Sunday 4 July 2010

G20 Toronto - The G20 summit's grim lessons for civil liberties

Walkom: The G20 summit’s grim lessons for civil liberties - thestar.com

Two things stand out from the street riots and subsequent police
actions that swept downtown Toronto last weekend.


The first is the state blatantly abused its powers. Summits
legitimately require security; but in this one, governments went over
the top.


The federal government transformed the city’s downtown into a no-go
zone. The provincial government secretly passed new regulations to give
police extraordinary search and seizure powers and then, when citizens
found out, pretended that it hadn’t. The police used their authority to
prevent breaches of the peace as an excuse to jail citizens who were
committing no crimes


The second is that most people don’t care. Polls show that more
than 70 per cent of Torontonians approve of these abuses.

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