what is rightfully his, his own copy of the tape. RCMP, it's time to give it back before becoming suspect of next cover up.

- Globe and Mail: Taser Photographer Sues RCMP
- CBC: Police say they won't return witness's video of airport taser incident

Naomi Wolf - The End of America (video)

Interesting video from an interesting lady. Watch the talk she gave on October 11, 2007 at the University of Washington, Seattle:

Pigs of War: Donald Rumsfeld - Human Rights Groups File Torture Suit against Rumsfeld

It certainly looks like Rumsfeld will have a hard time traveling to Europe in the years to come. There have already been war-crimes cases filed against Rumsfeld in Germany (one was dismissed, one is being appealed), in Argentina, Spain and Sweden. Today France and the US have been added to the list:

French, German and US human rights groups have filed a lawsuit in France accusing former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld of torture during the "war on terror."

The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), the French League for Human Rights (LDH), the US Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Germany's European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) filed the joint suit before a Paris prosecutor on Thursday.

With the increasing amount of evidence on Rumsfeld's torture practices, these human rights groups actually have a strong case:

In a statement posted on the FIDH website, the groups say that during his time as defense secretary, Rumsfeld authorized interrogation techniques that led to rights abuses in US-run detention centers at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, as well as elsewhere.

The rights groups notably cite three memorandums signed by Rumsfeld between October 2002 and April 2003 "legitimizing the use of torture" including the "hooding" of detainees, sleep deprivation and the use of dogs.The group also has testimony from Janis Karpinski -- the one-time commander of US military prisons in Iraq -- to bolster its claims. more

- Deutsche Welle: Human Rights Groups File Torture Suit against Rumsfeld
- Democracy Now!: On Visit to France, Donald Rumsfeld Hit with Lawsuit for Ordering, Authorizing Torture
- New York Times: Torture Complaint Filed against Rumsfeld
- Wikipedia: Donald Rumsfeld

Canada Taser Update: Mounties shouldn't handle investigation - Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun

The Vancouver Sun has a good opinion piece by Ian Mulgrew today:

RICHMOND - The RCMP's handling of the Taser-related death of a Polish immigrant Sunday seems as mindless as the offensive attempts to whitewash the shooting of Houston mill worker Ian Bush.

Mountie spokesman Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre and the rest of the force just don't get it -- they are not a law unto themselves.

That the Horsemen are investigating themselves in this situation raises the same concerns that turned the October 2005 death of Bush into a scandal.

From the moment Robert Dziekanski of Pieszyce, Poland, died in the customs area of Vancouver International Airport, Sgt. Lemaitre has been running damage control.

Just as he did in the Bush case.

Bush died inside the Houston RCMP detachment after he was shot in the head during a scuffle with a Mountie who had arrested him for having an open bottle of beer outside a hockey game.

Lemaitre would have us believe that Tasering the distraught Dziekanski was the only way of dealing with the situation.

That's disingenuous.

What's worse is that while quickly jumping to the defence of their members, the Mounties treated the Dziekanski family like dirt.

How would you like to be told police had found your missing son, but when you arrived to see him, they told you he was dead?

That's what the RCMP did to Dziekanski's mother. They were just as insensitive with Bush's mom. Can these guys even spell c-o-m-p-a-s-s-i-o-n?

Meanwhile, the force rushes therapists and lawyers to officers caught up in such incidents because of the trauma.

According to Lemaitre, Dziekanski came to the attention of airport security because he was agitated, pounding on windows and throwing around furniture.

The three officers Lemaitre said responded couldn't use pepper spray or their batons because there were too many people around.

Sima Ashrafina, a medical lab assistant from North Vancouver, saw it go down differently.

First of all, she says there were few people around -- it was 1:30 in the morning.

Secondly, she says five officers were present, two of whom Tasered the unarmed man. In her view the response by the RCMP was "too harsh."

While Lemaitre says the officers only fired two bursts of the Taser, she says she heard four blasts.

Since she's not facing lawsuits or potential charges for causing a death, I can't imagine why she would lie.

She was there -- I believe her, a disinterested observer.

The force's need to stand behind its officers appears clearly at odds with its duty to the public in these incidents and breeds suspicion.

I think it's obvious independent investigations of deaths involving police would dispel such concerns and prevent clouds of distrust gathering over the RCMP.

Regardless, we need to have an inquiry into the use of Tasers.

Dziekanski was the sixth person in B.C. to die in the past five years after being zapped by the Taser's 50,000 volts -- one of 16 people across the country who have died after such a shock.

Amnesty International says there have been nearly 200 deaths across the continent during the same period following Taser use.

Of course, the company that makes Tasers claims the deaths were caused not by its device but by drugs, a pre-existing medical condition or "excited delirium."

I love that term -- which is not a recognized medical or psychiatric condition. It has been used over the last decade to explain deaths in police custody, but is so vague it appears to mean little more than your heart is racing.

It's a bogus label that indicates little more than the person was distressed and ramped up -- could be from fear, a physical or mental health problem, intoxicants or, God forbid, an attack of acute claustrophobia from being stuck for hours in customs.

That's why there are urgent calls for higher standards to be imposed on the use of the Taser and demands for more training for those who use the controversial weapon.

The bottom line is at the moment police don't know what the outcome will be when they fire a Taser. What we do know is they are taking a chance with the target's life.

Consider the Taser's history.

The Taser was invented in 1974 by NASA scientist Jack Cover who named it after Tom Swift, a fictional inventor in a series of sci-fi adventure novels. Taser is an acronym for the "Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle."

Cute, huh?

Originally it was considered a firearm because it relied on gunpowder to fire the electric prods.

In the early 1990s, that changed.

The Taser was redesigned to use a nitrogen propellant so it would no longer be classified as a firearm.

Since then, the company has built a lucrative monopoly through the use of former cops and army officers to tout the weapons.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department was among the first to sign up for the new product and thousands of police and corrections departments have followed suit.

Taser International's success story unfortunately overlooks the mounting body count.

The company says its product had nothing to do with those fatalities -- the deaths can not be attributed to the Taser.

But I don't think that's the issue: People are dying after Taser use and we need to recognize and respond to that.

Whether it is from being zapped or a combination of factors doesn't matter in my opinion -- too many people have died.

If Tasers are going to be used by police, they need to be placed high up on what the cops call the "continuum of force" model. They should not be a first response.

For Lemaitre to insist responding RCMP in this instance could not use pepper spray, their batons or hand-to-hand combat training is ridiculous.

Any bouncer in a downtown nightclub deals with similarly unarmed unruly patrons on a weekly basis.

Why could a handful of police officers not take down one unarmed man without resorting to this weapon? This is responsible policing?

Before they drew their Tasers, the Mounties should have tried other options. We deserve to know why they didn't.

- Vancouver Sun: Mounties shouldn't handle investigation

Canada Taser update: 16 people died in last 5 years after being tasered by Canadian Police

If there are still people out there that think the Taser gun is harmless, then think again. According to Mr. Ward, sixteen people have died in Canada (6 in BC, that's 36% in one province!) after being shot with a Taser gun:

April 19, 2003: Terrance Hanna, 51, Burnaby, B.C.

July 22, 2003: Clay Willey, 33, Prince George, B.C.

Sept. 28, 2003: Clark Whitehouse, 34, Whitehorse, Yukon

March 23, 2004: Perry Ronald, 28, Edmonton

May 1, 2004: Roman Andreichikov, 25, Vancouver

May 13, 2004: Peter Lamonday, 38, London, Ont.

June 23, 2004: Robert Bagnell, 44, Vancouver

July 17, 2004: Jerry Knight, 29, Mississauga

Aug. 8, 2004: Samuel Truscott, 43, Kingston, Ont.

May 5, 2005: Kevin Geldart, 34, Moncton, N.B.

June 30, 2005: Gurmeet Sandhu, 41, Surrey, B.C.

July 1, 2005: James Foldi, 39, Beamsville, Ont.

July 15, 2005: Paul Sheldon Saulnier, 42, Digby, N.S.

Dec. 24, 2005: Alesandro Fiacco, 33, Edmonton

Aug. 30, 2006: Jason Doan, 28, Red Deer, Alta.

Oct. 14, 2007: Unidentified male, Vancouver airport

When will this stop?

Vancouver RCMP uses Taser and kills man at Vancouver Airport

A taser gun has been used today at the Vancouver International Airport and resulted in the death of a man who, according to the police, was out-of-control:

RCMP have confirmed they used a Taser on an out-of-control man who died at the Vancouver International Airport early Sunday morning.

Police were called to the international arrival area of the airport at about 1:28 a.m. on Sunday after airport security officers were unable to calm the man down and his level of violence was escalating.

The man, a Caucasian in his late 30s to early 40s, was yelling in an eastern European accent, sweating profusely, throwing chairs and pounding on windows, according to police. [...]

When the man picked up an object from a counter, a trained officer pulled a conducted energy weapon -- commonly known as a Taser -- from his holster and deployed it.

This is not the first time someone dies after being tortured with a Taser. Amnesty International has confirmed 245 Taser-related deaths since they began research in 2001.

- more information on why taser-torture should be outlawed.

Dion 's 'deep' corporate tax cuts build the road the fascism

Who thought that Dion would be so openly, what's the word here, neoliberal?

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion pledged to reduce the federal corporate tax rate on Friday to further bolster economic growth and fuel competition with foreign markets.During a speech at the Economic Club of Toronto, Dion said the previous Liberal government lowered the rate from 28 per cent to 19 per cent. [...]

"What I have said for our economic prosperity, what will be especially important is to have a competitive tax system and to have a way to decrease our corporate tax, deeper than what was planned," Dion said after his speech at a downtown hotel.

Right-wing corporatism would be another way to describe the direction, I suppose. And we all know how that story finished.

Scott Tribe, Jason Cherniak, and the ProgBlog Code of Conduct

I consider most verbal displeasures expressed at ProgBlog symptoms of mainly three “problems”:

- perceived authoritarian behaviour by the ProgBlog moderators
- conservativeness at ProgBlog
- petty partisanship by some of the members

Sure a code of conduct can stifle some of the frustrations by force, but is there really no other way to deal with these problems?

Here are some simple solutions that I came up with:

a. make progblog ultra transparent, as progressives would envision the ultimate transparent and responsible government

b. oust those blogs/bloggers/moderators who continue to adhere to a right of centre political agenda (most obvious by promoting anti-social policies). This could possibly be done through use of a popular vote among the PB members, or some other transparent and democratic form. Perhaps give ousted bloggers the ability to reapply if they still feel they deserve to be part of PB*.

c. exclude members who predominantly post to promote their party (there are other blogrolls for that type of propaganda, not at PB please) and make it mandatory for future moderators be non-partisan (use grandfather clause).

That's about as far as I would go.

The above would make ProgBlog more transparent and accountable (suggested by many), and probably far less combative resulting in a more coherent community of bloggers.

I realize fully well that my suggestions will never be picked up by the moderators. Not that I think that Scott and some of his tribe is not “lefty” enough (Scott considers himself to be on the left side of the Liberal spectrum) but because the chief in question is a partisan Liberal, and partisans by definition are biased and loyal to their party and party members; that's what partisanship is all about.

My proposed code would give ProgBlog members the power to scrutinize and oust blogs (up until now the exclusive right for moderators), likely resulting in the removal of several Libloggers, especially those that daily spout their partisan, right of centre propaganda into the PB blogosphere (no names needed, we all know who you are).

This will prove to be inconceivable to a partisan Liberal moderator. Furthermore, chief Scott owns ProgBlog...

My two cents, for what it's worth.

*I realize that b. Could turn into a cycle of dumping and adding to ProgBlog, but who said that any democratic model would be easy?

My post "ProgBlog's CoC, Tutu and the Right the Offend" also deals with the issue in another light.

- Wiktionary: partisanship
- ProgBlog Proposed Code of Conduct

ProgBlog's CoC, Tutu and the Right the Offend

I apologize to all ProgBlog members for not posting earlier on the Code of Conduct (CoC) but the latest developments in my own personal life have kept me fairly busy (insiders know what I'm talking about).

First of all I want to praise the PB moderators for giving members the ability to contribute to a code of conduct. I do have the following criticism and they deal with the phrase about religion. The following suggestion was made:

A member of the Progressive Bloggers shall be determined to be conducting themselves in an unacceptable manner when they submit material to the Progressive Bloggers, automatically or otherwise, which: [...]
(b) contains [..] religiously offensive language.

Doesn't freedom of speech include the right to offend? Who doesn't remember Salman Rushdie's

"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist"

Personally I have no problem with the fact that many religious people conspire regularly (Christians, Muslims, Jews etc.), express their superiority (by those same people or their leaders) over other believe systems, simply because they're the followers of the “right” religion.

I have no problem with religion BECAUSE I'm allowed and able to differ with those particular religious believes.

And the ability to differ HAS to include the right to offend, because “offensiveness” is subjective; it completely depends on the party who receives the comment, in how it will perceive it.

The recent dealings of the St. Thomas University and Desmond Tutu comes to mind. Tutu wasn't allowed to speak, because of a speech he had given several years ago, in which he had compared the powerful Jewish lobby to other major powers that people had to overcome: "Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin". Although Tutu's statement is clearly not anti-semitic, the remarks were still perceived as offensive by some Jews (especially the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas) and therefore enough reason for the University of St. Thomas to cancel a planned speech. From a progressive point of view, where the free flow of information is paramount, University of St. Thomas' behaviour is unacceptable.

In a free and progressive society, people have the right to their own believes, including their own religion. But since religion itself can be perceived as offensive (for example: I do find most religions' take on so-called pagans quite offensive), there has to be the right to offend by those of different believes or believe systems. Only then are we, all believers and non-believers, on an equal footing.

- ProgBlog proposed CoC
- Wikipedia: Desmond Tutu
- St. Thomas won't host Tutu
- BBC: The right to be downright offensive

Taser = Torture : Florida Student gets tasered (video)

Yep, some US police is at it again. This time it's the Police in Florida, tasering a student at the University of Florida:

The tactics of police in Florida who tasered a cheeky student as he tried to question former presidential candidate Senator John Kerry have been called into question after a video of the incident was posted on the internet. [..]

Event organisers were unhappy with his line of questioning and switched off the microphone as police officers moved in to escort him out of the hall.

Is this how it works at the University of Florida, "unhappy" questioning is responded to by taser?

Mr Meyer refused to leave quietly, and as police officers grabbed him, he repeatedly tried to wriggle free while shouting: “What did I do?”

So the student needs to be tasered?

After a scuffle, the police fired several thousand volts into Mr Meyer [..]

Did Kerry think taser-torture was the appropriate response for a student's "unhappy [..] line of questioning"?

Mr Kerry has criticised the arrest of Mr Meyer, suggesting that he could have dealt with the heckler himself.

"In 37 years of public appearances, through wars, protests and highly emotional events, I have never had a dialogue end this way. I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption,” he said.

What's even worse is that it appears that the student was taser-tortured after he was hand-cuffed:

Mr Meyer’s lawyer, Robert Griscti, said it appeared his client had been shocked after handcuffs had been put on him.

Tasering students, even resisting ones, is unacceptable. The University of Florida should be ashamed of how it treats their students, many paying tens of thousands of dollars to attend, not to be tasered!

Students at the university organised a protest yesterday and marched on the police station shouting “Don’t Tase me, bro” and demanding that stun guns were banned from campus.

Indeed, taser-torture should never be allowed to be used on students. Never.

Benjamin Dictor, an arts student, called for the officers to be disciplined and the charges against Mr Meyer to be dropped.

“For a question to be met with arrest, not to mention physical violence, is completely unacceptable in the United States, especially in the halls of education,” Mr Dictor said.

I'm afraid the reality is quite different. See for yourself:

-Times Online: full article
-Wikipedia: taser
-University of Florida
- Erik's articles on: Taser

Blackwater explained (videos)

Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army", explains (video) the rise of this company:



Here he talks about the latest developments with CNN:

click picture (.mov file)

Private US mercenary army Blackwater banned from Iraq

From Al Jazeera
September 17, 2008

The Iraqi interior ministry has cancelled the operating license of a US security firm [Blackwater USA] after it was involved in a shootout that killed eight people, a senior official said.

Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a ministry spokesman, said 13 people were wounded when Blackwater USA staff opened fire in a Baghdad incident involving an attack on a US motorcade.

"The interior minister has issued an order to cancel Blackwater's licence and the company is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq," Khalaf said on Monday.

"We have opened a criminal investigation against the group who committed the crime."

The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater's involvement but said the incident, in a predominantly Sunni area of western Baghdad on Sunday, was still under investigation.

US troops are immune from prosecution in Iraq under the UN resolution that authorises their presence, but Khalaf said the exemption did not apply to private security companies.

Full Article

- AL Jazeera: Iraq ends US security firm licence
- Wikipedia: Blackwater
- Wikipedia: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
- Wikipedia: mercenary

Even Alan Greenspan agrees; Iraq war is really for oil

From The Sunday Times
September 16, 2007
Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil
Graham Paterson

AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.

In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

- Times Online: Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil
Graham Paterson
- Wikipedia: Alan Greenspan
- Wikipedia: War in Iraq

Apple, the bully

From PC World - written by Mike Elgan
Friday, September 7, 2007

Is Apple the new Microsoft?

Don't look now, but the role of the industry's biggest bully is increasingly played by Apple, not Microsoft.

Ten years ago, Microsoft was the company everyone loved to hate.

The most vociferous Microsoft haters slammed the company for being a greedy industry bully that used its monopolistic, clunky, copycat operating system to force software on users and coerce partners into unfair licensing deals.

Don't look now, but the role of the industry's biggest bully is increasingly played by Apple, not Microsoft. Here's a look at how Apple has shoved Microsoft aside as the company with the worst reputation as a monopolist, copycat and a bully.

Apple the monopolist

The core complaint about Microsoft in the 1990s was that its Windows market share gave it monopoly power, which it abused in multiple ways. Attorneys General and others zeroed in on the "bundling" of the Internet Explorer Web browser, which they claimed was forced on users because Microsoft offered it as part of Windows.

People love iPods (including me; my family of four has purchased 12 iPods in the past few years). But iPods come bundled with iTunes. Want to buy music from Apple? Guess what? You must install iTunes. Want an Apple cell phone from AT&T? Yep! ITunes is required even if you want only to make phone calls. Want to buy ringtones for your Apple phone? ITunes.

Apple not only "bundles" iTunes with multiple products, it forces you to use it. At least with Internet Explorer, you could always just download a competitor and ignore IE. [...]

And "bundling" works. Steve Jobs bragged this week that Apple has distributed 600 million copies of iTunes to date. The overwhelming majority of those copies were iTunes for Windows. And iTunes for Windows' popularity isn't driven by software product quality. ITunes is the slowest, clunkiest, most nonintuitive application on my system. But I need it because I love my iPods. (more)

- Read the whole story: PC WORLD - Is Apple the new Microsoft?

Does Telus have blood on his hands?

Those of us fortunate enough to be able to pay Telus phone bills will probably have noticed this on their regular phone bill:

.13 per month for 911 service

Now, this might not look like a lot of money to anyone, but if you multiply this by the amount of customers Telus has ($10.8 million customers), and multiply it again by 12 (1 year) then we can all agree that $16.848.000 (almost $17 million dollars, year after year) is a substantial amount of money, good enough to keep this important service in perfect shape, right?

Not so:

Greater Victoria's 911 system suffered a "database failure" the day of the quadruple murder-suicide in a posh Victoria suburb and rerouted a call from a screaming woman inside the home to the wrong dispatch centre.

A 911 call in any of the area's 13 municipalities is supposed to be routed to the nearest emergency dispatch centre based on a database of numbers and addresses held by Telus.

However, a "database failure" hit the service on Sept. 3 and 4, confirmed Telus spokesman Shawn Hall.

Now, things can happen right? But you'd think with roughly $17 million dollars (yearly) to spend on a system that deals with life-and-death situations, Telus would have some sort of backup system, right?

Not so:

[The database failure] meant a 911 call from inside the home of a murder-suicide in Oak Bay was misdirected to Victoria before being eventually transferred to Saanich - which handles Oak Bay's calls. [...]

At 3:06 a.m., a woman inside called 911 screaming for help because of a fight, a fire and a knife. That call lasted one minute, said Hall.

The woman either hung up or was somehow disconnected at least once. [...]

Inside the home, officers found the bodies of four adults and a six-year-old child. The B.C. Coroners Service has declared it a murder-suicide.

This murder tragedy might have had a complete different outcome if Telus would have had a backup system that would kick in as soon some sort of system failure occurs. Given the importance of having a 100% reliable 911 system and the amount of money they pull in yearly (close to 17 million) from mandatory individual 911 contributions, there's no other conclusion to make than that Telus dropped the ball, big time. Four people dead.

- Wikipedia: Telus
- Telus: 911 call misdirected during quadruple murder-suicide

Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" (video): Watch it, then buy it, then read it

The latest book by Naomi Klein is called "Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism"

Watch the movie, then buy the book and read it.



- Wikipedia: Naomi Klein
- YouTube: Shock Doctrine, the movie

Nuclear warheads flighing over the US; no worries, it's all good.

You really can't make stuff like this up. While Bush and Co. is fighting terrorists abroad this happened last week in the US:

An US military aeroplane mistakenly carried five nuclear warheads attached to cruise missiles across the country, a newspaper has reported.

The B-52 bomber carried the missiles between air bases in North Dakota and Louisiana as part of a programme to take 400 missiles out of service, the Military Times quoted three officers as saying.

The officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the nuclear warheads should have been removed before the missiles were mounted under the aircraft's wings for the August 30 flight.

So let me get this straight;

The US is fighting their war in Iraq based on (non-existing) weapons of mass destruction, yet they have no problem loosing some of their own WMD out of sight for a while.

Indeed:

The error was not discovered until the bomber completed its three-and-a-half-hour flight, the officers said.

Sounds like incompetence rules down south. But don't be afraid, everything is under control:

Lieutenant-Colonel Ed Thomas, a US air force spokesman, told the Military Times that the weapons were under control at all times.

The US Military is so smart; they've got everything under control even when they're not aware of it. God bless.

"Go get some mental help, Mr Alberto Gonzales!" (video)

This little video will make you happy :)

Today you are resigning, Mr. Alberto Gonzales! You should go back to Texas today, and get some mental help and read the constitution, sir.

Cheers!

New backronyms for SPP: how about Secretive Profiteers Plot?

The following at Saskboy (originally from James Bow) made me think:

Incidentally, the name of the proposed “deep integration” between Canada, the United States and Mexico is somewhat telling. The “Security and Prosperity Partnership”? An award for most compelling (and concise!) bit of positive spin should go to the government worker who came up with that title. Imagine: “how can you be opposed to this?

Indeed. And I think we (those who oppose the undemocratic nature of SPP) have failed in coming up with our own answer to the positive spin on these meetings. Yes, 'deep integration' has a 'ring' of some sort, but aren't we already deeply integrated with one another? Isn't the whole world a lot smaller than say a generation ago? So why should 'deep integration' be such a big deal? It's not all that easy for us to explain in a couple of sentences what the problem is with 'deep integration'.

So what IS the problem?
I consider the main problem with the SPP that it is undemocratic (only the wealthiest CEOs and the three amigos are invited) and highly secretive (everything is behind closed doors). 'Deep integration' does not cover these negatives, therefore I came up with a (derogatory) backronym for SPP:

SPP = Secretive Profiteers Plot.

This backronym covers its secretive nature, and the fact that (apart from the three amigos) only extremely wealthy CEOs conspire at these summits.

What it doesn't cover (at least not directly) is how undemocratic it is, so if you can come up with a better one then please leave a comment. Good ideas never come too early.

Footnote:
Two other ideas I had: Symposium without Public Participation | Securing Profits before People.
Others suggested: Screwing People and Planet

- Saskboy: SPP Protest Fallout
- Wikipedia: backronym
- Wikipedia: SPP