News Digest: ICLMG's Brief to the National Summit on Islamophobia; Muslim charity to fight 'unfair' suspension by CRA; Ottawa tested facial recognition on millions at TO airport in 2016; Enduring Canada's surveillance regime & more

International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

July 23, 2021

ICLMG's Submission to the National Action Summit on Islamophobia

ICLMG 20/07/2021 - While the responsibility does not lie with the federal government alone – far from it – it plays a powerful role in perpetuating these beliefs, and can play an incredibly important role in countering them. Over the past two decades, studies by academics and civil liberties organizations have repeatedly documented the disproportionate impact of national security measures on Muslim communities. Laws like the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015 and the National Security Act, 2017 have expanded national security powers without adequate transparency and oversight, disproportionately threatening the fundamental rights and freedoms of Muslims.

The laws and policies have resulted in the criminalization and surveillance of Muslim communities in Canada, including:

Disproportionate prosecutions
Discrimination and profiling in immigration
Targeting via the Terrorist Entities List
Racial profiling at the border and while traveling, including via the Passenger Protect Program (No Fly List)
The prejudiced targeting of Muslim charities
Information sharing and complicity in mistreatment abroad
Harassment of Muslim students on campus

If the federal government truly wishes to address Islamophobia, it is urgent that it reconsiders and moves away from the disastrous policies of the “War on Terror.” Efforts to expand the definition of terrorism or the use of its tools to other groups, or to “refocus” Canada’s anti-terrorism approach, will unfortunately not lead to the necessary changes. It is imperative to forego the entire framework of anti-terrorism and to rescind rights-violating laws because of problems inherent to the vague and politically malleable nature of “terrorism.”

Instead, what is needed is greater transparency and accountability, as well as concrete legislative reform, anti-racist education and cultural changes. At a minimum, we need:

The collection of disaggregated race- and religious-based data
Resources and reforms for review and oversight agencies
Binding recommendations and clear accountability
An end to rights-violating anti-terrorism laws that can be and have been used in ways which target and profile the Muslim community
An end to the prejudiced and targeted audits of Muslim charities under the guise of combatting terrorist financing in the charitable sector
The re-examination and re-allocation of resources away from a national security response to responses that promote mental and physical health and well-being, and combat exclusion, prejudices, discrimination, and poverty
The lifting of the last two security certificates and deportation proceedings faced by Mohamed Harkat and Mohammad Mahjoub
The resolution of the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik and an apology for the Canadian government’s role in his mistreatment
Immediate action to safely repatriate all Canadians currently detained in North Eastern Syria
Immediate action calling on the French government to end all proceedings against Dr. Hassan Diab and committing to no new extradition. Read more - Lire plus

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Canadian Muslims have doubt, cautious hope anti-Islamophobia summit will bring real change

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Muslim charity going to court to fight 'unfair' suspension by Canada Revenue Agency

The Canadian Press 16/07/2020 - A long-established Muslim international relief charity says it will ask a federal court to overturn the national revenue agency's decision to suspend its ability to issue tax receipts following an audit. Ottawa-based Human Concern International says the Canada Revenue Agency's penalty is unwarranted and just the latest example of the agency's unfair targeting of Muslim charities for scrutiny.

HCI, a registered charity since 1983, has provided humanitarian aid and development support to tens of millions of individuals and families around the world in its mission to save lives and move people from crises to sustainability. It has collected funds from some 50,000 Canadian donors and established partnerships with more than 1,000 organizations. In 2014, the revenue agency informed HCI it was initiating an audit for two fiscal years, from April 1, 2011, to March 31, 2013 - triggering a lengthy process the charity considered aggressive and disruptive to its operations. As a result of the audit by the Review and Analysis Division of the revenue agency's charities directorate, concerns were expressed to HCI in 2018 about six initiatives. It accused the charity of improperly issuing donation receipts totalling more than $307,000 on behalf of organizations administering the six projects - a practice known as third-party receipting.

The initiatives included three education and health projects in India, education and skills development of orphans in Bangladesh, orphan support in Somalia and an education project in Kenya. HCI says the practice at issue is in fact “diaspora fundraising,” widely used across the world by many Canadian charities at the time of the audit. Canadian charities often work with individuals and groups connected to the communities where the projects are taking place, HCI says. These diaspora groups collect funds on behalf of HCI, which then works with an implementation partner for projects that were vetted and approved by HCI. HCI says it has always been committed to maintaining direction and control of its overseas charitable projects and to ensuring that all such projects conducted through third-party intermediaries constitute HCI's own charitable activities.

In a July 7 letter to HCI, the revenue agency disagreed with the charity's interpretation, saying it was unable to accept the assertion that the six unregistered organizations were third-party fundraisers acting on behalf of, and for the benefit of, HCI. It said the revenue agency was prepared to enter a compliance agreement with HCI related to other issues, such as bookkeeping practices, raised by the audit. However, the receipting concerns would result in a one-year suspension of HCI's ability to issue receipts to donors. HCI executive director Mahmuda Khan said the charity appreciates the revenue agency's usual emphasis on education to ensure compliance with the rules. "That would have been a reasonable approach,” she said in an interview. “And this suspension was definitely unfair.” The agency's decision “is going to send a very negative message to Canada's Muslim community that our charity work is not welcome,” Khan said. HCI is urging the revenue agency's charities directorate to reconsider the suspension and is also pursuing the matter in the federal tax court, she added.

A recently released report by the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said the revenue agency's Review and Analysis Division works with national security agencies to carry out its audits, with little accountability. From 2008 to 2015, 75 per cent of the organizations whose charitable status was revoked following division audits were Muslim charities, and at least another four have had their status pulled since then, the report said. It added that despite these revocations, not a single Muslim charitable organization or individual associated with one had been charged with a terrorist-financing crime. In response to the report, the revenue agency said it does not select registered charities for audit based on any particular faith or denomination, adding it is firmly dedicated to diversity, inclusion and anti-racism.

Tim McSorley, national co-ordinator of the civil liberties monitoring group, said the audit and suspension of HCI unfortunately reflects the pattern the group has seen in the revenue agency's examination of other Muslim charities: unsupported allegations leading to drawn-out audits that result in penalties that are in no way linked to the initial reasons for investigation. “The timing of this decision is deeply concerning,” McSorley said. Following the recent questions about the federal government's approach to auditing Muslim charities, and specifically the work of the Review and Analysis Division, “we would expect a period of reflection and review,” he said. “Instead, one of the oldest and most established Muslim charities in Canada has seen its status suspended.” Charities, non-profit organizations and supportive civil society voices flagged the concerns in a letter last month to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several members of his cabinet. Source

Feds looking into Muslim charities’ concerns: PM

OSBL musulmans « ciblés par l’ARC »: Justin Trudeau se dit « extrêmement préoccupé »

ICYMI: Our report: The CRA’s Prejudiced Audits: Counter-Terrorism and the Targeting of Muslim Charities in Canada

TAKE ACTION: Stop CRA's Prejudiced Audits!

Ottawa tested facial recognition on millions of travellers at Toronto’s Pearson airport in 2016

The Globe and Mail 19/07/2021 - In an effort to identify potential deportees, the federal government quietly tested facial recognition technology on millions of unsuspecting travellers at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport in 2016. The six-month initiative, meant to pick out people the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) suspected might try to enter the country using fake identification, is detailed in a document obtained by The Globe and Mail through a freedom of information request. The project is the largest known government deployment of the technology in Canada to date. [...]

Facial recognition has come under intense scrutiny in recent years. Experts have warned facial data, once collected, could lead to the permanent loss of a person’s anonymity in public. Much like a fingerprint, a face is highly identifiable and can’t easily be changed. Research has shown facial recognition technology to be less accurate for non-white faces, in part because of assumptions that researchers build into face-matching algorithms. In the United States, several Black people have been misidentified by law enforcement and arrested on the basis of faulty facial recognition matches.

Details about the project, dubbed “Faces on the Move,” are scarce. But presentation slides posted online by Face4 Systems Inc., an Ottawa-based contractor hired by the CBSA to provide the technology and run the pilot, say it resulted in 47 “real hits” – travellers whose faces were matched against the CBSA’s database. In a statement, the CBSA told The Globe and Mail that matches were “processed in accordance with [the agency’s] operating procedures,” and later followed up to say “no individual was removed” as a result of the pilot. [...]

Petra Molnar, a lawyer and associate director of the Refugee Law Lab at York University, said she was concerned that Ottawa’s use of facial recognition would further tilt the power imbalance that already exists at the border. “The starting point has to be that this technology hurts people,” she said. As a result of concerns about the technology, facial recognition has been banned by several U.S. cities, including Boston and Berkeley, California. [...]

Mr. Israel said Ottawa should institute policies requiring agencies like the CBSA to get a public licence – such as by going directly to Parliament – before employing this kind of technology. Given the project’s intrusiveness and the fact that facial recognition systems perform differently for people of different racial groups, travellers’ rights may have been violated, he added. “I think there’s a strong case to be made that this type of implementation is not constitutional,” Mr. Israel said." Read more - Lire plus

ICYMI: Tim McSorley: The Case for a Ban on Facial Recognition Surveillance in Canada

TAKE ACTION: Ban facial recognition surveillance in Canada

Report Finds Widespread Use of Facial Recognition Technology by US Federal Agencies Could Pose Privacy Risk

Victory! Biden Administration Rescinds Dangerous DHS Proposed Rule to Expand Biometrics Collection

Ban biometric surveillance in public to safeguard rights, urge EU bodies

TAKE ACTION: Ban biometric recognition technologies

Matthew Behrens: Enduring Canada's surveillance regime

rabble.ca 15/07/2021 - When Ottawa-based refugee Mohamed (Moe) Harkat tries to enjoy the quintessentially Canadian experience of visiting a family cottage, he has to stage an elaborate dance to satisfy the requirements of one of the most intrusive and insidious state interventions into anyone's private life in Canadian history. Each day spent at the cottage, Moe has to check in with a surveillance team of officers from the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), who have been following him since 2006. That's when Moe was transferred to the strictest house arrest conditions in Canadian history after being held 3.5 years without charge on secret allegations of terrorism he has never been allowed to see, much less contest.

The dystopian dance works like this: three times a day, Moe walks out of the cottage and up a hill. Parked at the top of the hill is a car with dark-tinted windows, and inside are two fully-kitted CBSA officers (bullet proof vests, weapons at the ready) who sit there all day to confirm he is at the cottage. He waves at them and they wave back. Moe heads into town to search for a pay phone -- never easy to find in an age dominated by the cell phone -- because he has to "report in" from a landline. Once at that pay phone, he calls the guys in the surveillance car he waved to a few minutes earlier, to confirm he is at the cottage. They thank him, he hangs up the phone, drives back to the cottage, waves at the men in the surveillance vehicle he just called to confirm he is at the cottage, and tries to relax from this maddening bit of spirit-breaking repression. He has to do this two additional times that day. It's a cruel exercise straight out of the legendary film Cool Hand Luke, where such repetitive, degrading punishments are meant to make someone's "mind right."

This is but a fraction of the daily repression faced by the Harkat's, who married in 2001 and had never heard of International Human Rights Day until Moe was arrested on that landmark occasion, December 10, 2002. As self-described human rights superhero and Liberal MP Irwin Cotler proudly rose in the House of Commons that day to bloviate about the Magna Carta, "the lifeblood of a democracy," the "right to life, liberty and security of the person," and celebrations of "not only of who we are but what we aspire to be."

Moe wasn't exactly basking in the self-congratulatory glow of the foggy platitudes that normally pepper the House floor with a nauseating odour. Instead, he had entered a made-in-Canada twilight zone, a darkened room in which any attempt to brighten his surroundings meant an endless search for a light switch that had long ago been removed.

In 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the "security certificate" regime under which Moe had been held was unconstitutional, but in a page out of Kafka's The Trial, Ottawa simply reworded the state security allegations against Moe, and has carried on with its persecution of him ever since. The Supreme Court heard another challenge to the endless violation of Harkat's rights in 2014, but in a poorly written, illogical decision, reversed itself from its 2007 findings and upheld the star chamber proceedings. That judicial rubber stamp opened the door to the current proceedings designed to deport Moe to torture in Algeria. Read more - Lire plus

TAKE ACTION: Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture

It is time to suspend Canada’s extradition treaty with France

Legal Matters 22/06/2021 - Canada should suspend extraditions to France under their bilateral extradition treaty in light of abuses of process and misrepresentations by that country in the case of Canadian professor Hassan Diab, says B.C. criminal lawyer Gary Botting.

Bowing to political pressure, France’s top court has reversed the stay of proceedings of a lower court, which could find no reliable evidence linking Diab to a bombing outside a Paris synagogue 40 years ago, he says. “The French government is being pressured to come up with a scapegoat. In this case, the Canadian extradition judge in 2014 relied on evidence that he himself regarded as unreliable and contradictory, passing the buck to the minister of justice, who has sole discretion in matters of extradition. The minister then could justify the surrender of Diab to France, even though the evidence points to a case of mistaken identity,” says Botting, principal of Gary N.A. Botting, Barrister. In making the decision to allow Diab to return to Canada, one of the lower court judges in France uncovered evidence showing that Hassan was writing his university examinations in Lebanon at the time of the bombing, he explains.

“This case has become politicized, and therefore Canada should recognize that Diab would not be safe or guaranteed a fair trial if he were sent back to France,” Botting tells LegalMattersCanada.ca. Despite the lower court’s decision, France’s Court of Cassation ordered the Ottawa academic to stand trial for the bombing in May. The Canadian government has not formally commented on the request, a CBC story states, quoting a spokesman for the Attorney General who said: “Canada is a rule of law country where extraditions are guided by the Extradition Act, international treaties and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” “It appears Canada is prepared to sacrifice a Canadian citizen for the sake of a French mob, made up of lobby groups who say the country needs to prosecute somebody, anybody for this offence,” says Botting. “If the Minister was truly guided by the Extradition Act, he would exercise his discretion and refuse to entertain any request from France, given its past record of ignoring the legal and human rights of Mr. Diab, and riding roughshod over the treaty,” he said.

“The first article of the treaty reads that each country agrees to extradite to the other ‘any person found within its territory who is charged with an offence,’” Botting says. “But Diab was not charged, even though he had to spend three years in a French prison, violating his civil liberties and provisions of the treaty.” He notes Article 3 states that neither party shall be “bound to extradite its own nationals.” “What’s the point of an extradition treaty with this wording?” Botting asks. “France has always refused to allow its citizens to be extradited to other countries to face trial while expecting countries such as Canada to abide by its requests.” Article 8 states that extradition can be refused on humanitarian grounds “if the surrender may have grave consequences for the person sought, in particular because of the age or state of health of that person,” he says.

“Spending three years in a maximum-security prison, much of it in solitary confinement despite not being charged, is a grave consequence,” Botting says. “On humanitarian grounds, Canada simply cannot send him back to France. That country has proven to be irresponsible when it comes to taking the obligations of the extradition treaty seriously.”

He says judges at Canadian extradition hearings need to stop relying on the 2006 Supreme Court of Canada decision United States of America v. Ferras, which stated that if a foreign government submits records containing “sufficient admissible evidence,” those documents should be considered as “presumptively reliable” and the extradition request granted. “I can count on two hands the number of cases turned down by an extradition judge at this stage, because of this ridiculously low test that was drawn for the Ferras case,” Botting says.

He says it is up to Attorney General David Lametti to get involved in the Diab case, to ensure that Diab is not again sent to France if that country files a formal extradition request. “If his extradition to France in 2014 is a standard by which we judge ourselves, we have failed miserably as a country on protecting individual rights here in Canada,” Botting says. “It is time to suspend all extradition proceedings with France,” he reiterates. “Canada would be completely justified in doing that and it would send a strong message to other countries that France is not a reliable extradition partner. The French republic has to clean up its act.” Read more - Lire plus

TAKE ACTION Canada must act to end the injustice against Dr Hassan Diab

Daesh children in Syria face a lifetime in prison

BBC 14/07/2021 - Thousands of foreign children, including British kids, are facing a lifetime of imprisonment in camps and jails in north-eastern Syria, with little hope of being released.

A BBC investigation has found that the children, whose parents supported Daesh, are being moved from desert camps, to secure children’s homes, and onto adult prisons, in a conveyor belt of incarceration.

Britain has repatriated only a handful of children from Syria, most of whom were orphans.

The Kurdish authorities who run the facilities say they can’t cope, and that Daesh terror cells are recruiting and radicalising children as young as eight. The BBC's Middle East correspondent Quentin Sommerville reports from north-east Syria. Read more - Lire plus

Kosovo Repatriates 11 Citizens From Daesh Camps In Syria

Christopher Parsons: The new security research rules threaten universities’ ability to be open and inclusive

The Globe and Mail 15/07/2021 - On Monday, the Canadian government imposed mandatory national security risk assessments on scholarly research. The new rules apply to projects that receive funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and involve foreign researchers or private-sector organizations. The stated intent of the assessments is to prevent intellectual property from being stolen and ensure that Canadian researchers do not share industrial, military or intelligence secrets with foreign governments or organizations to the detriment of Canadian interests. But they will chill research and scholarly training, accentuate anti-immigrant biases and may amplify national security problems.

In brief, these assessments add an analysis of national security issues into the process of funding partnerships by compelling researchers to evaluate whether their work is “sensitive.” Cutting-edge topics that are considered sensitive include artificial intelligence, biotechnology, medical technology, quantum science, robotics, autonomous systems and space technology. Amongst other criteria, researchers must also assess risks posed by partners, including whether they might disclose information to other groups that could negatively affect Canada’s national security, whether they could be subject to influence from foreign governments or militaries, or if they lack clear explanations for how or why they can supplement funding from NSERC. If a researcher or their team cannot state there are no risks, they must itemize prospective risks, even in cases where they must speculate. Mitigation processes must explain what security protocols will be established, how information might be restricted on a need-to-know basis, or how collaborators will be vetted. Government documents specifically warn researchers to take care when working with members of the university research community, such as contractors, employees or students.

Whenever research is assessed as raising national security concerns, it may be reviewed by NSERC and Canada’s national security agencies, and research programs may need to be modified or partners abandoned before funding will be released. These assessments will chill Canadian research. Consider Canadian university professors who are working on artificial intelligence research, but who hold Chinese citizenship and thus could potentially be subject to compulsion under China’s national security legislation. Under the assessment criteria, it would seem that such researchers are now to be regarded as inherently riskier than colleagues who pursue similar topics, but who hold Canadian, American or European citizenship. The assessments will almost certainly reify biases against some Canadian researchers on the basis of their nationality, something that has become commonplace in the United States as Chinese researchers have increasingly been the focus of U.S. security investigations.

Students who could potentially be directly or indirectly compelled by their national governments may now be deemed a threat to Canada’s national security and interests. Consequently, international students or those who have families outside of Canada might be kept from fully participating on professors’ research projects out of national security concerns and lose out on important training opportunities. This stigma may encourage international students to obtain their education outside of Canada. These assessments may create more problems than they solve. Some Canadian researchers with foreign citizenships might apply for foreign funding to avoid national security assessments altogether. But they may also be motivated to conceal this fact for fear of the suspicion that might otherwise accompany the funding, especially based on how their American counterparts have been targeted in FBI-led investigations. Foreign intelligence services look for individuals who have something to hide to exploit such vulnerabilities. In effect, these assessments may amplify the prospect that researchers will be targeted for recruitment by foreign spy agencies and exacerbate fears of foreign espionage and illicit acquisition of intellectual property.

What must be done? If the government insists on applying these assessments, then NSERC must commit to publishing annual reports explaining how regularly research is assessed, the nature of the assessed research, rationales for assessments and the outcomes. Canada’s national security review agencies will also have to review NSERC’s assessments to ensure that the results are based in fact, not suspicion or bias. Researchers can and should complain to the review agencies and the news media if they believe that any assessment is inappropriate. Ultimately, Canadian university leaders must strongly oppose these assessments as they are currently written. The chill of national security threatens to deepen suspicions towards some of our world-leading researchers and exceptional international students, and those running universities must publicly stand up for their communities. Their universities’ status as being open and inclusive – and being independent, world-leading research bodies – depends on their advocacy. Read more - Lire plus

Amnesty International Calls for Moratorium on Private Spyware After Israeli NSO Group Pegasus Revelations

DemocracyNow! 20/07/2021 - Calls are growing for stricter regulations on the use of surveillance technology after revelations that countries have used the powerful Pegasus spyware against politicians, journalists and activists around the world. The Pegasus software, sold by the Israeli cybersecurity company NSO Group, can secretly infect a mobile phone and harvest its information. While the company touts Pegasus as intended for criminals and terrorists, leaked data suggests the tool is widely abused by governments to go after political opponents and dissidents, according to reporting from The Pegasus Project, an international consortium of 17 media organizations.

We feature a PBS “Frontline” report on the shocking findings that the Israeli government allowed NSO to continue to do business with Saudi Arabia even after the Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in 2018 in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, and allegedly used Pegasus to surveil Khashoggi’s fiancée. “Contrary to what NSO is claiming, the spyware Pegasus is used to target people absolutely unrelated to criminal activities or terrorism,” says Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International. She adds that The Pegasus Project has exposed that abuse of powerful surveillance technology “is systematic, and it is global.” [...]

The consortium analyzed a leaked data set of 50,000 phone numbers that allegedly belong to persons of interest to NSO’s customers. A sample showed dozens of cases of successful and attempted Pegasus infections. The reporting also revealed a massive wave of attacks by NSO Group’s customers on iPhones, potentially affecting thousands of Apple users worldwide. In one of the most shocking findings, The Pegasus Project reported the Israeli government allowed NSO to continue to do business with Saudi Arabia, even after the Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in 2018 in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Read more - Lire plus

Amnesty International: Forensic Methodology Report: How to catch NSO Group’s Pegasus

Citizen Lab: Independent Peer Review of Amnesty International’s Forensic Methods for Identifying Pegasus Spyware

Informative Twitter thread on the Pegasus revelation by Citizen Lab researcher

UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression: Global spyware such as Pegasus is a threat to democracy. Here’s how to stop it.

AccessNow Digital Security Helpline

Biden Administration Punts on Due Process Rights for Guantánamo Detainees

The New York Times 09/07/2021 - The Biden administration pulled back on Friday from a Trump-era claim that detainees at the Guantánamo Bay wartime prison have no due process rights under the Constitution. But it stopped short of declaring that noncitizens held at the American naval base in Cuba are covered by such legal protections, according to officials familiar with the matter. Instead, in a much-anticipated brief before the full Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Justice Department took no position on the question of whether Guantánamo detainees have any due process rights. The muddled outcome followed a sharp internal debate among the Biden legal team.

The brief was filed under seal because it contained classified information about the detainee at the center of the case, a 53-year-old Yemeni man, Abdulsalam al-Hela, who has been held without charge or trial at the wartime prison since 2004. But while it was not immediately available for public viewing, officials described its views — or lack thereof — on due process. The question of whether the Constitution’s guarantee that the government cannot deprive people of “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” applies to non-American detainees held at Guantánamo has been raised since the George W. Bush administration first brought wartime prisoners there for indefinite detention without trial in 2002. It has never been resolved.

While it is not always clear what process is “due,” a precedent establishing that the clause covers such detainees would give them a greater basis to ask a court to scrutinize how the government is treating them across matters including their continued detention, their medical treatment and whether evidence derived from torture may be used against them.

It remains unclear what the full Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will say. During the Trump administration, the Justice Department had argued that Mr. Hela had no due process rights, and a conservative-tilted appeals court panel used the case to declare that the due process clause does not apply to any detainee. But the full court, which is controlled by more liberal-leaning judges, decided to vacate that ruling and rehear the matter. Read more - Lire plus

ABA brief asks appeals court to say Guantanamo detainee entitled to due process rights

Guantánamo Prosecutors Ask to Strike Information Gained From Torture

Biden Administration Transfers Its First Detainee From Guantánamo Bay

UAE urged to free Russian ballet dancer transferred from Guantanamo

Guantanamo prosecutor retires as 9/11 trial remains elusive

“Gulag of Our Time”: Amnesty International Calls on Biden Admin to Shut Down Guantánamo Bay Prison

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Canada, Ground Your Plans for 88 New Fighter Jets

From rock stars to scholars, 100 public figures tell the Trudeau government to spend $77 billion some other way.

The Tyee 14/07/2021 - As wildfires blaze in Western Canada amidst record breaking heat waves, the Liberal government is planning to spend tens of billions of dollars on unnecessary, dangerous, climate destroying fighter jets. The government is currently moving forward with the competition to procure 88 warplanes, which includes Lockheed Martin’s F-35 stealth fighter, Saab’s Gripen and Boeing’s Super Hornet. Despite previously promising to cancel the F-35 purchase, the Trudeau government is laying the ground to acquire the stealth fighter.

Officially the cost of buying the jets is about $19 billion. But, a report from the No New Fighter Jets coalition suggests the full life cycle cost of the planes will be closer to $77 billion. Those resources could be used to eliminate boil water advisories on reserves, build light rail lines across the country and construct thousands of units of social housing. Seventy-seven billion dollars could turbocharge a just transition away from fossil fuels and a just recovery from the pandemic. Conversely, purchasing new jets will entrench fossil-fuel militarism. Fighter jets consume huge amounts of specialized fuel that emit significant greenhouse gases. Purchasing a large number of warplanes to use in coming decades is at odds with Canada’s commitment to rapidly decarbonize by 2050. With the country experiencing the highest temperatures in history, the time for climate action is now.

While exacerbating the climate crisis, fighter jets are not needed to protect our security. As a former deputy minister of national defence Charles Nixon noted, there are no credible threats requiring the acquisition of new “Gen-5” fighter jets. The expensive weapons are largely useless in responding to natural disasters, providing international humanitarian relief or in peacekeeping operations. Nor can they protect us from a pandemic or the climate and other ecological crises. Rather, these offensive weapons are likely to generate distrust and division. Instead of resolving international conflicts through diplomacy, fighter jets are designed to destroy infrastructure and kill people. Canada’s current fleet of fighter jets has bombed Libya, Iraq, Serbia and Syria. Many innocent people were killed directly or as a result of the destruction of civilian infrastructure and those operations prolonged conflicts and/or contributed to refugee crises. Read more - Lire plus

TAKE ACTION: No Fighter Jets for Canada!

Swarming military drones bring new urgency to push for killer robot ban

Faiza Patel: Ending the ‘National Security’ Excuse for Racial and Religious Profiling

Faiza Patel 22/07/2021 - As we approach the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it is past time to reckon with “war on terror” approaches that have cast too many Americans — from Muslims to racial justice protesters to Chinese scientists — as national security threats. Two decades of permissive rules for intelligence collection, coupled with weak protections for speech and against discrimination, have subverted legitimate counterterrorism aims. We must revisit those rules to ban invidious profiling under the guise of national security.

Several changes in law and policy after 9/11 have facilitated profiling on the basis of constitutionally protected characteristics. The attorney general’s guidelines for FBI investigations, for instance, were dramatically loosened in 2002 and again in 2008.

Previously, the guidelines required agents to focus on suspicion of criminal activity. Now, however, agents can launch non-predicated investigations — i.e., absent any facts indicating wrongdoing on the part of the investigation’s target — so long as the purpose is to protect against criminal or national security threats or to collect foreign intelligence. Rather than building guardrails to mitigate the risks of this open-ended authority, the guidelines water down controls and authorize a range of intrusive techniques, including using informants, scouring the internet, and attending religious services and political gatherings. The rules implementing the guidelines do nod to privacy and civil liberties concerns. They bar investigative activities “based solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights or on the race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion,” but they implicitly allow investigative activity based in part — or even primarily — on such factors. Even this half-hearted prohibition is undermined by the instruction that agents may rely on these characteristics if they can be linked to terrorist or criminal behavior. Under this approach, adhering to the Muslim faith can be a sufficient basis for suspicion because it is shared by groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.

In 2003, the Justice Department issued guidelines prohibiting racial and ethnic profiling in most law enforcement contexts. According to the guidelines, profiling is ineffective because it is “premised on the erroneous assumption that any particular individual of one race or ethnicity is more likely to engage in misconduct.” Moreover, race-based assumptions in law enforcement “perpetuate negative racial stereotypes that are harmful to our rich and diverse democracy, and materially impair our efforts to maintain a fair and just society.” But the guidelines exempted national security and border investigations, in which the “erroneous” and “harmful” assumptions that underlie profiling are expressly permitted. Even when the Obama administration in 2014 expanded the prohibition on profiling to cover religious and national origin discrimination, it essentially recreated these exemptions.

Predictably, the increased authority handed to the FBI combined with weak constraints has led to persistent abuses, with criteria such as race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, and political leanings prompting investigations, surveillance, and even prosecutions.

American Muslims have been treated as potential terrorists based on their faith alone. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the bureau detained over a thousand Muslims in the United States, both citizens and noncitizens, while the government figured out whether they had any connection to the attacks. None did. Thousands more were rounded up for questioning. In the years following 9/11, FBI agents and police officers would question diaspora communities after terrorist attacks, including those that occurred overseas, on the theory that those who share a nationality or religion with the attackers must know something. [...]

The Biden administration can start by overhauling the FBI’s investigative guidelines to constrain non-predicated investigations and to prohibit investigations in which the exercise of First Amendment rights or race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion is a substantial or motivating factor. The Justice Department should revise its racial profiling guidance to eliminate the national security, border, and intelligence exceptions. Even better, Congress should pass the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act, most recently introduced as part of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would prohibit profiling for both investigations and enforcement. These measures would help cement our nation’s commitment to protecting national security based on facts rather than on bias. Read more - Lire plus

UN calls for end to use of national security laws to silence dissent

ABS CBS News 09/07/2021 - While governments have the inherent right to pass laws to strengthen national security and protect its states against terrorism, the same laws are also being used against people speaking against the government, a United Nations officer said. Speaking in a virtual forum, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Association and Peaceful Assembly Clement Voule said some governments have abused these laws to silent the opposition, civic groups, lawyers, and journalists.

"We have seen governments persecute protesters... for merely displaying flag of certain parties, or independence movements. We have seen protesters been persecuted for taking part in rally that have political message that government claim is against national security. We have seen civil society member and the representative of indigenous community charged under these laws for campaigning against development project which destroy environment and community livelihood," Voule said. Moreover, the broad, vague wording of these laws have made it easy for governments to label individuals as "enemy of the state", or as "foreign agents", giving them the "legitimacy" to close down organizations, freeze their assets and persecute them. Read more - Lire plus

ACTIONS & EVENTS

Canada must take action to end the injustice against Dr Hassan Diab

Despite no new evidence, strong exculpatory evidence, and contradictory reasoning, France's highest court, the Cour de Cassation, has upheld the French Court of Appeal's shocking order that Hassan must stand trial.

Send the message below to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs: The Canadian government must take immediate action to put an end to Dr. Diab's long odyssey of injustice!

If you live in Canada, take action here + share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

Si vous habitez au Canada, agissez ici + partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

If you live outside of Canada, click here + share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

Si vous n'habitez pas au Canada, agissez ici + partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + IG

Want to do more? Take these actions as well:

Independent Jewish Voices: Send an Email to Justin Trudeau: No Second Extradition for Hassan Diab!

Hassan Diab Support Committee: Urge PM Trudeau to end Hassan’s nightmare of injustice!

A new report from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group shows that the Canada Revenue Agency is targeting Muslim charities for audits, based on prejudiced and unsupported allegations of a risk of terrorist financing, and in secret and without accountability.

Please send a message to the Minister of Revenue, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Public Safety, the Charities Directorate Director as well as your Member of Parliament to stop the prejudiced audits of Muslim charities.