{ texts for nothing }

Big news from Google:

In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. … [W]e have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. … [A]s part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. …

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. [my emphasis]

It would be naive to believe that Google is making this decision on purely ethical grounds, and we’ll have to wait and see to what extent they actually follow through on this. And I still have a long list of very serious objections to Google, not the least of which is that they have been collaborating with Chinese state censors for years. But I think they are doing the right thing here.

Best wishes to Google’s employees in China. Hopefully they won’t end up paying for their American bosses’ change of heart.

An announcement overheard at an American airport over the holidays:

The current threat assessment level, as established by the Department of Homeland Security, is orange. We ask for your assistance in reporting any suspicious behavior, or unattended baggage, to law enforcement or TSA personnel immediately.

A new sign posted at BC Ferries terminals:

SECURITY NOTICE
This facility is currently operating at MARSEC LEVEL 1. Entering this facility is deemed valid consent to security screening or inspection. Failure to consent to security measures will result in denial or revocation of authorization to travel.

Slavoj Zizek, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, p. 47:

Is this not the state we are approaching in developed countries around the globe, where this or that form of the emergency state (deployed against the terrorist threat, against immigrants, and so on) is simply accepted as a measure necessary to guarantee the normal run of things?

A few months ago, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney (who notoriously once stated that “Canada isn’t a hotel”) announced new visa requirements for people visiting Canada from Mexico and the Czech Republic. People from those countries now “have to apply for temporary resident visas in order to visit, study or work in Canada.” The reason? Those two countries are the top sources of applications for refugee status. Kenney’s argument at the time was that “many of the asylum requests are either rejected or abandoned, raising questions about the legitimacy of the claimants’ allegations that they face persecution in their home countries.”

In other words, the Canadian state responded to a high volume of refugee claims not by giving more resources to the people who evaluate the claims, nor by finding better ways to separate “genuine” refugees from those filing false claims, but by making it harder to apply for refugee status — as if the only real refugees are the ones with the resources to get around the arbitrary obstacles that Canada’s immigration bureaucracy puts in their way.

And now we learn that deportations from Canada have increased dramatically over the past ten years — and the majority of those deported are failed refugee claimants:

Figures obtained by The Canadian Press through Access to Information show Canada removed 12,732 people last year — a major increase from the 8,361 who were deported in 1999.

A series of steady increases over the years shows no sign of abating in 2009. By Aug. 25 of this year, 8,999 had already been deported.

Statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency show failed refugee claimants accounted for three-quarters of deportations while the remainder were often removed on criminal or security grounds.

[...]

The government explains the spike in deportations as the logical result of a jump in refugee applications; there were 35,000 refugee claims last year, and the government says the system can only handle 25,000. [...] But the stats cast some doubt on Ottawa’s explanation. Figures obtained from the Immigration and Refugee Board indicate the 35,000 refugee applications received last year is no record.

While the figure represented a six-year high, it was still far less than the 44,000 cases received in 2001 and 39,000 in the following year. While there was an increase in claims in 2008, the government also completed far fewer cases than in the past.

Refugee advocates say the explanation is simple: the government has wanted to deport more people, and has taken steps to do it in recent years.

(I highly recommend reading the whole article, which goes into detail about some of the failures of the current immigration system and the appalling consequences for rejected refugee claimants.)

There’s an interesting bit of circular reasoning at work here. The rationale for the new visa requirements was that most refugee claims are rejected; the implication was that most such claims were made under false pretences. But we know that the people who control Canada’s borders have been intentionally rejecting more applicants as a matter of policy. Then they use the resulting increase in rejections as a pretext to keep more and more people out of the country. It’s a deliberate vicious cycle — and the people who get screwed are the ones trying to escape misery and persecution back home. That’s one hell of a legacy, Mr. Kenney.

It’s been clear since early in his campaign for the presidency that Barack Obama is committed to escalating the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has added 21,000 troops to the American military presence in Afghanistan since taking office, and is currently contemplating how many more to send (one of his generals wants an additional 60,000 soldiers). The immediate goal of Obama’s Afghan policy is to prop up Hamid Karzai — a man whose legacy so far includes widespread corruption, election rigging, and the legalization of rape — and, of course, to continue the war against the Taliban. Genuine, lasting peace in Afghanistan is not on anyone’s agenda.

Meanwhile, just over the border, Obama has been expanding the war into Pakistan with a series of air strikes, killing innocent civilians (including children) and threatening Pakistan’s already-fragile political stability — which seems like a pretty stupid thing to do if you want to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of those wacky Islamic fundamentalists. Again, it’s hard to see how this policy is doing anything to promote peace in Central Asia.

Under the circumstances, it’s no surprise that ordinary people in the region are less than thrilled to learn that Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:

“I don’t know how he can get this prize,” said Najeeb, a 30-year-old shopkeeper attending a friend’s wedding party [in Kabul]. “Maybe it’s been awarded for all the houses they are bombing, or perhaps it’s for all his soldiers that are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Obama’s deployment of the tools of war is not restricted to the Middle East. His administration has also been expanding the American military presence in Latin America. The US claims that the military installations it’s planning to use in Colombia don’t count as new military bases — they’re merely “Cooperative Security Locations” leased from the Colombian state, which somehow makes them completely different and definitely not army bases. True, the troop levels involved are relatively small (the numbers would increase from less than 300 troops to no more than 800), but it’s clear that the intent here is to step up the US drug war in Latin America. Dropping more soldiers into the middle of a 40-year-old guerrilla war is not going to create peace in Colombia or anywhere else.

All in all, it seems that the best way to win the Nobel Peace Prize is to continue with the American imperial project in a manner slightly less offensive than that of George W. Bush. I’d say the decision tarnishes the Nobel prize’s reputation, but these sorts of controversies are not exactly news: Henry Kissinger, for example, was awarded the same prize at the height of the Vietnam War, while Gandhi was overlooked despite multiple nominations. I don’t even think it’s reasonable to hope that this latest prize will lead to serious scrutiny of Obama’s foreign policy: his approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan has been receiving substantial attention and analysis since long before his inauguration, and the Colombian thing is more or less business as usual and will therefore be ignored. All you can really do is shrug your shoulders, admit that some folks in Norway decided to be particularly stupid today, and move on.

It’s been an interesting month for Vancouver’s version of Critical Mass, the leaderless bike ride that takes place on the last Friday of every month in cities around the world. Vancouver’s July 31 ride became the focus of media hysteria when Mayor Gregor Robertson let it be known that he was “pissed off” about the lack of a predetermined route. Robertson and police chief Jim Chu went so far as to call for a meeting with the “organizers” of Critical Mass. Which is kind of ridiculous, since Critical Mass doesn’t have organizers — and Gregor, who has participated in the ride in the past, ought to know that.

Anyway, the ride went ahead as scheduled, and with a minimum of fuss. (I participated, mainly because I was annoyed by the negative media attention.) But the powers that be haven’t given up trying to assert control over future rides. Now city councillor Andrea Reimer is complaining that the ride “hasn’t been well marshaled, it has been loose. As a result it has made it less easier to cycle and less clear why we are doing it…. It was good to see more marshals out [at the July ride] and for them to be very clear about why they are riding, right?”

Well, no.

Look, I know this is hard for politicians to understand, but Critical Mass doesn’t have leaders. There are no organizers for the mayor and the police chief to talk to. There are no marshals responsible for maintaining order on the ride. And there is no single goal or agenda or point that Critical Mass is trying to make (beyond a very broad “Bikes are awesome!”). Some people participate because they hate cars, others participate to draw attention to how unfriendly Vancouver is towards cyclists, and still others participate simply because it’s fun. To talk about “being very clear about why they are riding” is to completely misunderstand Critical Mass. Even calling it a “protest” is a bit of a stretch. Critical Mass is literally just a bunch of people meeting up at the same time and place every month and going for a bike ride together. There is no basis of unity beyond that — and it’s definitely not something you need to have leaders to do, any more than my friends and I need a leader when we ride our bikes to a party (or whatever).

When Andrea Reimer refers to “marshals,” she is probably referring to the self-appointed leaders at the July ride — the ones who brought their own PA system to address the crowd before the ride began, and then tried to cooperate with the cops to divert the ride according to their own pre-determined plan, without the consent of the other 3,000 participants on the ride. Well, I’m sorry, Andrea, but those people have no more authority than anyone else. In fact, to the extent that people ignored the self-appointed leaders and did what they collectively wanted to do, I’d say the ride was a success.

And that’s as it should be. Critical Mass shouldn’t have leaders or organizers — that just creates a target for cops to harass and for politicians to co-opt. Vancouver has been fairly lucky that the authorities are so tolerant of the ride. There are many stories of rides in other cities where the cops cracked down and arrested participants (last year in New York, for example, a cop was caught on video assaulting a cyclist during Critical Mass). The recent hysteria may be a sign that the local tolerance is waning. Under the circumstances, it would be a big mistake to give the authorities a target to crack down on. A crowd of 3,000 cyclists is pretty much unstoppable short of overt use of force by the cops; a small group of leaders, self-appointed or otherwise, would be much easier to manipulate.

But why is Vancouver’s tolerance only waning now, years after the rides began in Vancouver? I think Mike Cantelon has a point when he connects the current controversy to the Olympics. After all, the February 2010 ride will be happening right in the middle of the 2010 Winter Games. Mike puts it best in a comment on another story:

They’ll only be okay with Critical Mass during the Olympics if they can control it. To move towards this, local politicians want to to see Critical Mass become hierarchal, with leaders they can influence so they have control over the route. They want this ASAP so they can test this control over the half year leading up to the Olympics.

I don’t think the Olympics are the whole story here, but the powers that be are obviously keen to “maintain order” during the Games (hence the $900 million security budget, the crackdown on civil liberties, etc.). There’s no question that they would love it if Critical Mass had a hierarchy to exert pressure on, so as to avoid any unpleasantness on February 26, 2010 and every ride thereafter. What worries me is those self-appointed leaders. It’s not too hard to imagine people like that setting themselves up as Critical Mass “representatives” (with the best of intentions, of course) and, ultimately, collaborating with the powers that be. It’s a classic problem: some event or movement challenges the status quo, the keepers of the status quo push back against it, someone eventually emerges as the voice of compromise — and sure enough, that event or movement becomes compromised, softening and undermining the “challenge” that it poses until it no longer challenges anything at all. Critical Mass is hardly a social movement, but it definitely constitutes a challenge to the status quo, and it does so in a beautifully empowering and non-hierarchical way. It would be a shame to see that radical edge sanded away, yet again, in the name of accommodation.