Christopher McKay, who faced a driving while under the influence charge, told police that he wanted to exercise his right to legal counsel. McKay’s cellphone and other personal belongings were placed in a police locker when he arrived at the station. McKay was told there was a toll-free number available to contact a lawyer as well as White and Yellow pages that could be consulted. He called the toll-free number but was unable to find assistance.
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Judge Lamoureux of the Provincial Court of Alberta considered “whether Internet access should form part of police resources provided to detainees in order to facilitate a reasonable opportunity to exercise the constitutional right to counsel.” After acknowledging that many teenagers view their smartphone, iPad and other devices as essential parts of their daily lives, he noted that Google is the primary source of information for everything from maps to medical care to access to lawyers.
In fact, the judge conducted a Google search for “Calgary criminal defence lawyer” and found that within seconds there was provided a long list of potential local lawyers. Moreover, the judge noted that police routinely use the Internet for investigations and evidence gathering.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants anyone arrested or detained the right “to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right.” For this judge, the failure to provide Internet access meant that the Charter rights had been violated, concluding:
“In the year 2013 it is the Court’s view that all police stations must be equipped with Internet access and detainees must have the same opportunities to access the Internet to find a lawyer as they do to access the telephone book to find a lawyer.”
Both the Bloc Québécois and the NDP are busy advertising how cheap they hold their country’s integrity and future. The BQ, for whom secession is the raison d’être, may perhaps be forgiven for returning to the charge with another bill to set the bar on achieving Quebec independence as low as possible, and abolishing the Clarity Act into the bargain.
The NDP, however, is another matter. This party has frequently stood four square behind Canada in the face of the separatist threat, and its courageous past leaders, such as David Lewis, Ed Broadbent and Alexa McDonough spoke out passionately for Canada. Yet today the heirs of this proud tradition stand in the Commons and, without blushing, say that a majority of one vote in a referendum should be enough to set Quebec on the path of separation from Canada.
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These things are so fundamental to fairness and legitimacy that we don’t permit mere governments or even electoral majorities to change them on their own. We require big majorities before we allow these “rules of the game” to be altered. In the case of amendments to the Constitution, for example, most of them require the agreement of Parliament plus at least seven of the 10 provinces representing a majority of the population. That is a triple majority: a majority in Parliament and among the population and a two-thirds majority among the provinces. And some changes require all the provinces to agree.
The government of Canada could hold a referendum to get approval to change the Constitution and they could get 90 per cent of the population to vote yes and nothing would happen unless the change was approved by Parliament and two thirds of the legislatures representing a majority of the population. That’s not anti-democratic. It is the essence of democracy that fundamental rules require special procedures and broad consent to be changed.
That is what the Supreme Court meant when it said a clear majority of Quebecers needed to vote yes to a clear question before the rest of the country must sit down and discuss secession. Even after negotiating, both sides would have to ratify a constitutional amendment to effect secession. And those negotiations would have to consider the rights of minorities like aboriginal people, and those who voted not to leave Canada.
The logic behind this is impeccable and, like it or not, it’s impeccably democratic too.
Bert Tussing, US Army War College Homeland Defense and Security Director, realizes that when people think of border security, what immediately comes to mind is the US-Mexico border. After all, he is speaking in El Paso, Texas, where in the early 1990s the massive transformation and expansion of the border enforcement apparatus was born. Operation Blockade (later renamed Operation Hold-the-Line) became the Clinton administration’s blueprint for the walls, double-fencing, cameras, sensors, stadium lighting and concentration of Border Patrol agents now seen in urbanized areas—and some rural ones as well—from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California. Tussing believes that this sort of intense surveillance, which has literally deformed communities throughout the southwest, should be brought to the northern border as well.My thoughts: Before we start seeing dysoptian images of America turning into West (or East?) Berlin, let's take a beat. Canada and America's trade relationship, wherever walls may or may not be, can't afford further delays at the border. And there are some areas--the Great Lakes, for example--where I don't think anyone would mind greater scrutiny of the goods that are traded and the people who may be crossing back and forth. Whether organized crime or terrorism, this seems like smart policy.
A former Marine with close-cropped brown hair, Tussing has a Napoleonic stature and despises being stuck behind a podium. “I kind of like moving around,” he quips before starting “The Changing Role of the Military in Border Security Operations,” his talk at last October’s Border Management Conference and Technology Expo.
Perhaps Tussing realizes that his audience holds a new breed of border-security entrepreneur when his initial Army-Marine joke falls flat. Behind the small audience are booths from seventy-four companies selling their border-security wares. These nomadic malls of the surveillance state are popping up in ever more places each year.
That zone—up to 100 miles from any external US border—is the area that the Supreme Court has deemed a “reasonable distance” in which to engage in border security operations, including warrantless searches. As in the Southwest, expect more interior checkpoints where federal agents will ask people about their citizenship, as they did to Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy in 2008. In the zone, you have the developing blueprint for a country not only in perpetual lockdown, but also under increasing surveillance. According to the ACLU, if you were to include the southern border, the northern border and coastal areas in this zone, it would contain 200 million people, a potential “border” jurisdiction encompassing two-thirds of the US population.My thoughts: First, I have some real concerns with Miller running with the ACLU's label of "constitution free" border. My off-putting ranting aside about the shallowness short-form reporting requires aside, I have a feeling this border zone doesn't allow the local cops or FBI of 200 million people to endure warrantless searches at the drop of a hat (err...badge). But I'll get back to this after consulting the ACLU and any other resources that might around.
- Our review of these reports for 2010 showed that for the northern border overall, 32 of the nearly 4,000 border miles had reached an acceptable level of control, with 9 of these miles included in the four sectors we visited.
- The [~3,968] remaining miles were assessed at levels that Border Patrol reported are not acceptable end states. These border miles are defined as vulnerable to exploitation due to issues related to accessibility and resource availability and, as a result, there is a high degree of reliance on law enforcement support from outside the border zone.
