link/Canada Needs to Torture People to Stay Safe

More from BoingBoing as well. CSIS needs torture or the world will end.

Montreal Gazette

Canada's spy agency was so reliant on information obtained through torture that it suggested the whole security certificate regime, used to control suspected terrorists in the country, would fall apart if they couldn't use it.

link/Government No Longer Testing Nutrition Claims on Food

The Canada Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) apparently stopped doing "surveys" of pre-packaged "food" items to test that their labels are accurate. The Herald says "abruptly" implying this was recent, but it actually stems from ... (March? can't find anything!)

Herald

For example, CFIA found that 79 out of 161 snack products tested (49 per cent) displayed incorrect composition claims about sodium, fats or other nutrients, in violation of Canada's labelling rules. Of 52 samples of oils, spreads and margarines, 25 (48 per cent) failed to comply with CFIA's "quality" labelling rules. Reasons included: misleading nutrient claims about omega fatty acids, vitamin E or cholesterol; inaccurate trans fatty acid and non-hydrogenated claims; or bogus claims such as "fresh-pressed" and "premium grade." A second addendum to the March 30, 2011 minutes said CFIA also decided to put on hold the targeted testing of items at food processing plants in cases where inspectors had identified concerns, such as possible sanitary problems.

link/Indefinite Military Detention: Now For Americans, Too!

A bill right now before the US Senate would give the US military the power to lock up anyone (including US Citizens) for ever with no charge -- they want to redefine use soil as an ongoing "battleground".

link/Bloomberg Forces Disclosure of Moneypit Extent

After a legal battle with the Fed and a group of US banks, Bloomberg forced disclosure of details of the US bailout to banks under FOIP.

In all, nearly $8 trillion (considerably more than the ~$800 billion figure usually talked about) or over half of the entire US's gross domestic product of around $14 trillion at the time was given to banks with zero oversight. Congress didn't know the details until this Bloomberg article, allegedly.

Bloomberg

The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he "wasn't aware of the magnitude." It dwarfed the Treasury Department's better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.

Indeed, with total US mortgage debt also around $14 trillion, those funds could have been used to slash every single US homeowners' debt in half. Instead, the pockets of a handful of bankers were lined with considerably more "collateral" (aka "other people's stuff").

Bloomberg

Bankers didn't disclose the extent of their borrowing. On Nov. 26, 2008, then-Bank of America (BAC) Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kenneth D. Lewis wrote to shareholders that he headed "one of the strongest and most stable major banks in the world." He didn't say that his Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm owed the central bank $86 billion that day.

On the secrecy of the program (The Federal Reserve is a private corporation):

Bloomberg

The Fed initially released lending data in aggregate form only. Information on which banks borrowed, when, how much and at what interest rate was kept from public view. The secrecy extended even to members of President George W. Bush's administration who managed TARP. Top aides to Paulson weren't privy to Fed lending details during the creation of the program that provided crisis funding to more than 700 banks, say two former senior Treasury officials who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak.

On top of this, Paulson told his Wall Street contacts about impending government takeover of Fannie Mac/Freddie Mae (US mortgage companies).

link/WiFi vs. Human Sperm

A WiFi-connected laptop near your balls may not be such a great idea; research looking at sperm (not in balls) exposed to 4 hours of WiFi from ta laptop conclude much reduced votility ("ability to function"). Additional abstract with diagrams.

Abstract

Motile sperm were selected by swim up. Each sperm suspension was divided into two aliquots. One sperm aliquot (experimental) from each patient was exposed to an internet-connected laptop by Wi-Fi for 4 hours, whereas the second aliquot (unexposed) was used as control, incubated under identical conditions without being exposed to the laptop.

[..]

Donor sperm samples, mostly normozoospermic, exposed ex vivo during 4 hours to a wireless internet-connected laptop showed a significant decrease in progressive sperm motility and an increase in sperm DNA fragmentation. Levels of dead sperm showed no significant differences between the two groups.

link/Top Toronto Police Ordered Illegal Arrest Campaign

As the result of a civil suit brought by one of the many people arrested but never charged during the G20 in Toronoto, it has been revealed that officers had orders to illegally arrest people for wearing bandanas, carrying water, or refusing unlawful searching of their backpacks (among other imagined "offenses").

This guy was suing for $25k, but it doesn't seem any action against the people who ordered this intimidation campaign against citizens is forthcoming.

More from CBC.

link/For Sale: Tools to Spy on You

The Wall Street Journal offers a glipse into the product offerings of shady companies selling surveillance gear -- like covertly installed keyloggers, cell-phone malware which grabs all text + images, "mass intercept" gear and more.

WSJ

The documents for FinFisher, a Gamma product, say it works by "sending fake software updates for popular software." In one example, FinFisher says intelligence agents deployed its products "within the main Internet service provider of their country" and infected people's computers by "covertly injecting" FinFisher code on websites that people then visited.

Specifically with FinFisher, noted security expert Brian Krebs suggets Apple gave special treatment to the iTunes hole FinFisher exploited, waiting over 3 years to patch it (the longest of any of their updates) after being told in 2008 by an independent security researcher.

I guess the ACLU get's an "I told you so" since they had crap like this on their "Top Ten Abuses Of Power Since 9/11" back in 2006.

link/Stephen Harper Wants to Watch You Online

Probably-upcoming bills from our friendly freedom-loving Prime Minister will force ISPs to give police subscriber information without a warrant.

Ontario Privacy Comissioner

Consider just one of the new threats to our fundamental freedoms: police could force telecoms to provide the name, address and unique device number of people (enabling online tracking) who posted comments on newspapers' websites under pseudonyms - without a warrant, without explanation and in secret.

David Fraser, lawyer

We expect to carry on our lawful lives free from police intrusion unless a judge can be persuaded that the police are justified in their intrusion into your life, including the fact that the intrusion relates to a lawful investigation into criminal wrongdoing. Lawful access would remove the only check and balance, allowing police the ability monitor citizens without any reason.

But never you worry! The police will mutter something about terrorism the entire time they're doing it, which makes it all okay. Of course, they've *never* used these powers for political repression. Never. No, no, no

that

wouldn't happen. Definitely not in Canada...

In fact, Scotland Yard developed their first spy photograph techniques to deal with those horrific terrorists the suffragettes...

link/Auditor General: Health Canada Sucks at Issuing Drug Safety Warnings

Health Canada is terrible at alerting consumers to safety issues it identifies with drugs, according to the Auditor General.

The time lag, outlined in an audit tabled Tuesday in the House of Commons and characterized as "serious," means people sometimes have to wait more than two years before Health Canada completes a drug safety review of a product already on the market and provides updated information about their risks.

In other news, I heard on the radio this morning that despite bovine grown hormone causing birth defects, altering the final milk product (unfavourably for humans) and a bunch of other horrible shit it took two of the Canadian government scientists looking at it to lose their jobs and take ten years out of their lives fighting over this to get anyone to pay attention. Although Similac (et al) were never approved in Canada, other hormones with similar problems were. They still aren't banned here (as they are in the EU) and are still being used in the States.

The scientists in question were under heavy pressure from the Prime Minister's Office (Cretien at the time) to "just approve" the drugs and hormones, were offered $2 million bribes from Monsanto and other obviously-wrong things. So much for transparency. And Harper's campaign promise of helping whistle-blowers? Farts in the wind, apparently, since these two are still out of their jobs. They both claim it's actually gotten worse under Harper.

Most of the data showing that this shit was totally worthless crap was from Monsanto's own research -- which of course they ignored. What if actually-objective scientists did some looking?

More cbc, morecbc, OrganicConsumers.org, EnvironmentalHealth.ca.