A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Big Brother lies ... are we surprised?
By GEORGE JONAS
Toronto Sun
May 25, 2000
Three topics this week: two domestic, one international.
First, Privacy Commissioner Bruce Phillips discovered that Jane Stewart's embattled fief, the Ministry of Mismanagement (otherwise known as Human Resources Development Canada), has been building a monster database on citizens.
In his annual report, Phillips expressed "profound concern" that the government has shared personal and financial information about Canadians with outside interests without "the public's knowledge or informed consent."
Previous Canadian privacy commissioners assured the public that no such government databases existed. "We were wrong," wrote Phillips in his report, "or not right enough for comfort."
It's easy to share Phillips' concern, though not his (or the media's) surprise. By now it shouldn't seem completely astounding that governments lie.
Lying about privacy began with John Diefenbaker's 1963 promise to Parliament that social insurance (SIN) numbers wouldn't be used for anything but unemployment insurance and pension benefits. This undertaking was broken almost as soon as it was made.
Today a person who refuses to furnish his SIN risks more than a denial of government services of any kind. He may not even cash a cheque or obtain a telephone.
The real concern commences long before any concern the government might share personal information with outsiders: the real concern is that the government has it. People's medical records were found in Ottawa garbage bins years ago, hardly an uncommon occurrence.
If politicians or bureaucrats were measured by the same yardstick as ordinary citizens - whether in standards of care or truth in advertising - they'd all be in jail.
A National Post editorial suggests passing laws that data be used only for the purpose for which they are collected. The trouble is, this is already the rule. Most forms you're requested to fill out specifically promise it. But government doesn't observe its own rules. It never has, and (without being forced) it never will.
By now, only a boycott can bring the bureaucracy to its senses. If you want to retain your privacy, stop responding to the government. And talking of bringing the government to its senses, boycotting the census is a good way to begin.
Next topic: I wouldn't suggest there's nothing to be said for governments. Some government jobs aren't bad if you can get them. Just ask the partners in the Chicago law firm of Bartlit Beck Herman. Ottawa hopes to recover billions in damages from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and others for allegedly aiding and abetting cigarette smuggling from the United States between 1991 and 1994.
But whether or not Canada's government will collect a record amount, the sum this country's taxpayers paid in less than four months to the firm of Bartlit Beck Herman to launch the action - $3.76 million - is already a record. This amount isn't just more than double the highest legal bill Canada's Ministry of Justice has ever paid in one fiscal year.
Some lawyers think it may make the Guinness Book of Records.
And now for a quick look at Kosovo, one year later. What has the first NATO action in the alliance's 50-year history actually achieved? Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo has shifted from targeting Albanians to targeting Serbians. By now, about 80% have been forced out of the province.
Elements of the Kosovo Liberation Army are making a bid for outright independence. As KFOR Commander Gen. Klaus Reinhardt put it: "When NATO came into Kosovo we were only supposed to fight the Yugoslav Army if they came back uninvited. Now we're finding we have to fight the Albanians."
The murder rate in rural Kosovo (23 per 100,000) equals that of major population centres like Los Angeles.
The so-called "Balkan Route," connecting Taliban-run opium fields in Afghanistan to the heroin markets of Western Europe, is dominated by Kosovar Albanians. Turf wars are claiming the lives of former KLA commanders: On April 17 Besim Mala was gunned down in a Pristina cafe; On May 8 Ekrem Rexha was killed as he was leaving his home.
It was for such results that NATO has unilaterally intervened in a sovereign country, at an estimated cost of $25 billion. It's for this that the West is deploying 38,000 peacekeepers from 28 countries, with no foreseeable end to their mission.
Mind you, Canada's government - the same one that has just sent $3.76 million up in smoke - believes it was worth it.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com. Jonas, author and producer, appears Thursdays Copyright © 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership. All rights reserved
 World Fact Book (CIA))]
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