MetroVanIndependent.com
June 2015
5
opinion
Why is the West enacting chilling laws that violates citizen rights?
By Yul Baritugo
We suspect that chilling laws that
violates citizen rights came from just
one source. This was evolved because
everyone is preparing for the worse – World
War III.
The irony, however, is that spy laws
in America had lapsed. The expiration of
several government-surveillance programs
triggered a congressional scramble to
restore spy powers but political divisions
hardened as US lawmakers warred over
privacy measures.
The National Security Agency stopped
sweeping up bulk telephone records at 7:44
p.m. Sunday, a senior intelligence official
said, several hours before the midnight
deadline under which the program lapsed,
the Wall Street Journal reported.
The program had secretly warehoused
the phone re co rds of millions of
Americans since at least 2006. In tandem,
counterterrorism officials lost the power to
use roving wire taps on terrorism suspects.
Both programs used the USA Patriot Act of
2001 as their legal underpinnings.
The changes mark a contraction of the
sprawling and secret spy architecture built
up after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,
and Congress’s split reflects a sharp public
and political shift following disclosures
made by former NSA contractor Edward
Snowden.
In a startling admission that American
seas will no longer protect America, CIA
director John Brennan, the inventor of the
drone war that also killed children and
Americans, expressed alarm over the lack
of legal tools that American spymasters
can rely on to carry out renditions and
torture.
The United States, Canada, Australia,
Britain and New Zealand’s intelligence
services belongs to the so-called Five
Eyes, a spy conglomerate with worldwide
reach.
In Australia, Ben Grubbs of the New
Sydney Herald wrote: Despite concerns
raised by dozens of academics, lawyers,
rights groups, the dumped national
security legislation monitor Bret Walker,
SC, and human rights commissioner Tim
Wilson; the new national security legislation
will jail journalists and whistleblowers
if they reveal information about covert
"special" operations passed the House of
Representatives.
The legislation cleared the Senate last
week with bipartisan support.
No amendments were accepted, other
than those introduced in the Senate by the
Palmer United Party, which imposed even
tougher penalties on leakers than originally
drafted.
A nyone - including journalists,
whistleblowers and bloggers - who
"recklessly" discloses "information ...
[that] relates to a special intelligence
operation" faces up to 10 years' jail.
Any operation can be declared
"special" by the attorney-general of the day
after ASIO makes an application.
The legislation, which also enables the
entire Australian internet to be monitored
with just a single computer warrant, is a
disgrace
Britain also has harsh spy and police
laws but is utterly helpless as jihadists call
it Londondistan.
Welcome, World War III.
News round-up
Canada may strip jihadists of citizenship
More Canadian Garbage Found
Illegally Dumped in the Philippines
Quezon City, Philippines – Following a
new discovery in the Port of Manila of yet
another 48 containers of rotting household
garbage illegally exported from Canada,
environmental justice groups BAN Toxics
(BT), Seattle based Basel Action Network
(BAN), and Greenpeace Philippines
strongly condemned the Canadian government for “callous disregard of international
law”.
The newly discovered batch of
containers has been sitting for over a
year at the Manila International Container
Port (MICP) and is just now undergoing
abandonment proceedings under the
Bureau of Customs as the consignee —
Live Green Enterprise failed to claim the
shipment.
50 similar containers that arrived in
2013 exported by the same Canadian
company, Chronics Inc., have been the
subject of an international furor, including
a verbal condemnation of Canada before
the 12th Conference of the Parties of the
Basel Convention in Geneva just last week.
“ T hi s i s in sult to inju r y,” s a i d
Richard Gutierrez, Executive Director
of BT. “Canada’s callous disregard for
international law is simply not acceptable
any more. We had warned President
Aquino about the consequences of letting
Canada push us around by agreeing to
bury their first illegal shipment on Philippine
soil. How long will the Philippines be willing
to submit to what is nothing less than waste
colonialism?”
Greenpeace echoed the sentiment:
“The chorus of voices from Senator Miriam
Defensor-Santiago to street protests
clearly have demonstrated the displeasure
of Filipinos to be continuously subjected
to the indignity of becoming the world’s
trash bin,” said Abi Aguilar of Greenpeace
Philippines. “Cana H]\