News Summary and Comment:
The lead story today is the re-warming of the Afghan detainee controversy. As the new Parliamentary Committee meetings approach, the government and opposition are facing off over the issue of unreleased documents. The government has hired former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci to review whether there would be “injurious” effects if some Afghan detainee documents were made public. The opposition says that he shouldn’t be used to do an end run around Parliamentary supremacy, and that instead he should head a full inquiry.
Meanwhile, Amir Attaran, an accountability activist and law professor at the University of Ottawa, says that he has uncensored versions of government documents released last year and believes that they show that Canadian government officials wanted some detainees to be tortured so they could gather intelligence. This was followed by another story which quotes unnamed government sources corroborating what Attaran is saying. If he’s right, it would certainly explain why the government doesn’t want the documents out in the open.
In other news, corruption charges have been laid against a former B.C. deputy minister of health. Apparently he became, shall we say, too involved in the contract award process for the province’s e-health initiative and benefitted in the process. Besides the lessons in oversight and the need for more whistleblower protections, this story reinforces my belief that government has never met an IT project it couldn’t mismanage. Almost every province – and the federal government – is knee deep in an e-health project, and I’ll bet every one of them has problems.
In a smaller story, it appears that the Parliamentary Budget Officer may get some financial stability this year as appropriate funding is being requested for his office. This was not the case last year, when the PBO was starved for cash. This, in turn, sparked a political controversy over the PBO’s role and place in the world. There was much chest-thumping, but, in the end, the PBO seems to have won out. This would be a victory for Canadians as his record of economic prediction has been much better than that of the Department of Finance.
Finally, someone forwarded an interesting New York Times piece to me. It describes “human-flesh search engines” in China, which are defined in the article as “a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath.” They can be used to out wrongdoers, but also, unsurprisingly, for the purposes of evil.
See you Thursday.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Afghan Detainee Controversy Heats Up Again; New Allegations Made
Corruption Charges Laid in B.C. E-health Scandal
Parliamentary Budget Officer Finally Gets Some Budget Stability
Online Whistleblowing and Vigilantism in China
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Afghan Detainee Controversy Heats Up Again; New Allegations Made
Canada wanted Afghan prisoners tortured: lawyer
CBC News, March 5, 2010
Summary: Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert.
Tories accused of contempt for detainees stance
Calgary Herald, March 5, 2010
Summary: The Harper government fuelled the battle over Afghan detainees on Friday by serving notice that it has hired a former Supreme Court judge to screen secret documents to decide whether they can be released to MPs.
Canadian spies interrogated Afghan prisoners, insiders reveal
The Globe and Mail, March 7, 2010
Summary: Officers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have played a crucial and long-standing role as interrogators of a vast swath of captured Taliban fighters, The Canadian Press has learned.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Corruption Charges Laid in B.C. E-health Scandal
Corruption charges laid against three linked to e-health project
The Globe and Mail, March 5, 2010
Summary: The launch of British Columbia’s $259-million e-health project has resulted in criminal corruption charges against three people connected to the province’s drive to adopt electronic health records. A total of 16 counts, including influence peddling, breach of trust and fraud, were filed yesterday against a former assistant deputy minister of health, Ronald John Danderfer, as well as consultant Dr. Jonathan Alan Burns and former health authority manager James Roy Taylor.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Parliamentary Budget Officer Finally Gets Some Budget Stability
Parliament’s budget boosted to $583,567,000 this year
The Hill Times (Ottawa), March 8, 2010
Summary: After a dramatic year of struggling with the House and Senate Speakers and the Parliamentary Librarian, Canada’s Parliamentary budget officer will receive the full planned $2.8-million budget he was promised, according to the 2010-2011 main estimates.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Online Whistleblowing and Vigilantism in China
China’s Cyberposse
The New York Times, March 2, 2010
Summary: A story on “human-flesh search engines” in China, which are defined in the article as “a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath.” They can be used to out wrongdoers, but also, unsurprisingly, for the purposes of evil.
