[OT] Re:Byron Sonne....

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Digimer <linux-5ZoueyuiTZhBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>

| A "free" country is not, inherently, a safe country. A free country is
| one where individuals are free from oppression by the government. It
| means being free from illegal detention, illegal search and seizure.

Don't use the word "illegal" here because governments pass arbitrary
laws.  An example: the concept called "lawful access".

But I do agree with your point.

One thing that is fundamental to good government is Rule of Law.  Most
people mention "voting" as the key item but Rule of Law comes first.

|  It is a trade-off we decided to make when we, as a country,
| decided that "Freedom" was more important than "Safety".

Actually, the decision seems to have gone the other way since 911.
But not in a reasoned or democratic way.

| From: ted leslie <ted.leslie-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| he (somehow) attracted attention as someone who "could" have caused a
| problem at the summit

I imagine that this is the system's problem, not his.  The system is
evidently crap and should be fixed.

| http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/02/25/majority-of-g20-charges-against-security-consultant-byron-sonne-dropped/
| irregardless of whether he did it or not, my point was (at a minimum),
| was he warned and did he continue,
| morally (if he was warned, and did continue), he was morally wrong in
| detouring resources that could
| have saved lives if there was an issue.

I think that you mean "regardless".

Who, in our society, has the right to command someone to stop
doing something that is legal?  I can certainly think of narrow
examples, but this doesn't appear to be one (I have no more inside
knowledge than you do, so we are both speculating).

I saw no mention of "warning" in the article you linked.

Any surveilance system ought to be able to handle on-going false
positives.

| someone screwed up and endangered Canadians lives, and needs to pay.

It sure isn't clear that anyone endangered Canadian lives.  Unless you
consider taking away more that half a year of someone's life "endangering".

| If terrorists antraxed union station, and it wasn't caught because of
| a "wild goose chase",
| now that would just be dam peachy wouldn't it?

Surveilance isn't zero-sum.  A better system (which I imagine Byron
arguing for) is just better.

| There are major idiots in the legal system and in government but I
| like to think there are some
| check and balances that mean this couldn't have gotten this far
| without some teeth - yeah I know
| "wishful thinking".

It is very likely that no individual is in the wrong, just that the
system doesn't work very well.  Legal proceedings take a long time
even when the resources are available (and they are often not there).

| If he was set up, someone framed him? then hey, he
| will get 20 million for his time spent,
| not so bad i suppose, i'd take 20M for 8-24 in a health spa, and he
| will have promoted his cause too (whatever it is).

I have never heard a claim of "framing".

I would be surprised if anything is clear-cut enough that Byron could
claim such compensation.  But as I said, I have no inside knowledge.

| From linux-5ZoueyuiTZhBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org Sun Feb 27 09:17:57 2011

| >> http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2011/02/25/17414541.html

| It seems like the dismissal of Byron's charges was tossed in there at
| the last minute. I suppose part of why I included it was that even The
| Sun is exasperated at what happened during the G20.

True.  Amazing.


================

I watched this week's "Fifth Estate".
<http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2010-2011/youshouldhavestayedathome/>

It was about the police reactions to the G20 protests.

Normally I don't like that the Fifth Estate because they get worked up
about stories that they present in an unbalanced way.  Not that the
stories have no merit, but that the spin makes them muckraking.

In this case, I thought they did a good job.  Perhaps that means
simply that they reflected my biases.

The title of the episode was "You Should Have Stayed at Home".
Apparently, most people think that the protestors brought this on
themselves by not staying home.  This is the worst possible result.

I am getting the sense that democracy and good government are slipping
away from us with our collective consent.  Things that bother me:

- G20 securty costs

- heavy-handed G20 security (to put it nicely)

- public reaction to heavy-handed G20 security

- system's reaction to heavy-handed G20 security

When it was in Vancouver ("For me, pepper, I put it on my plate") I
chose to shrug it off.  This time I'm deeply troubled.
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists